Creatively Blocked? Let Go Of It Has To Be Good

Copyright (c) 2009 Valery Satterwhite

There you are again, staring endlessly at the blank canvas or page. Perhaps you are sitting at the piano, clueless as to where to place your hands. Are you struggling with how to develop your character in the role you've just landed? Are you frozen with a creative block, stuck in procrastination, scared that you've reached the end of your talent and will never have a creative thought ever again? If so, you are creatively blocked. You've reached a dead end and you're spent, depleted of all creative energy. Petrified, you struggle and struggle to come up with inspiration only to expand your fear into high anxiety. "If I were any good at this it wouldn't be so hard!".

Ah, there it is. You've Found and Excuse And Reason (F.E.A.R.) to hold yourself back from your creative flow. "I'm not good enough!" What is, exactly, good enough? According to whom? What does it mean to be good enough? Is it perfection? Is it a natural ability to create spontaneously at any given moment? Is it receiving awards and applause for your talent from associates and the public?

"You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." - Maya Angelou

There is no greater waste of energy for a creative person than to worry about whether or not one is good enough or talented enough. You are talented. Period. Sometimes you get in the zone of creativity easily and sometimes you don't. Sometimes you create a masterpiece, sometimes you create something that stinks up the room. All of it is part of the creative process. Every step in that process has value, expands your creative vision, talent and work flow. What you bring with you to the work in front of you is contained in the last piece and the ones before that - including the rotten eggs.

"The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable." - Robert Henri

If you're mired in creative block just begin. Write, paint, emote, play anything. Let go of the notion that whatever you are developing has to be good. Be willing to create a major flop. Get silly. Get naked. Do something, anything, that will move you beyond the frustration and stress of having to create something good. Just get into the process and let go. Let the work unfold as it will rather than place limitations through the right or wrong, good or bad of it. Let go and flow.

"I tamed my personal art demon - the tendency to think about painting rather than actually painting - by throwing the stuff on the blank paper and telling myself I didn't care about the end result. I believed it and was saved." - Rich Hawk