A Month of Creativity

A self-imposed challenge to try to be at least a little artistic each day this month. Care to join me?

Like a lot of other writers, I often go through creative slumps where I’m feeling unmotivated to write — or I’m not writing simply because I’m doubting myself too much. Either way, when these things happen, I end up doing very little writing.

Then I feel horrible about it.

These kinds of situations and feelings, of course, don’t apply just to writers. It also happens frequently to musicians, poets, and all kinds of artists.

Sometimes we just need something to ‘snap us’ out of the way we’re feeling. Maybe we need to try something new that might help jump-start our creativity.

Along that line of thinking, I’ve decided to give myself a Creativity Challenge. My goal is to do something artistic each day this month. It doesn’t have to be something big. The art can be something as simple as doodling on a piece of paper.

I want to make sure I’m mixing it up since part of the reason for doing this is to find ways to spark my creativity. While some days might consist of doodling, other days I’ll be writing something in the novel I’ve very slowly been working on.

Or maybe I’ll write random scenes which have nothing at all to do with my current story. Maybe I’ll just sit down and write for 15 minutes, with no plan beforehand and see what comes to me.

Or maybe I’ll pick up the guitar in my office that I’ve had for a few years but still haven’t learned how to play. Maybe now is the time to take the online lessons I long ago saved. Or maybe now is simply the time to just pick up the guitar and have fun goofing around with it.

Whatever. As long as I’m being creative, it’s all good.

And then there’s poetry. When I joined Medium a couple of years ago, I was inspired by poems I read here. Even though I’d never really tried writing poetry before, I got pretty into it for several months and wrote dozens of poems. I haven’t done much of it lately, so I want to work poetry into my Creativity Challenge this month.

I wrote a Haiku this morning that was inspired by my goals for the month:

get them out of you whatever sparks lie within let them and you shine

I’m looking forward to doing that. At least a little something artistic each day. I’ll probably end up sharing some of it here on Medium, but most of it will probably be just for me.

I’m not going to put any pressure on myself with this. The point is to tap into my creativity and see where it takes me.

I have a feeling I’m going to have a lot of fun with it.

Care to join me? If not every day like I’m doing, maybe just give yourself one or two days each week to let your artistic side go a little crazy and try something you might not normally do.

Who knows where it might take you?

Either way, I thank you for reading the above and I wish you the best with whatever in your life gives you the most passion and happiness.

Enjoy!

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to connect with me outside of Medium, you can also find me on Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads. I’m also the host of the Gotta Pop podcast. Links to all of those things can be found here.