do you have an antagonistic relationship with your own creativity?

and a different model for relating to yourself and your work

recently, i published a (short) workbook on personalizing your witchcraft practice. it is only 21 pages, but i finished it, from conception to delivery, in less than three days. compared to my usual inability to finish anything, it felt like a miracle-- so of course i was analyzing the experience.

at first, what i took from the success was that i have to "ship" my creative work quickly, before i get another, shinier idea. maybe, by focusing on strategic output, i could outwit myself.

so, riding the high, i started on another project right away. my next target was about how to prioritize creative projects compared to each other-- when you sit down to write, which one do you work on?

my creative experience

i am someone who has "too many" creative ideas, and one of my big struggles is how to "choose" one (or even a few) when there are no real deadlines and no clients to please (at least, not anymore). it doesn't sound like a dire problem, but i often end up completely paralyzed from indecision. i'm sure many creative people can relate.

i am also very unhappy with my writing voice-- after four years of freelance blogging and ghostwriting, a lot of my creative spark has gone dormant and i can only muster up "chipper" and "helpful" articles. i hate it, but i automatically prioritize my hypothetical audience over myself, and struggle to "turn off" the habits i learned in my creative career. the lack of authenticity honestly feels like hell.

so while i know i should be picking one project to work on, i also have the deep instinct to seek out new and promising creative horizons. i may have already started the google-worthy article about productivity, but my lapsed poetry practice is really calling me. i'm sure many creatives can relate.

so i turned my attention on the question of prioritizing within the realm of creative work, and started researching and brainstorming, but i (eventually) realized that the problem was actually larger and significantly more menacing than making day-to-day creative decisions. i actually spend my life frustrated with myself and my brain, and by extension, my creativity. writing is supposed to be my passion, but it often fills me with guilt, disappointment, and anger.

frankly, my creative practice often feels like trying to road trip with a rustbucket car. i am banging on the steering wheel while the engine stalls, willing the car to make it to the destination before it shits the bed, and it's an absolutely awful experience. (the car is not having fun either.)

instead, i thought, i would rather be working in a garden. inspired by some writing i've been ingesting lately on tending to a digital garden, i imagined what it would be like if i treated my various projects like little plants. i could give them my love and care and affection and tend to each of them in their turn.

while i was enamored with the idea, i've gotta be honest here: i'm useless with plants. i helped tend gardens when i was a kid (mainly my dad's prized tomatoes) but as an adult, i'm very likely to fuck up something extremely basic. i have unwittingly committed plant war crimes-- it has happened before and will probably happen again. i just plain do not have that patience and gentle touch.

it's definitely going to have to be a learning experience.

are you with me?

reasons to grow a garden (an extended metaphor)

• it's fun, anti-capitalist, and completely optional (yet spiritually significant if you want it to be)

• you don't need to buy a farm if you've got a windowsill and some pots

• you give the plants space & time to grow and ideally don't fuck with 'em too much

• each plant is a little guy that you can talk to and check up on and engage with

• weeding is both meditative and tactile, and can be a cooperative activity

• day by day, you give each unique plant what it needs to keep growing kind-of-independently

• (ya gotta figure out what each unique plant needs, which means experiments)

• you can grow both veggies and orchids (as my partner said)

• in fact, you can grow a variety of plants at the same time, as long as you know vaguely what they need

• when they're fully grown, you can enjoy the satisfaction of your efforts (by eating the veggies or just sitting in your garden and having a nice time)

• you can give the veggies and orchids to your neighbors (this is a fundamental reason gardens are awesome)

what to do about it

i don't know if i have practical advice. if you're driving a rustbucket like i am, you might want to consider switching to tending a garden.

some ideas:

• practice feeling love and affection for your creative projects (and also your creative brain). you could probably do this in a variety of ways, but i think it's more like a mindset shift.

• don't put all your trust in your own excitement. excitement is a vital piece of the puzzle of creativity, but it doesn't necessarily actually help your garden grow better. you're more likely to have luck if you're patient and not overbearing.

• journaling about your creative process. not like, decorating a journal page necessarily, but like journaling about your creative process. writing about writing, making art about making art, asking yourself questions and letting the answers happen later or maybe never. (maybe i will write more about this?)

• capturing ideas lovingly. in the rustbucket model, getting a new idea breeds resentment-- another task, another frustrating trip in the failing car??? in the garden model, however, you can collect new ideas/seeds freely without the pressure of bringing them to fruition-- your packet of seeds will probably last until next year if you make sure to store it somewhere safe and dry. if the seeds don't bloom when you DO get around to it, oh well!

• letting yourself have obsessions. i got this idea from somewhere (don't know where! sorry!) and it stuck with me because look at picasso-- many famous artists go through phases of obsession with a color, subject, or style. it's also kind of like branding, but more flexible and evolving.

• map out your creative garden. (i just did this five minutes ago and it was very helpful.) i realized that i actually have two main categories of creative work: stuff that goes on my substack (google-worthy articles & updates) and stuff that goes on my itch.io page (publications of various types for download). i narrowed down and categorized what i want to focus on in the near-but-unspecified future, but REFUSED to stick to a particular number of choices. (like, i have seen people say "pick three/four/five projects"-- feel free to ignore that advice for your creative garden.) remember to get messy in your garden-- if your diagram has cross-outs and sketches and arrows, hell yeah!

for fun: my creative garden map

here's a fun graphic that sort of reflects the diagram i made in my bullet journal. unlike my bullet journal version, only has already-published projects and vague directions. my personal diagram has specific project titles in each category!