Steps in the Creative Process (Part 2)
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Continued from Part 1. Click Here.
4. Take Action.
Once you know the end result, have a vision and a sense of the current reality,
you may begin to take action. It is helpful if you accept this stage as
an adventure. Either procrastination for fear of taking a wrong step or
overzealousness without proper research and focus are equally prohibitive
to success and the deployment of creativity. At some point in the planning
stage, usually before you think you’re ready and completely
comfortable, try out one of your ideas. Maybe just a small one, a step in
the process of creating your vision. You’ll find that you don’t
really need to be “ready” as much as you need to be open. Chances
are, this first little step is not going to go exactly as planned,
but you’ll adapt. Perhaps step one will even influence your next step.
You may find yourself creatively adapting amid the process…so watch
for it. The moment you begin to deviate from the plan in order to solve
a problem, you are being creative.
Sometimes, during an exercise in creativity, students at this stage end
up throwing out their entire plan. That’s ok! Because they learned
something about their idea, that meant they had to change the vision. Remember
the importance is on the process, not the product. The product that is a
result of a creative process will inevitably be satisfying itself; whereas
not yielding to inspiration, and forcing through a particular vision in
the face of obstacles, will inevitably consume more energy, emotion, time
and expense and be an exercise in maintaining stress and anger rather than
encouraging creativity.
Remember that creativity is a process of invention, not convention. Creativity
is most apt to spring forth when there is a tension or distance between
the current reality and the vision. Reconciling the two, relieving the tension,
is the activity of creative inspiration. This creativity is appropriate
because it is tailored exactly to your situation. Stubborn adherence to
a particular execution of a vision is not. Remember, you don’t have
to give up your end result, you just may have to get there a different way,
or perhaps find that your end result looks a little different than what
you originally anticipated. (“Different” does not mean second
rate, any more than “different” means “better”.)
5. Adjust/learn/evaluate/adjust. The creative process is a process of learning.
Once you take an action, observe and adjust. There may be a great degree
of trial and error depending on your particular project and experience in
being creatively open. As you become better in the creative process, i.e.
the steps and stages of employing and evaluating your creative choices,
you become better attuned to your own creative instincts, and ultimately
better at simply being creative. This is a skill that is cumulative. As
the instincts increase, so does your ability to evaluate them.
6. Building momentum. This is actually about accelerating learning. Creative
people have the advantage of experience over time. You can add momentum
to your learning by building in and enforcing deadlines. Though arbitrary
to some extent, they have the result of forcing this creative experience
by stimulating the decision/action/evaluation process. You will also find
that as you experience this momentum, the creative inspiration begins to
give energy back, invigorating and involving you to such an extent that
there is no fatigue through expellation, only energy that is generated and
rebounded back into the process itself.
7. Always have a place to go. This principle roughly translates to “always
know where you are in relation to where you want to be.” You should
never leave off or abandon work without a clear idea of where you want to
get to at the next stage. Generally, people stop when they “hit a
natural ‘stopping point.’” However, while this usually
leaves us with a certain sense of satisfaction over work accomplished, it
leaves us dangling and at odds with how and where to start, to “get
into it” the next day or next time we approach it. By giving ourselves
a stopping point that leaves a clear action open to us, we engage within
the momentum established by our previous work and avoid the process of a
“cold start” that may leave us uninspired, unchallenged and
unsatisfied. Several accomplished authors (of fiction) remarked that they
never left their typewriter (or computer) without a leading sentence or
partial sentence beginning the next sequence or narrative. This allowed
them to sit down and instantly jump back into the momentum of the particular
project or passage. Even if they eventually changed or altered the work,
it was inevitably more valuable than the time spent trying to begin a narrative
momentum after being away from the process for a while.
8. Completion. The completion stage can bring about a number of unusual
feelings and situations. Often there is an acceleration of energy and activity,
including joy and elation. There can also be a certain uneasiness about
completing something that has taken time and a great amount of energy. When
you finish, the creation is done…no more to do. Now is the time to
declare that you are the author/originator of the project and declare that
it is done. Some people may have a bad habit of never bringing some things
to an end simply to avoid the inevitable let down of post completion. It
is similar to the post-partum depression of women who have just given birth,
and this is what you have done: given birth. Otherwise, enjoy creation!
9. Living with your creation. Develop a relationship with your creation.
Live with it, be an audience as though you were not the creator. There are
differing degrees of satisfaction you might develop, and they may differ
from day to day, week to week or over a period of time. The important thing
is to recognize and love it for what it is; your manifested vision at this
period of time.
Isaac Asimov once said, “The best way for you to learn about your
own internal rhythms is to experience the creative process many times.”
Isaac Asimov wrote over 400 books in addition to papers, histories, scholarly
articles and more. He wrote fast and didn’t do much re-writing. He
taught himself to do that. His own particular process was at such a continual
momentum and immersion level in his work that he rarely needed to consider
time for research, plotting, outlining and the like. He was habitually in
tune with his subconscious and his subconscious was always absorbing and
working with an unrestricted affinity with his conscious state. He was,
if you will, extremely conscious of his subconscious. On the other hand,
novelist Frederick Forsyth typically spends five years on each of his books.
He spends four and one half years researching, gathering data, developing
plot construction and so forth. He then goes off by himself for six weeks
and actually writes the entire novel in that time, a process which he hates.
Forsythe claims to dislike the actual writing as much as he dislikes the
idea of ending his love affair with research and formulation and imagination.
The key here is to know yourself well enough to know your process. Know
yourself well enough to know what you avoid as well as what you enjoy. What
do you procrastinate over and what do you try to prolong? You must know
yourself, and then you must simply “do it.”