The Creative Process

I’m working again through my creative recovery with The Artist Way… this time not because I was blocked but because I felt I wasn’t flowing as much as knew I could.

This image was inspired by a moment that happened before starting this exercise again.

I was sharing my creative process with a well meaning but burnt out and blocked artist. She started asking me impossible questions.

• Why I wanted to write a novel?
• What was my motivation?
• Why not just write and see what happens?

I felt we were going in circles… I have been writing for 4 years to see “what happens” - nice things happened, inspiration, fun, and I found a rhythm and a voice.

Now, I want to channel it into a work. I am maturing as an artist. She is blocked, and as soon as I made it clear I wasn’t going to change my perspective on my motivations - not at least until I finish this book - my goal. She reacted - upset - in a way.

Bad advice can be difficult to avoid, bad questions too. Bad in the sense that the best response is no response… as in “that’s not interesting to me right now”, or “answering it doesn’t align with my goals”. Trying to answer a “bad question” can be a waste of time. Same as trying bad advice… just to find out it leads nowhere.

So back to my process, find something that works, do it. When it stops working you’ll find something else. And enjoy the chase.

Creative process? It’s like waking up in a dream where you’re both the dreamer and the dream. I start with a note, a color, a word - it’s like catching a butterfly in a net made of mist. Elusive, yes, always fluttering just out of reach. But that’s the joy, isn’t it?

I dive into this ocean of possibilities, swimming through currents of the collective consciousness. Sometimes it’s a calm sea, sometimes a tempest. And when the lightning strikes, ah, I sigh in time with the roar of the thunder, and I feel the fun is about to begin. The world turns upside down, and I dance on the ceiling, painting words, sculpting sounds.

I wander through a labyrinth of thoughts, a minotaur in my own maze. Each turn comes unexpected, every dead end a new beginning. Shadows whisper secrets, the wind carries melodies from another dimension. It’s a circus, and I’m the ringmaster, the clown, and the acrobat, all at once.

The night is my canvas, the moon my muse. In the silence, the voices get louder. They argue, they sing, they laugh, they cry. I let them. I become the conductor of an orchestra of madness, and it’s the most beautiful symphony you’ve never heard.

But then, the dawn comes. The dreams fade. The butterflies turn to dust. I’m left with fragments, pieces of a puzzle that I didn’t know I was building. That’s when I sit down, light a cigarette with a flame that burns in colors you can’t see, and I begin to weave it all together.

It’s madness, yes. But in this madness, I find truth, beauty, something raw and real. It’s a journey through the night, a dance with shadows, a flirtation with the impossible. And when I emerge, when the sun rises on a new creation, I can’t help but smile. The world doesn’t know it yet, but it’s about to see something it’s never seen before.