I don’t think I’m alone in feeling defeat very early in my creative process. I’ve had my successes in the past writing last minute scenes for Drama class or a 21st speech for a friend in the middle of the night on a ferry in Greece-which has led me to nurture some inherent belief that my best work comes when cognitive thought has a minimal role to play; that I should wait for inspiration/sleep deprivation/the panic of a deadline to strike. Instead of sitting down and taking the risk of producing something inconsequential or poorly written or tragically predictable in the privacy of a journal, I instead study the process of others as if that alone will enable me to achieve my wildest creative dreams.

That being said, there are some valuable lessons from the masters. As a huge Monty Python fan, John Cleese’s lecture on creativity served me some home truths. Truths that I consistently found in other commentary on the creative process. 1. Creativity requires time, time to play, without a specific end goal or a need to create anything of value. 2. You have to be willing to fail. There’s no more consistent trait amongst those I’ve admired and researched than a willingness to embrace the vulnerability to fail and use it as the most significant stepping stone to success.

I am still at a stage where I find the fear of failure crippling. Particularly in the public eye, no matter how small the arena of exposure. So I am going to use this blog as an opportunity to challenge my self and to willingly publish posts that may be unimpressive, vapid creations, because I know that to get where I want to be I need to produce, produce, produce and learn from and through the process.

If you’d like a little creativity inspiration of your own check out Cleese’s lecture here

Another simple (and short) look at creativity and taking the time to play can be found here