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Resolve to Be Creative

by alexis
It's a party in your mouth

It’s a party in your mouth

If you read this blog and follow me on Twitter, chances are you’re a creative person. Chances are, even if you do client work most of the year, the “real” reason you’re in your particular line of postproduction or production work is that you want to do creative projects of your own, whether it’s writing, acting, filmmaking, animating, game design, whatever.

It’s so easy to lose oneself in the day-to-day need to do the work to pay the bills that let you live to do the work yet another day. Boy, do I know it.

However, there is one thing that I’ve learned, and this year has been a rather unexpected case in point given the strange and wonderful mix of things I’ve been doing. Short of saying something like “make time to be creative” (easy to say, difficult to do), I think the best advice I could give would be something even simpler.

Do creative things.

That’s all. Just commit to doing creative things in whatever spare time you have to eke out. Read a book that makes you think. Play a game that resembles something you’ve been interested in doing. Watch more movies that challenge you, and discuss them with your friends. And then, do something with what you’ve learned. Write a one page synopsis of a new story that was inspired by something. Get out your digital camera or cell phone and make a one-minute movie of whatever. Edit something new. Composite something clever, even if it’s just one shot.

Make something small.

Because what I’ve learned is that creativity snowballs. And the more little creative things you do, the easier it will be to start undertaking bigger things. And the more of anything you do, the easier and quicker new ideas will come, if you’re paying attention.

However, very little creative motivation comes of not doing anything but what you’re told.

So that’s my New Year’s wish for all of you. If you have creative aspirations, I wish you the energy to start doing small, interesting projects that are easily accomplished in a limited amount of time. And to keep doing them as long as you are able, in the hope that soon you’ll discover your activities have snowballed into something as big and interesting as you wanted your creative life to be.

That’s all I got. And now, off to struggle practicing what I preach.

All the best,

-Alexis

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2 comments

Robert Lönn January 4, 2013 - 8:26 am

Simply put, take one small step at a time and you will fell the progress and unlock the energy to take more steps. This always works for me as well…. and I would even add the you should actively trick your mind to do creative things. Schedule reading in your calender, set your alarm to play a game or load TED talks onto your smartphone to watch when you have 12 minutes to kill in the subway/underground train/bus. Nice inspirational article, thanks!

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The Editblog » Linkage: January 2013 January 19, 2013 - 10:03 am

[…] For 2013 we should all resolve to be creative. […]

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