Welcome, old friends and new, to Notion Potion, which Wave has so generously offered to host! What’s it all about? Everyone who visits this blog is interested in a creative endeavor: writing, blogging, reviewing, and crafting—even reading, in which we “create” stories in our mind’s eyes based on some squiggles we’re decoding from a page.
Many of us yearn to embrace the natural creativity that we could experience in our day-to-day lives…if we weren’t ground down by lack of time, money and energy, of the criticisms of others, and the big, free-floating miasma of discouragement hovering over our heads. It’s my hope that by indulging me as I talk about my ideas on creativity, you’ll find yourself left with a little extra juice to embark on that project of your own you’ve been itching to enjoy.
It All Adds Up
It makes sense to buy something in bulk if you know you’re going to use it eventually before it goes bad. It’s unlikely, for instance, that you’re going to wake up one day and swear off toilet paper. (Yes, I know some environmentally-conscious people use something called a family cloth for their #1, but I’m just not that green.) I remember discovering a gigantic cube of my usual brand of toilet paper—I have no idea how many rolls, but something big, like 32. For a household of one, this is a LOT of toilet paper. But it was also about half the price per roll that I usually paid, so I figured I might as well grab it.
I also remember the moment a few months later I opened up my closet door to retrieve a new roll, and I saw there was only one left.
What had happened to the Borg-like cube?
Had I really run through all that TP myself?
What’s funny is, the same thing happened to the ginormous half-gallon of mouthwash that I decant into a tiny bottle because I’m worried the big one will get gross if I pour from it regularly. And the bottle of 300 aspirin I bought because it was only a dollar, and heck, you can always use aspirin. They seemed impossibly huge. But somehow, eventually, I worked my way through them.
One swig, swallow or swipe at a time.
Creative projects are like that. Anything from a novel you want to write, a website you’d like to plan, a painting you want to create, or a business you’re yearning to build—all of these things can be broken down into smaller steps, and I mean incredibly small.
Mere sips.
Something: Significantly Better than Nothing
The importance of taking that initial sip from the massive, brimming, sloshing jug that represents your creative goal can’t be understated. This first small action is key, because it bridges the gap between daydreaming and doing, between consuming and participating. According to Clay Shirky in Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age, the crucial moment in taking charge of your creative life comes not from doing something big, or doing something well, but in doing something at all. Shirky says that when a person decides to make their first lolcat by placing some text on a cat photo a significant but unnoticed shift occurs.
Much of the objection to lolcats focuses on how stupid they are; even a funny lolcat doesn’t amount to much. On the spectrum of creative work, the difference between the mediocre and the good is vast. Mediocrity is, however, still on the spectrum; you can move from mediocre to good in increments. The real gap is between doing nothing and doing something, and someone making lolcats has bridged that gap.
If it’s as simple as making an lolcat, then why is this first sip so damn hard to swallow?
Fear Rears its Head
We could probably name a dozen reasons why it’s safer to not sing, write, act, draw, blog, craft, or engage in any other creative pursuit, because when we share our creative acts with others, we open ourselves up to criticism, sabotage, and downright ridicule.
Face it, some miserable so-and-so is gonna be pissed off that you decided to bridge the gap between not-doing and doing, and they’re going to try to make you pay.
If you enjoy the process, you need to do it anyway. You are probably not the best in the world, but you’re probably not the worst, either. By doing it, you may even get better. And at least you’re doing something—something that you enjoy.
But I Don’t Have Time
If you’ve “always wanted” to do something but never made the time, it’s probably fear of criticism that’s feeding your inertia by making you feel like you don’t have any time to work on your project. Here’s a way to circumvent it. Consider this: you want to write, but you don’t have large blocks of time. However, you commit to writing 300 words per day, which is approximately a page or a few paragraphs, and can often be achieved in about 15-20 minutes.
“A few paragraphs a day?” your inner party-pooper will say. “Why bother?”
Why, indeed?
- If you write only 300 words per day, in a week you will have a short story draft.
- In a month you will have a 9000 word novelette.
- In three months you will have a 27000 word novella.
- In nine months you will have an 80000 word novel. That’s less than a year!
