The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Twenty - Create what interests and inspires you

by NDK Creative Artist

In this particular Code Point Article NDK looks at an aspect of creativity that is often missed and thus leads to creative blocks that appear to be unresolvable. Along with an examination of this particular idea that looks at the role of interest and passion, NDK Creative Artist also examines some of the other creative pressures that cause blocks, sap creativity, and leave one perplexed, puzzled and unable to produce.

Create what interests and inspires you, not what does not interest or inspire you. You’ll only do yourself and others a disservice when your heart is not in it.

When something inspires you, it creates passion and fuels purpose. Those are powerful combinations that make it possible to achieve some pretty incredible things.

My experience has taught me that I cannot create what I am not personally interested in, that I do not have some stake in, some passion for. What happens is the piece flounders, I flounder and nothing happens. This destroys my confidence in my creativity.

Some people think that you should just be able to create-on-demand, and some people apparently can do that. But most cannot. You need to have a real interest in what it is you are doing and to understand its importance in the scheme of things for it to provide the fuel for inspiration.

This is why communicating with someone about the piece they want is so important when it comes to a commission or collaboration. It enables the passion they have to ignite your creativity. Then, it can work. That communication is getting at the heart of why they want to create this work. Their feeling should ignite your passion or it will not work and you’ll find your spirit flagging.

This can be so great as to sap one’s creative energies completely and it could require months to pick it up again.

I find it is vital to keep the communication high, honest, positive , constructive, real and open in order to ensure an ongoing healthy creative productivity.

If it is not then the work drags. The moment the communication begins to break down is the moment that the creativity begins to flag and fail, unless you act fast to keep the spirit alive that will infuse a work and take it forward to completion.

Negativity will sap passion. So will passive-aggressive behavior. That anything at all can be created is sometimes to me, a rather remarkable thing, for so many things work against one in a world that has systems set up to marginalize, to prevent creativity while sometimes pretending to help it.

Sudden changes in life and circumstance will also sap creativity and passion, so finding the fortitude and energy within yourself to keep your creativity alive can be extremely difficult under such situations and circumstances.

Understanding the factors that inspired a creative work can be a huge factor in maintaining the energy necessary to sustain it through completion. For example, writing a single story can take years and a lot can happen during that time to influence in both positive and negative ways its production. An entire industry can change, and leave one wondering what will happen.

Dealing with such uncertainties is difficult if the purpose and passion for the work is insufficient to the task.

Every time something happens to threaten the work and its future, there is almost always a time of adjustment, and renewal. Many artists in an effort to cope therefore take the isolationist approach, in order to move the world ahead, they leave it behind for a time, and people can find this strange, antisocial, and hermit-like because they do not grok the powerful forces at play until they determine it is time for them to create and are suddenly faced with the realization that the creative life is not as easy as they assume it to be.

These pressures and forces that interfere with a work’s creation and delivery are I believe, part of what leads creative people to alcohol and substance abuse, which then, of course, reinforces any negative perceptions or messages about the business of creativity, and thus creates a nasty cycle that becomes self-reinforcing.

Maintaining a positive outlook and productive attitude that results in continuous movement forward as economies collapse, wars break out, corruption is exposed, and paradigms shift can be challenging, so the interest you have in the works you’re creating has to be truly pleasurable or you will find yourself unable to sustain it. The ultimate end result of this can be we give up creating. Reality check: it is always an option, to stop.

That’s what people would like to have you think, and perhaps they’re right. However, what if they’re not? How will you combat the pressures they will bring to bear upon you, particularly when you’re struggling, starving, desperately trying to survive from being creative?

It can be exceptionally difficult, and the degree of determination you will have to put out there and keep solid within yourself will be the measure of the passion you have for what you’re doing, and the value you ultimately perceive it will bring to the world.

Shakespeare put it this way, in one of his most famous works, from Hamlet:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.

There really isn’t much more to say, but if you have questions or comments I’ll surely consider them and reply when I can.

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If you'd rather we did all the hard work, you're in luck. Here's a list of articles that are related to this one:

• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Fourteen - Creating Ideal Scenes
• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Twenty-four - You are not the viewpoint
• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Ten - Being a professional artist puts you in the position of being in business
• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Two - Communicate only that which you truly know about in your art.
• The Points of the Creative Artists’ Code: Eight - Your work is your responsibility