Skip to main content

Thoughts on Creativity

I have decided to add a few things to this blog along the sidebar in the hopes that this information will change every day.

This may also get me writing again every day.

Someone made an interesting point to me about working in creative industries that if your day job includes creativity, you may have less of it to devote to your creative hobbies.

This is actually true.

I have often wondered myself why I have struggled on occasion recently to write daily here when this is something that I have been doing ever since I could pick up a pen.

My work was being published when I was 16 in a newspaper where I worked as paid reporter. Not only was I writing news articles, I was writing two weekly columns.

Writing does just come to me sometimes and I feel a bit lost when words don't flow out the end of my fingers.

I realise, however, I am actually in the luckiest situation. They always say if you do what you love you will ultimately succeed. I have always tried to live by this, which I why I left the Coulda Woulda Shoulda world of my life and job in Toronto and moved abroad to find out what is it that I really wanted to be when I grew up?

They're paying me for it now. I get to be creative all day long and I get paid for it.

That's why sadly, this blog is sometimes neglected. It's only now, after surfacing from the spring title launches and book signings and media chatting that I am actually able to step back and take five minutes to actually write something...anything.

I suppose not being able to be creative independently of work might be a casulty of doing the job you love.

I don't walk into bookshops now and think, all, lovely shop, I'll just wander around. My brain actually turns on. I'm constantly scanning the covers, watching the placements, checking out the publishers.

Any yet, it is still throughly enjoyable. It's a strange feeling to know you're working and to actually not mind.

One of my colleagues and I have quite a bit in common and so we share nights out on occasion out of work. But we ultimately find, we end up talking about work. Coming up with strategies. Exchanging ideas, information. I always feel I'm the one with the most questions and steering the subject around work but at the end, she always admits to enjoying work chats herself.

I don't like to write too much about work on this blog because I feel I want this to be a personal space for me, not to mention I'm not interested in being dooced.

But I did want to write about what has been happening to my creative process. That I do still feel I am intensely creative. It just seems that not, perhaps, in the way I was when I worked in an office filing paper.

*****
On another note, Mosaic Minds is going through a restructure and are looking for new columnists. If you've got some creativity you need to unleash, check it out.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I'm baaaack!

Hard to believe that last entry was almost three years ago! Many moons ago, I set this blog up to chronicle our journeys. Once we were grounded a bit more, it kind of lost its way. I spent some time working on my writing offline, taking on different projects and working full time as a technical writer. It was difficult to keep this blog up. Not for any real reason I can articulate. Just had my words redirected to other avenues for awhile. But, I'm pleased to say, after over a decade away, we are back in the UK, living and re-experiencing a place we enjoyed in the mid-2000s. Social media has certainly changed the way we look at blogs. I'm excited to navigate this new world, explore just what people post, what people read. What's better on one of the many new platforms and what's still appropriate for good old fashioned blogosphere. For now, here's a peek at where we're staying -- in a pretty little village just outside of Oxford. A temporary home ...

Room with a view

We've been in our new home for 10 weeks nos and it's feeling more like home than ever. Every day, I sit down at my desk to the most inspiring view. A collection of stories is building. This space makes it easy to gather my thoughts. I've been consumed with a few work projects and am looking forward to collecting my thoughts soon. Writers club is still going ... I was on a bit of a hiatus but hope to get into my routine for fall. For now, boat gazing is helping.

In Remembrance

" In Flanders fields the poppies blow       Between the crosses, row on row, ." When I was eight years old, I carried the Canadian flag in the Remembrance Day parade for our Brownie unit. I can't really remember when I realized the importance of November 11 but I can only imagine that somewhere between learning about that day at school and taking part in a very solemn ceremony that it must have been ingrained in my head to always mark this day.    "That mark our place; and in the sky    The larks, still bravely singing, fly" I remember growing up, the assemblies at school, always with a older veterans, in those days many from both World Wars, would attend. When I got to high school, I remember not being able to fathom how these decorated men and women, had once been my age, had once stood up and fought, and had made these decisions during the same years I would try to decide which route to take from En...