You can achieve the same thing by working on any other project 15-20 minutes each day. How big of a dent would two hours per week put into beautifying your home or practicing an instrument or exercising or learning a new hobby? Not only would you move forward on your goal and foster a sense of accomplishment, but you’d learn to ignore the annoying little voice inside that keeps saying you don’t have enough time or money or talent to do the things that would make you happy.
Have a Sip
What about you? Is there a project you’ve been longing to do that feels so overwhelmingly huge it would be like chugging a gallon of water in one sitting?
Can you think of some way to break up into manageable sips?
I hope you’ve enjoyed my ruminations on the creative process. Please let me know if there are other creativity topics you’d like me to touch on in future columns! Looking for more inspiration? I have three years of writing podcasts archived at Packing Heat.
Find out more about Jordan at JordanCastilloPrice.com or check out her latest releases at jcpbooks.com
Great post Jordan. a family cloth for their #1!!!! Seriously? Eeek. I’d rather use tree bark. Ahem.
I’m not very good at “making” myself do things. My inner toddler kicks in and says “What do you mean I HAVE to do 300 words a day. Make me.” LOL I know I should, I know it works, but it’s hard. Sigh. And probably fear of failure is part of that. Why bother when it’s just going to suck anyway. Everyone will hate me, I’ll be the laughing stock of the internet, so I’ll just do nothing. Oh our inner voices are mean.
I think you’re right though, there is always someone worse. 😉 And part of why we do something should be for fun, we don’t have to ever share. I really need to get back to my fantasy novel. Gay circus, who doesn’t love a gay cirucus? (probably lots of people but I’ll ignore that)
Gay circus?!?! Me! Me! Me!
I can get contrary with myself too and balk about doing the things that I know would make me feel happy and fulfilled. When I want to reframe that, instead of saying, “I have to work on that chapter tomorrow,” I will try to say, “I get to work on that chapter tomorrow.”
I’m annoyed that I even need to do that, but I’ll do whatever it takes 😉
I’m thinking I need a sticker chart like a 4 year old. If I get X stickers I get a treat. LOL
I’ve done that. I couldn’t keep up with the stickering though. Rewards would be a good future topic.
Inner toddler. So horrifyingly true.
Maybe there are ways to appease the inner toddler. A few graham crackers and a nap or something.
Jordan
Thank you for this. I’m an example of doing something you fear and having it turn out beyond your wildest dreams.
If I had listened to my inner voice I would never have started a blog because technology is not my friend. When my on-line friend Kimberly suggested that I set up a blog exactly 4 years ago during a really bad personal crisis I thought, why would I want to do something like that and who would visit my blog anyway? But she was very persistent and offered to help me, so I did. Then a year later Christian, another on-line friend, advised me to move from the blog to a website because Blogger couldn’t cope with the number of daily visitors, and the complaints were driving me crazy. Now 3 years after listening to Christian here I am — with a website that apparently a lot of bloggers like and access every day.
My advice is: If there’s something you always wanted to do and are afraid, as the Nike ad says, “just do it.”
It’s so fascinating to hear someone like you who’s so successful could have easily gone the other way and said, “Oh, why bother?” You had a couple of good friends to help you along the way, and that’s so key, isn’t it? A lot of people have friends and family who would rather not have them succeed, and who foster the “why bother?” attitude. I had a few of those.
Hopefully people who need friends to say, “No, you should totally go for it, you’ll only get better and you might enjoy yourself,” can find them here.
Having people who are willing to help IS the key. I couldn’t have done this without the help of Kimberly and then Christian and Aunt Lynn. Following them came the wonderful guest reviewers and guest bloggers.
I try to encourage everyone who writes me with something new they would like to try and offer them help, if not mine, then someone else who could be their best resource.
In my professional life I’m very confident and giving opinions is part of the job but personally I’m very private, so setting up a blog, apart from the technology minefield, was putting myself “out there.”
Excellent post! I love the breakdown of 300 words a day. Ali and I should have our story done in a month and half 😀
Well, there’s two of you, so maybe you should set the bar at 600! (It’s weird, 600 adds up kind of fast, like when you think you just can’t write at all but you force out 600, and pretty soon a couple chapters are done.)
