Tales of a Secret Rockstar

"Creativity is Discipline"

Brian and I were talking on the phone yesterday, and I mentioned this project that I'm doing (writing every day). And that's what he said in response. He went on to say something like this: "If people only created when they were inspired, we'd essentially have nothing new in the world. It would be boring." I found that so interesting, since I've always been someone who has felt the need to be inspired in order to do something creative. But as I do this project I'm finding that not to be true at all. Creativity really is a discipline. And the more you practice it, the better you get (presumably). Brian has been doing that with music, and I'm excited to hear what he's written.

I think the reason I've been reluctant to really discipline myself with writing (besides the fact that discipline itself is difficult) is that doing something every day can produce bad results as well as good results. The perfectionist in me doesn't have the patience to produce some bad writing on the way to producing better writing. I think that's one of the things I'm trying to get over by doing this. And time management can be difficult. It's tough to force yourself to take time every day to do anything, whether it's quiet time, working around the house, papers, or music. Doing something daily almost makes it mundane. And the creative process can often be very mundane. But the results are very valuable. So I'm committing myself to the mundane, in order to (hopefully) bring something of greater value in to the world.