Creators Should Learn To Give Themselves Enough Time To Grow—They Shouldn't Force It and Ten Neil Gaiman's Rules For Creativity
You can't force creativity. Creativity is organic; you have to allow it to grow
A portion of Neil Gaiman's biography on his website inspired this piece.
I will share it with you:
"Twenty-three years ago, we lived in a little Sussex town in a tall house across the lane from a graveyard. We didn't have a garden, and our 18-month-old son loved riding a tricycle. If he tried riding in the house, he would have died because there were stairs everywhere, so every day, I would take him down our precipitous stairs, and he would ride his little tricycle round and round the gravestones. As I watched him happily toddling I would think about how incredibly at home he looked. I thought that I could do something like The Jungle Book with that same equation of boy, orphaned, growing up somewhere else, but I could do it in a graveyard. I had that idea when I was 24 years old. I sat down and tried writing it and thought, "This is a really good idea, and this isn't very good writing. I'm not good enough for this yet, and I will put it off until I'm better."
You can't force creativity. Creativity is organic; you have to allow it to grow.
When people try to force creativity, they only end up producing work that lacks depth, texture, and beauty. And I think it's unfair to let an idea out into the world that wasn't ready to be revealed or released.
Great creators know when to let an idea rest in their hearts—simmering, cooking, and marinating, waiting for the right time to be revealed and released.
Sometimes, we get “mtoo” excited about an idea that we prematurely toss it out to the world without taking time to work on it, giving it fine details, and infusing plenty of life and enough spirit into it.
Creators who have not yet mastered the art of allowing ideas to grow in them will end up serving the world with uncooked ideas. Ideas that would have rocked our boats and filled us with awe, but because those who were charged to nurture it lacked experience, the ideas didn't do anything to or for us. Sad.
Some ideas will have to rest in your heart for days, weeks, and sometimes years and even decades before they are ripe enough to be shown to the world and be consumed by people and change their lives.
Here's my little advice for you, my friend. It is pretty simple -- Do not always be in a hurry to let those ideas out of the [coven] of your heart.
Learn to discern how long an idea is supposed to cook before letting it out.
It takes some time and mastery but now that you have come across the idea of letting ideas cook inside you before letting them out, you will begin applying the principle to your creative endeavors.
Some ideas mature within minutes or hours and are ready to fly out. You must also know which ideas should be let out quickly.
There are quick ideas that have very short life spans, especially in the world of writing.
There are things you think about now, form a mental picture of them within the next hour, put your thoughts together, find the right words to express yourself, and out they go. Yes, you must also know when you catch these types of ideas, almost always, these ideas are short-lived, have very short shelf lives, and only live for a short time in the memory of the creator and the consumer.
Instant-noodles-kind-of-idea.
The ideas that live long are given enough time to incubate in the creator's heart, and when they are finally released, they last long, sometimes forever, in people's hearts.
Little, Big by John Crowley took ten years to write. One solid decade to write a book. Not build the biggest mansion in the world, but write a book!
A genuinely creative accomplishment is almost never the result of a sudden insight, a lightbulb flashing on in the dark, but comes after years of hard work.
Elizabeth Gilbert [Eat, Pray, Love].
Nurture Your Creativity
Creativity is like a garden that needs careful tending to blossom brightly.
Only a few creatives rule their niche because they have understood the importance of tending their creativity.
Tending creativity takes a lot of time and dedication—a lot of sacrifices and giving.
With the advent of creative artificial intelligence, many of us creatives will become lazier than ever.
We had been wallowing on the beach of laziness before creative AI came, and now that it has finally and fully arrived, powerful enough to displace many creators, many of us will be washed away by its ability to shoulder more than 80% of our creative responsibilities.
Also Read:
While we must learn to live with creative AI as creators, we must guide our creativity with all our strengths—everything.
We must keep nurturing our creativity and avoid becoming blunt and shallow because of artificial intelligence or creative technologies.
Take time to tend to your garden. Do always the things that nourish your creativity.
If you are a writer, make sure you read more than anything else and alongside write a lot.
What if you make music? You know what to consume to be able to keep making good music.
If you dance, well, I don't know what you should be consuming—honestly, maybe more dance videos or lessons?
And Finally, before I let you go, here are ten of Neil Gaiman's rules for success [creativity] “comments are mine”:
Make good art—at all times, even if you are on death row.
Do what you care about: do that which you deeply love.
Do new things: explore, and go on adventures.
Ignore the rules: break them if you have to. Break it with style.
You are unique: there’s no one like you.
Just do it: stop analysing and jump right into it.
Walk towards the mountain: keep walking, don’t stop. Also, know that the positions of our mountains change from time to time.
Persevere: keep pressing, keep pushing, and soon you will breakthrough.
Try more: more and more and more.
Enjoy the ride: soak in every moment, both the good, bad and ugly moments.
Awesome, right? Just amazing and soul-soothing.
If you know someone who will love this piece, do the world [and me] a little favour and share it with them.
Here are some articles and newsletters I really loved reading:
How (and Why) James Altucher Writes 3,000 Words Every Single Day from Writingroutines.com.
The marketing leaders’ guide: surviving (and thriving) in 2023. from Writer.
How, when, and why top marketers use AI writing. from Writer.
I started an email course by James Clear on building new habits. And I have been sharing personal studies with my readers here on my Substack. You can join us:
Catch you soon...