Perhaps we should. Problem is with the time difference we only have X amount of time per day where we are online together. I can’t pull off all nighters like I used to. 😀
Thinking in terms of a focused half-hour rendezvous might psych you out less than thinking you need all night to write 3-600 words, if that makes sense. Or maybe it would be useful to do a time limit rather than a word count goal.
We do have set times to write. It’s just difficult when writing with a partner and add to that that the partner lives on the other side of the world. One of us is just waking up and the other is getting ready for bed lol. And during the set time we need to discuss other things that are going on like promo, publishing and what not. and you know the rants I’ve had recently so you can imagine what poor Ali had to deal with 😀 And what I hate the most is when we are in the groove,the writing is just flowing from our fingertips onto the Google doc and we need to cut it short because one of us has to leave. And I just checked our WIP and it’s already almost 3K and that’s 3 days work, and yesterday we didn’t get to write more than 100 words. So I guess it all evens out.
Excellent post, Jordan! I like how you do the math on how quickly those 300 words per day add up. With that kind of evidence staring us in the face (a novel in 9 months), it makes the daily effort very worthwhile.
I love the 300 word example too because it is so striking that it’s a matter of “showing up” for such small amounts of time. You may not have control over whether you write well (not yet, at least) but you have a lot more control over whether you show up!
This sounds so obvious and so incredibly helpful when you described it that way Jordan, thank you. At the same time it reminds me how Sherlok Holmes described his method to Doctor Watson – I am imagining myself only as Watson :). My main fear in writing something creative In English is simply that I do not have necessary skill, so I am scared even to try, I think that if one is confident in her abilities or like you has such an amazing talent, everything else can be done. I mean I know it is very hard to find time of course and other things that you described ate not easy either, but I feel that to have faith that you actually capable of doing so is very important. Thank you for such thought provoking interesting post.
I can totally relate to being scared to try. There are some physical activities I’ve always wanted to do, and always felt people would mock me because I’m bad at them…yet I’ll never get better if I don’t begin somewhere and learn. At least with writing you don’t need to show your initial fumbling attempts in public like I will at the pool or the gym!
Jordan! You pee? Look at all my illusions–*points emphatically*–shattered at my feet. Please tell me you at least pee perfume! 😀
I have the exact opposite problem. I start a project I think will be a nice little short or novella, and I end up with a series. The last one I did–all I wanted was a pretty ninja! Four books later…
*head desk*
My dad has this problem. He gets overwhelmed by the blank page and then gets obsessed with editing his first 500 words for months, and then ends up not writing something that he was very excited about writing at one time, though I honestly think it’s the fear that does it to him. He always said he was going to write a novel when he retired, and now that he’s retired, I think he’s afraid he can’t, or that it won’t be what he’s been imagining it would be for all those years he put it off. And let’s not get started on the fears behind the reasons for putting it off in the first place.
I’ll have to email this to him.
Thank you, Jordan. 🙂
I wish I peed Jack Daniels, now THAT would be something.
My writing tends to “go long” too, but it’s okay because I don’t have to conform to publisher wordcount limits anymore.
I feel bad for your dad! Twelve years ago I embarked on my “full time writer” plan (not realizing I would need to build a certain foundation and get acquainted with the industry) and within a few months totally choked, and ran out and got a day job. I absolutely know what it’s like to choke. I wonder if it’s harder for him, too, because being retired, he’s got the mass of free time staring him in the face.
I thought I was going to be a nonfiction magazine writer for mainstream publications. Weird to think of that now.
Great stuff, I really like your definition of reading 😀
Oh, I’m glad you told me! I was wondering if maybe it was too weird. But if you think about reading, it’s really a profoundly cool act.
I know of other things that should be broken down in small pieces: cleaning and stuff :escape:
I try, honestly, but I get always distracted by other things and I tell myself it is not so bad, because who sees this mess anyway :ahhh:
I’ve tried breaking cleaning down into small parts and it still doesn’t really happen beyond my “bare minimum” (dishes clean and catboxes scooped). I think it’s because I don’t value it.
