creativity – Andrew Careaga

David Epstein: ‘Why creative people can’t stick to one thing’ (video)

This explains a lot!

If you tend to hop around from project to project, or take interest in a variety of topics, or generate a ton of disparate ideas, or write in different genres and voices and styles, and wonder if you’re an oddball, well…

OK, maybe you’re an oddball. But maybe you’re also a creative type who can’t stick to one thing.

That’s not a bad thing, as author David Epstein (whose book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World ought to be on every writer’s reading list) points out in this 20-minute video. In fact, he writes, “your scattered interests might be your biggest creative advantage.” Take, for example, two British musicians who came of age in the late 1960s: David Bowie and Peter Frampton. As Epstein explains in the video, Frampton found his lane quickly as a guitar prodigy while Bowie was all over the place. Both achieved success, but one’s path was narrower than the other’s.

Take the time to watch. You’ll be glad you did.

Top image: screenshot from the video.

‘Inspiration is for amateurs’

Why consistency, not inspiration, is the key to success

This is one of those Mondays where the desire to write anything in this journal is just not there.

So began my first journal entry of the week. A journal entry I had no desire or motivation to write.

But I forged ahead. I pushed my pen across the notebook paper and scrawled:

The subtle art of not trying

‘You don’t try. That’s very important: “not” to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality.’ – Charles Bukowski

This summer has not been kind to my writer self.

I could blame my lack of productivity on a hundred things, but the crux of the matter has been that I’ve been too focused on the wrong things as a writer.

The call of the weird

For writers and other artists, weirdness is a virtue

Do you ever write something and think, This will never fly? That it’s just too weird to share?

Same here. My notebooks, laptop, Notes app, and Google docs are stuffed with ideas that may or may not become stories.

Let’s have fun with it

Writing should not be drudgery

Sometimes, we writers take ourselves too seriously. We’re so busy writing and revising, polishing our jewels of poetry and prose to a high gloss, obsessively monitoring book sales or social media likes, and fretting over audience reaction — will anyone read it? will it even get accepted? — that we forget to enjoy the exciting, invigorating process of the creative act.

We would do well to heed the guidance of Sgt. Hulka from the comedy Stripes and “lighten up, Francis.”

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Maybe I’m just giving myself a pep talk here. Maybe no on else takes themselves so seriously. Or maybe you’ve got those worrisome thoughts of perfectionism crawling around in the back of your mind like a cluster of spiders (I envision the daddy long legs variety: creepy but ultimately harmless).