friendship wrote:After the complete and total creative bankruptcy of my pandemic days years, I would like to:
creativity
1. Reestablish and maintain a daily music routine, even if it's only 20 minutes a day or something--an achievable block of time that can help me get back into a groove again.
This is a good way to start. I sometimes find I can subvert the inner critic that you mention in #3 by mode-switching.
When I was young I'd often turn on the radio or TV and then play guitar along to that. I'd pick out melodies.
Sometimes I'd just put a cassette in a tape deck and hit record just in case I stumbled into something interesting.
Most times I'd just interact with the sonic fuckery of the random. It was fun. The process became its own reward.
I also find that smoothing out the ease of on-ramp helps.
A guitar in a case in your jam space/garage is a hassle. A guitar on a stand can is easier to pick up anytime.
I even bought a ukulele for the same reason—you can just leave it laying around and pick it up when the
slightest notion strikes without having to set up amps or pedals.
When the notion hits... just start making noise.
friendship wrote:
3. Drive a stake through the heart of my inner critic, then decapitate him, then set him ablaze on a funeral bier.
This one has been a life-long struggle for me. What started working for worked for me was... stopping fighting it.
My inner critic, or the force of inertia, is far greater than
any power or ability I have.
It cannot be defeated. It will not die.
I once visualized my creative process as being like a troupe of hyperactive acrobats. As soon as one idea starts,
in comes a second and third saying "But what about
this...!" Each new thing complicates the last and everything
gets glommed together into a complicated epic of of epic proportions. Each time I start on a song or creative project,
I start to shoehorn everything that "feels relevant". Soon the project becomes unwieldy and and too complicated to
sort through or wrangle into shape much less finish, and so out it goes onto my already overcrowded "backburner" where
its mere existence is a persistent reproach.
My inner critic (often drenched with the deadly poison of procrastination) is like a sumo wrestler. All it has to do is simply
push or pull or somehow throw things off balance a tiny bit and the complicated pyramid of acrobats come crashing
to the ground and the sumo wrester "wins".
As you can imagine, I thought about animating this internal acrobat/sumo match. But... you know... that project is on the backburner.
ANYHOW. What helped me was realizing two things:
1) No matter the outcome or reception, no matter how many years have passed or where I live or what else is going on
in my live, I've always kept making music/visuals/etc. So I just have to accept and embrace that fact.
For better or worse... that's just what I do.
2) My inner critic is always a step ahead of me. It knows all my weak points and vulnerabilities. There is no way for me to silence it.
So instead of exhausting myself trying, I borrow some sumo wrestler moves. To work on a project, all I have to do is nudge that
critical voice inside my head so that it isn't aimed directly at my weak spots, cutting my legs out from under me.
Sometimes I've even been able to redirect that critical force and hitch my project onto it and use its power to fuel a project.
Creation and destruction are intertwined. If I allow the creative impulse its say, then I can always come back later and edit
and be critical (within boundaries and constraints) and the two things that might have previously seemed like they
were warring can start to work together. It's sometimes about separating the two in time and space.
Another thing I've done is go back to pen and paper. When I write on a computer it is easy to work for two days and then delete
after one second. When you write with pen on paper, you can "cross out" but the thing is still there. Sometimes you can go back
and the thing that's interesting is the thing that "didn't work" that you were most embarrassed about.
So... outside constraints help. Set up a system.
though the book does sound interesting too