Any special way you break down the cleaning so it’s not so overwhelming? I’ve tried listing one room per day to focus on, and if I miss it, I just move on to the next day. Except…I haven’t paid attention to that schedule in ages. 🙁
Ooh, yes, I like it. I want to get back into making clothes and jewellery again, now I have some space, but making an item of clothing sometimes seems like an overwhelming task. Maybe I need to think more in terms of doing half an hour a day…
And I will get those quilts finished, one day in the distant future 🙂
Jewelry seems like it might lend itself to smaller work intervals, but clothes are tough! I remember thinking, “Tonight I will just cut it out, no pinning or sewing.” That usually left me fresher when I did start to sew. I got a LOT of mental fatigue when I sewed!
I realize as I get older that I don’t care enough about clothes anymore to bother. I think, too, that I never achieved a level of skill I could be proud of. Everything I made fit funny, even if I really labored at making it fit or hang correctly by tweaking and adjusting. So that must have contributed to me falling out of love with sewing.
It’s exciting that you have the space to roll out some creative projects now. Yay!
Sewing clothes is a real mental discipline – it irks me that some people seem to see it as an easy craft.
I know what you mean about having things fit funny. I’m getting better since taking an evening class in creating my own patterns from scratch, based on my exact measurements. Only problem is, I’ve lost weight since then so none of those patterns fit anymore 😀
There is SO much to consider in sewing. I think my biggest problem was matching the characteristics of the fabric to the demands of the pattern.
What a conundrum with undergrowing your custom pattern!!! (I’ve always been fascinated by the computer generated pattern systems based on custom measurements, but I got out of sewing before they became affordable.)
I totally agree with the “little bit a day” philosophy. I’m trying to apply that to my Master’s research project, which is due in 2 weeks so it may quickly jump to “LOTS a day” but thinking of it in little increments helps.
Also, having a list of 2-3 things that need to get done, so I can pick and choose between them helps. They all need to get done eventually, but some are just more appealing than others.
On the house cleaning front, I’ve been following “Unfuck your habitat” on tumblr. They recommend 20/10s or 45/15s (work for the first # of minutes, then break for the 2nd amount.) It lets you focus on a small task, you don’t get overwhelmed by the “big task” not getting done.
I can’t remember where I read it, but someone posted a blog on perfectionism, and how we see the finished product as the “goal” and if we don’t think we can do it to our (probably overly high) standards, that we may not even start. That post echoed what you have said here: The big goal is scary and overwhelming. So don’t make that the goal. Make sitting down and reading one article or writing one paragraph or running one experiment the goal. Then make a new goal, that gets you closer to the finish line.
Thanks as always for your insightful, and inspiring articles.
~L
Oh, that reminds me, I had a friend who broke all her work down into 15 minute increments and she got a TON of stuff done. Her philosophy was that if she had a real aversion to doing something, she could just plow ahead and get it over with because it was only fifteen minutes!
Good luck with your big research project! It will be such a relief to have that off your plate. I imagine it’s how I feel when I’m pushing a novel onto the virtual shelves.
Jordan, I hate you! How am I supposed to procrastinate now? LOL.
Excellent post. Thanks for the line:
“I think it’s because I don’t value it.”
I always thought there was something wrong with me because housework isn’t a priority.
I’ve been trying to be upfront with myself and say, “That’s not a priority,” rather than, “I don’t have the time/money to do that.” I’m not sure why I feel like it’s different. Maybe more empowering. If I say I can’t afford to do something (time or moneywise) then I feel like a victim. If I say I don’t do something because I’d rather be doing something else, it feels more empowering.
Housework is NEVER a priority (unless you’re my mum!)
My God, it’s an epiphany 🙂 Not just about writing, but all the other “life projects” Hubby and I keep adding to the To Do list, then getting paralysed at the enormity of the task. So the list gets longer, and we get more depressed and disappointed in ourselves. I’m going through this with him tonight, with a new, positive approach 🙂
In writing, this also explains why I have a batch of promising WIPs, all of them apparently stuck in the mud. I’m trying to discipline myself to this incremental approach, a little every day, to see the progress as an achievement rather than “only that much?” I love the way you describe turning our reaction on its head – see the constructive, see the achievement, see the fun. It’s a glass half-full attitude, and needs nurturing!
