Creativity and Showing Up

A friend of mine recently posted something interesting on my Facebook wall. It was one of those TED talks by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. The subject of the talk was creativity. Those of you who follow my blog more frequently may know that, for me, creativity is something of a terror. I'm not particularly creative, which is a bit of a bother considering how badly I wish to be creative. I love writing, but I've never felt like I was particularly good at it.

But today, Elizabeth Gilbert got me thinking. She feels that creativity can come from an outside source, that inspiration isn't always the product of the person. Creativity can come from outside muses, which is what the Greeks and Romans both believed. Creativity can be a force that simply enters you. Showing up and doing the work, making something out of nothing, is really a person's only job in creativity. Making an effort is part of how you make something count.

How does this apply to my life? When my younger brother and I have discussed school and the possibility of him going back to take some classes, I've been known to tell him that 90% of my success in college has been in showing up for class. The rest of the success kind of makes its own gravy, you know? Hearing Elizabeth Gilbert apply that philosophy to the creativity made me realize that showing up and doing the work is something that I often don't do when it comes to creative works.

Let me explain. I've always considered creativity to be something that a person either has or does not have. In my head, I've maintained this notion that people come by their artistic talents naturally. (I mean, surely da Vinci was able to draw and paint like that all of his life, right?) Even though I know some artists who have had to work at their craft, learn and apply new techniques, and work through trial-and-error, I never really put it together that creativity could be something that a person could work at. I guess I never did that because working at creativity means that some of your works might not be as good as the rest; some of them might be total flops and failures. I never thought that creativity could be a failure because I only thought of creativity as being something that succeeds. Something creative is always amazing. I never considered the fact that something that sucked could also be creative because I always thought that the things that I produced which--in my eyes--sucked, were totally lacking in creativity.

I haven't been practicing what I preach. I haven't been showing up when it comes to creativity. I haven't been writing as much lately because I feel like I have nothing creative or worthwhile to say. I don't contemplate writing other things. I don't push myself to come up with a concept. I don't even sit with my laptop and fake an attempt at writing something. I simply let it slide on past me. I never thought that I could be creative even in things that aren't as interesting because they help me to grow to a more creative end. I need to start showing up, doing my part in the creative dance. I need to start doing for the sake of doing and having faith that some of the things that come of it will be creative and good.

This is step one in the process of showing up. Producing something. Let's hope I can make a more concentrated effort on that front.