Creativity...

Do you ever feel like you are the cusp of something new and exciting but it isn’t quite here yet?  So you find yourself just kind of meandering through the days, feeling the anticipation building but also knowing it is not yet time.  Like there is all this mental work that is occurring inside of you, but it isn’t all worked out yet...

I have a lot of creative projects on the burners right now.  My book will be out this Fall.  The Podcast is going to launch next month (not sure about dates yet...) And it all feels good, it feels life affirming to be creating new things to put out into the world.  

But I am finding that with all creation there is a great deal of down time that seems to be part of the process that also tends to feel like languishing.  But I know that I need time to think and plan and create, and that doesn’t absolutely only happen when I am writing it all down.  There is a mental process to creativity that tends to look like a lot of nothing.

For me, creativity, requires time to think.  Time to get away from the normal routines and schedules and just think.  Hiking always helps me in this endeavor. So does just lying around my backyard or walking the beach.  It looks like I am not doing a whole lot, but there is a lot going on inside my head.  

I haven’t done a lot of creative projects before.  I have tended to work, doing legal stuff and that is what dominated my life.  Then I started this blog 7 years ago and this somehow became my daily creative endeavor.  Some days I think I do pretty cool shit, then there are those other days where I am just creating drivel.  But it is still creating even if it isn’t very good...

I have no idea whether anyone will like the book or the podcast.  Not a fucking clue. But I have created both within the confines of my mind and feel like putting them out into the world is what is supposed to happen next...even though it is terrifying!  Having never been a creative person for most of my life, it is abjectly terrifying to put something this intimate into the world for you to hate on, reject, think is stupid, criticize or worst yet, never even bother to check out.  Creativity needs an audience...without that, it is just a physical manifestation of what goes on in my mind.

So far 2026 has been a weird fucking year.  So many things being lost or removed, or in some cases, given back by me.  Things I am being given and me saying, “thanks, but no thanks...”It is a weird time but also the first time I have had the time to create with abandon.  Spend time thinking and dreaming shit up and working it all out.  And while that feels lazy at times, it is a whole new process that I am getting to come to understand and participate in...which is kinda cool.

I am leaving next week for a long road trip where I know I will be inspired.  Some of my best thinking happens when I am parked in front of a windshield for hours and days at a time.  And I look forward to that time to be still even as I move at 80 miles an hour down the freeways and back roads I will travel.  There is something about the open road that always brings inspiration and new ideas. Stuff that I just don’t have access to when I am at home doing the daily deal.

It is an interesting process this creativity thing.  Something new entering my life, some new way to be, to think, to feel, to become.  I love that about life, just when you think you have it all figured out, you get a curve ball you didn’t see coming and that opens up doors you never even noticed were there.  Which then leads to a whole bunch of other shit you never even knew you wanted, could produce or thought about.  And that is kinda cool.  And I am learning that the creative process is different for everyone but it has some key components:  down time, quiet time for reflection, a fair amount of moving my body and patience.

Again, still...