#95 How to Re-Ignite Your Creative Spark
On creativity late stage pandemic
So this is one of those notes where I don’t have the answers. What I do have, I think, are the questions and approaches that may get us there. And that is truly the work of strategy and storytelling—recognizing and understanding the problem and figuring out the way toward a solution. That is actually also probably the crux of creativity. At least how it shows up in my life and work.
And that’s what I want to ask about today. Creativity. I’ve shared before that I generally have avoided the topic in this newsletter because it is such a beast and requires a PhD level of knowledge to share tips, resources, and insights about it, which is the promise of this newsletter to you.
I feel lucky in that I can say I have lived a relatively creative life. I was a drama major in high school and took dance, art, and music throughout as well. I’ve acted in and directed plays. I have written screenplays just for fun and novels that I hope to see published. I have been a journalist and creative strategist, I have explored the world and travelled and been inspired by it all. More recently, I spent much of 2021 writing and editing a kids book that is going to be published in 2024 (more on that when there’s more to tell) and I am currently working on a coming-of-age novel about a little Black girl and her group of gifted friends. Creativity, especially writing, is a huge part of my reason for being. It lights me up and fills me with energy. It’s one of the reasons I get up in the morning.
So you can imagine how I felt when I hit a bit of a wall with my current project in the winter. Between the uncertainty of a waning pandemic, a brutal Toronto winter, a character and story that were demanding a lot of me, and urgent client deadlines, I found myself creatively spent. I packed my research and notes, my reference documents and notebooks, my old journals and yearbooks, into a box and put them in a corner of my living room and told myself, “Later.”
What do you do when you feel stuck creatively? Uncertain about the next step or how to move forward, if there even is a forward. What steps do you take to stay motivated or find a path that works and gets you to a place of…completion? Let’s be clear, I don’t know. What I do know is that that process can be hard, mind-bending work if you let it. Or you can do what I’ve done with my own current creative dilemma and lean into ease and see where it leads.
It's been a bit of an experiment for me compared to my old approach to a challenging project, which was push through, force it and just deal with the energetic carnage on the other side of done. Instead, this time, I’m trying to make space in my mind, heart, or soul—wherever my creative spark lives—so that I can go back to the project full and inspired. For me that has meant reading, watching movies and shows that excite me, journaling, and really challenging myself with the question: what do you want to do? I know, weird question in this context of working on a specific thing. Perhaps it should be more focused on the project itself, but I think my own lack of clarity around what feels right in my life is impacting my ability to bring to life this new story.
And I think it’s a question that many of us are struggling with as we move forward on the other side of two plus years of lockdown and uncertainty. I was in LA recently for life and work. It was my first trip abroad that wasn’t centred on just work and it reminded me of why I love to travel: the perspective on yourself and your life that it brings. It was the spark I needed to be able to answer that question and finally turn back to my new novel. I’ve seen other friends get sparked from leaving their jobs and making space to do nothing, others from connecting with friends in the ways we used to, and others still from quarantining with COVID and resetting in that space.
So it seems the solution to the problem of creative roadblocks post pandemic may be finding the thing that helps you reset, to settle into who you are now and what you want and moving from that place. And for each of us it will be different. Acknowledging the problem and staying open I think is the first step in that process and then challenging yourself with the question: what do I want? Because knowing what you want isn’t the only answer, but it's tied to so much more (who you are, where you are, what matters most to you right now) that it may be helpful in guiding you forward in your creative life and life in general.
I hope this helps even if it isn’t filled with answers. Let me know what you think and how you’ve reset in the comments. I love to learn from your experiences.
A Story Well Told
While I was in LA, my good friend took me to a bookstore in Inglewood after a series of unfun events in West Hollywood that had left me feeling frustrated and depleted. It was the soothing balm I didn’t know I needed. I love bookstores. Especially independent bookstores. The writer in me is sparked by all the different ways words can and have come to life and are put on display in a bookstore. This one, The Salt Eaters Bookshop, is a little Black owned store that prioritizes books by and about Black women and gender expansive writers. The balm was seeing how abundant the stories were (and my ego was glad at how many I had already read). The owner was welcoming and helped me pick out issues from a fantasy comic series I’d never heard of but was intrigued to try. Down the street was an impressive art gallery that just topped it off for me. If you’re in LA, I’d encourage you head to The Salt Eaters Book Shop and just revel in the deliciousness of many stories well told all in one place working in concert to build community and connection.
Chantaie Allick
Writer|Strategist|Storyteller
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