An INTERN, Creativity, and Fruit Flies

I read this great quote today from the blog of the INTERN.

“Creativity is a mysterious thing, and the collective story we tell ourselves about it is as prone to shifting over time as the collective story we tell ourselves about diseases or gravity or gender or fruit flies.”

The poignancy of these words made me question what stories I have been telling about creativity; how they have morphed over the years as I negotiated this strange thing called life. 

A few years ago I was dancing about the world spouting off my twenty three year old wisdom of how everyone is creative, and anyone can be an artist. You just needed time and space, I thought. If you have those things poof! You can be creative and artistic.

What snobby little liar I was.

After having worked full time for a year and half I realize now just how much work it is to be creative. It is an exhausting and draining process of trial and error, of planting and tending to skills which you hope will one day will produce something beautiful and universal. Time is precious, and carving out an hour or two so I can sit, staring at an empty screen and blinking cursor can be maddening. A quiet space for your thoughts and hands to work cohesively together is just as difficult to find. As your spouse rolls their eyes at you for sneaking away with the laptop at 2am again, you might wonder if it is worth it.

My answer is, yes, there is value in it. Those hours of staring, typing and deleting will eventually lead to a few paragraphs. The paragraphs will lead to a chapter after some copying and pasting. And someday, if you are diligent and trusting, those chapters will go through editing and you will have a book.

I speak from experience.

So, that is the story I tell about creativity; all you need is time, space, and the guts to stick with it.

Continuing the adventure,

Jessica