When It Lights Up–and When It Doesn’t

Photo by Quentin Guiot

Today’s post, the first in a series, is by writer and creativity coach Anne Carley (@amcarley.bsky.social) who believes #becomingunstuck is an ongoing process.

An artist friend agreed to make the visuals for a video game under development. The brief was to produce tiny, colorful, woodland animals with expressive faces and body language. But super tiny. On a short deadline.

The struggle was real. She only had a few weeks’ time, and the medium, tools, and minuscule scale were all new to her. When we spoke during that period, I could hear the added tension in her voice. She has high standards and wanted to live up to them. Also, as a member of a small team, she felt a lot of pressure to excel, not to let anyone down.

To begin, it was essential that she learn some new game developer software. She applied herself. Frustration and anxiety ensued.

Then one day, her brain and her being pulled all the new information and experiences together. As she explained, “It all lit up for me.” From then on, she could work fast and well. Time flew, and she immersed. She delivered her work for the project on time, and the team got the job done.

Embracing the process

Those conversations with my friend reminded me how much of creativity is process. Annoying, unpredictable process can often fill more of our creative time than the fun stuff.

Lurching, staggering, doubling back, sighing, ranting, exploding, sulking, resting—all are as much a part of that process as the moments of clarity, inspiration, hope, vision, understanding, comprehension, connection, and joy. Those golden moments, when it all lights up, are wonderful pleasures, to be sure. The best way to experience more of them is to keep going.

Writers in it for the long haul understand this. Time teaches us all that if we hold out for the golden moments, we wait indefinitely, discarding days, weeks, months, years because the work didn’t present itself appealingly enough.

Mistakes happen

Along the way, not everything we do is going to work out well, or fit with the existing material, or make sense the next day. We goof. We err. We misspeak. We get lost. And that can lead to a sense of stuckness. To extricate ourselves, it can be helpful to recognize the mistake for what it is: another step in the process.

Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new.

—Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace in Creativity, Inc.

Golden moments happen

It’s not our job to wait around for the charmed instants when time stands still, and the angels sing. It’s our job to embody the truth that we’ll get more meaningful, deep satisfaction from our creative work by keeping at it. On the good days as well as the mediocre ones. On the days when we sneak in fifteen minutes of drafting a blog as well as the days when we devote four hours to the big project. On the days so hijacked by other things that no writing gets done at all.

Our mission, should we choose to accept it, is to keep going, to frame the writing life as a process, not a necklace of golden moments connected by chains of tedium or worse. It’s all part of the mix, and it’s all worthwhile. Somehow, changing the emphasis to general acceptance, rather than toleration, at best, of the not-fun parts, changes everything. We’re not assessing, comparing, or analyzing how each moment is going. Instead, we’re looking at the whole project from a higher altitude, taking in a broader view, and feeling less jumpy, more matter of fact about it all.

Allison K Williams in her must-have book Seven Drafts talks about this process using water metaphors—waves, rainfalls, and reservoirs. “By thinking about stories, reading widely in our genre, noting ideas on scraps of paper and in our phones, we fill a reservoir of creative energy. We can drink from this well of ideas when it’s not raining inspiration. … The most successful and published writers I know are not waiting around for the wave to lift them up; they’re carrying buckets every day.”

Squirrel moments happen

Feeling stuck, I find with my clients, colleagues, and my own work, can be a problem of expectations. If we expect our writing life to feel welcoming and engaging all the time, then when it doesn’t the disappointment can morph into preemptive rejection: I’ll show you, you difficult project. Yeah, I’ll just leave you in the dust while I find another project that’s a lot nicer to me. Yeah.

That works, sometimes, for a while. I’ve done the half-complete-project sashay myself, over the years. Ooh: Squirrel!

Find a rhythmBookshop • Amazon

You know what feels better and lasts longer? Getting into an easygoing relationship with process. Not compulsively evaluating how it’s going, just knowing that a rhythm of regular—maybe daily, or nearly so—interaction with the project will ultimately result in some nice work. It won’t always be sparkly and magical. Those angel voices may quiet down to a low occasional hum. There may be some unmistakable squawks. The process will continue, and, from time to time, light up. The work will get done, with fewer sticking places and more ease.

My artist friend succeeded once she understood that she’d have to trust the process: Her talents, intelligence, and desire would get the project where it needed to go. It took that larger view for her to embrace the sometimes difficult day-to-day reality. At that golden moment when it all lit up, she understood, more than ever, that her trust had been honored. The process worked.