Thanks for the call to arms – you’re very skilled at defining and refining the topic and then presenting it in a really fun and motivational way 🙂
It’s also a challenge because as writers, we need to keep the whole in mind but be satisfied with the small incremental progress, because unless you write mainly flash fic and short stories, you really can’t bang it out all in one day.
Although, really, so few things are instantaneous. Sewing, as Jo mentioned, takes a lot of time. (You might make a simple garment in an evening but probably only after you’ve reached a certain level of expertise.)
Oh, I just had an a-ha moment. Some things aren’t about a finished product and are only about the showing up, like an exercise regimen or a spiritual practice.
Process, not end result – I think that’s key in any endeavour. You have to enjoy getting there or it just isn’t worth it. Most of our lives will be spent working for goals, after all. The moments of actually fulfilling those goals are few and far between, so if all we’re after is those, we’re going to be miserable.
This is why I wash up slowly. It’s the only way I can enjoy doing the dishes. My husband thinks I should do it faster and not worry about rinsing things first, but I hate washing up in dirty water so I do it my way and spend twice as long. It’s good thinking time, though. I get some of my best insights and story ideas while washing up.
Jo
😆 I can’t believe you don’t have a dishwasher. Washing dishes is never a pleasure. Think of all the time you will save for different projects if you only had a dishwasher. 🙂
Getting a dishwasher is one of my goals for this year. I get NOTHING out of hand-washing my dishes. But I need to have a carpenter knock out a cabinet to make space, and I have to figure out where to store all the stuff from that cabinet…so the overwhelm strikes again. The project feels too big.
We’ve got one!!! Hubby and I say it’s one of the best decisions we ever made, because neither of us like washing up and it was causing untold arguments and tension. Bizarre, eh? It was worth losing a cupboard which we’d filled with a load of crap crockery that we never used anyway.
We really feel proud of addressing something that genuinely Changed Our Life :). Same for having the drive outside the front of the house bricked over for parking, so we no longer spend a miserable half hour every night trying to find a parking space after an “argh” day at work!
Choose your battles, concentrate on things that add value. So easily said… LOL
THAT inspires me to get moving on the dishwasher! I have a guy rebuilding my front steps later this month, I’m going to show the cupboard to him and see what it will entail.
My special thing that I tweaked to save myself grief was to have a big water filter installed under my sink, so I don’t need to mess around with a filtration pitcher. All the water that comes out of the cold tap is as yummy as bottled water, and the filter is so big you only change it every six months, so it’s cheaper than a fridge pitcher, too.
Honestly Wave, I quite enjoy it – much more than I enjoyed loading/unloading a dishwasher when I did have one!
What I need is a cleaner. That would save me time!
And someone to do the ironing….:)
Hi Jordan!
Just dropping by to say great article. It’s so true. I mean, there’s really only one common denominator between all published novels (good and bad) in the world–they are finished. Which means I suppose means that at some point they must have been started, right? 🙂
Thanks, Nicole! That paralysis of starting big projects is really tough to outsmart. What’s weird is that so many of us are great at tackling huge things in some areas of our lives, but not others.
This was a fantastic post and SO TRUE. Each step, no matter how small, gets you that much closer to your goal. Thanks for this! Always good to be reminded of that 😀
It’s one of those things I like being reminded of periodically – especially if each time it’s re-framed just a bit. I’m glad you found it helpful 😀
I managed to miss this last month and it is so true. I just need to apply it!
I have trouble finding the starting point on projects and getting past it. I can break things down into manageable steps in theory, but then freak out about one of those ireversible steps. Sewing is one of those things – making that first cut into the fabric is a panic attack inducing moment. I don’t do sewing any more.
Writing isn’t so much about starting as finishing for me – or at the moment continuing. Someone posted a link for on-line jigsaw puzzles… and will be getting evil looks about that in September!
Oh, I hate the irreversible step. I think that’s why I’m a lot bolder doing computer graphics than I am with pen and ink. There’s no undo key with pen and ink.
And what you meant to say was I’d get hugs and kisses for the jigsaw puzzle link, right? 😀