Category: Feed Your Muse

Revive Your Creativity by… Not Being Creative

I’m sure you have many plans for your creative projects this year, and maybe you’re reaching every goal successfully so far. If so, congratulations! I’m very proud of you.

If you’re not reaching them successfully yet, don’t beat yourself up. Your goal list is not set in stone and can be altered at any time, which I think is something we forget when we’re so passionate about what we want to accomplish. When our goals don’t go exactly to plan the first time, we let our defeat take over. This is especially true if we’re in a position where we’re used to them not going right—when we’ve spent years spinning our tires, balance feels like an impossibility, and we give up way too easily.

Instead of falling back into bad habits and routines that are counterproductive, here are a few tips to keep you on track:

1. Spend one week observing your life as it stands now.
If you’re feeling especially lost with how to amp up your creative projects, I’ve found the best way to improve my strategy is by spending one week observing how I spend my time. You’d be amazed at how much you learn about yourself and your habits! With your observations in front of you, you can then create a more manageable goal list, because you’ll know exactly where to cut the fat to create more time.

2. Compliment your must-dos with your want-to-dos.
We all have tasks and chores we have to do that make us want to vomit. We dread them, so we put them off, and the more we put them off, the more weighed down we feel (especially once they pile up and overwhelm us). To keep you going, use your creative projects as your reward system. For example, “When I finish the dishes, I’ll spend an hour on my manuscript/screenplay/painting/product.” I find that because I want to work on my creative projects so badly I borderline on desperate, it pushes me through the crap I could care less about, and the reward system automatically integrates more time for my creative projects into my schedule.

3. Boost your creativity by not being creative. At all.
Just before the new year, I spent the last few days of 2011 doing absolutely nothing. Nada. Zilch. It was a very surreal experience, after years of push, push, push, go, go, go. But when it came time to bite down and move forward on my creative projects again, I felt as if I had a clean slate to start from. Taking time away makes it so that when you return to your responsibilities and creative projects, you start over with a fresh perspective, and you naturally find ways to better balance out your time.

As you can see, none of these tips have anything to do with your creativity itself, but the things in your life that surround and sometimes hinder your creativity. We all want a better balance, but life’s a mess, and it’s important to accept that and keep pushing forward in whatever way works best for you. Find a way for your personal and professional obligations to compliment your creativity, and you’ll be ahead of the game in no time!

Krissy Brady

Junior Procrastinator/Internet Ninja

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Revive Your Energy Level, Revive Your Creativity

When we’ve already got a full-time job and family obligations to contend with, and finally have the opportunity to work on our creative projects, most of us feel so drained we find it hard to focus. Motivation is such a huge component to what we do—our passion for creativity is what sustains us as we establish our desired career—and when our energy level is being sucked dry by not-so-appealing chores, it can be hard to continue placing one foot in front of the other.

When we don’t take the time to replenish our physical energy, making time for resting, naps, or even showering (yeah, I’ve heard of it), the frustration we feel will not only put a damper on our productivity, it will put a damper on our self-esteem. When that happens, and we lose our motivation completely, a snail’s pace will still be too fast for us. It’s so hard to get back your motivation once you’ve lost it (trust me, I know!).

There are small steps we can all take to begin integrating more rest into our day, so that we can ultimately accomplish more in less time. A fantastic post on this is by Leo Babauta of zenhabits, called Tired of Being Tired.

If your schedule is so messy that you’re not sure where to begin, Linda Formichelli of HappyFit Coaching is offering a free teleseminar on December 13th called Secrets to High-Energy Living I highly recommend you sign up for. At the end of the teleseminar, there will be room for questions, so you can finally take the first step toward a more energized lifestyle.

You can learn more and sign up for Linda’s teleseminar by visiting her website.

Krissy Brady

Junior Procrastinator/Internet Ninja

Twitter - Facebook

Manuscript Falling Flat? Create A Soundtrack for Your Book

While I do not believe in writer’s block, I do believe there are times where our muse goes missing when we need it most. I’ve lost count of how many times I have sat down at my computer, energized and ready to work on the next chapter, or the next scene (or the next blog post!), and what happened instead? Crickets started chirping. Tumbleweeds went by. I almost resorted to procrastinating (I know, right?).

Feed Your Muse With Music
Movies have soundtracks, so why can’t our books? Think back to the most significant moments in your life, and I can almost guarantee there was music involved in some form. When a familiar song plays on the radio, you are suddenly taken back to that moment or time, and you feel a glint of who you were then, with a touch of the emotions that were involved. We can use this to our advantage with our writing and other creative projects by picking songs that best describe the emotions we need to feel in order to carry our manuscript forward (or give it a boost).

Your Productive Procrastination Assignment
The next time you are feeling ADD and can’t seem to focus on anything you “should” be doing, use it as an opportunity to fuel your next writing session (and future writing sessions) by creating a soundtrack to set the mood for the manuscript/creative project you’re currently working on.

Krissy’s Soundtrack Pick
Adele, 21
I am very behind the times when it comes to music. I basically lost track of what was going on in the industry when Muchmusic decided, “Hey! Let’s stop playing music videos!”

However, while in this bubble of mine, Adele’s incredible voice came to my attention. Add her song Rolling In The Deep to your soundtrack if you’re in need of songs that pump you up for a sassy night of writing; or, if you’re in need of some raw emotion, check out her new single, Someone Like You (Warning: if you’ve recently experienced a break-up, you may end up sobbing on your bathroom floor after listening to it. Just sayin’.).