Feb 23 2009
When Creativity Becomes Your Business
This is something I’ve thought of before, but I was reminded of it while reading a chapter in The Everything Guide to Magazine Writing. (I need to re-read that book, too. It has some basic info in it, but it also has some advanced things.)People who intend to sell their stories, paintings, jewelry, or who dance or sing for a living, have made a business out of their creativity. It’s most certainly what I am trying to do.
What happens when you do that? What happens to your creativity when you endeavor to sell the results? Does it hamper it or increase it?
In increases it with my writing, perhaps because I’ve been writing since high school. For a long time, I didn’t want anyone to know about it. As I grew in my skills and became more confident in myself, I started putting myself out there. My first publication was in the yearly anthology put out by the college I attended. I had two poems published in that. After that, I went back to keeping it to myself for a while.
Now, though? I feel like I legitimately have something to say. Intending for other people to read/buy my words does not hamper my creativity. Rather, the intent actually increases my creativity. I don’t know how or why it works that way, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over time, it’s not to question it. Questioning the how and why of creativity squashes it nearly out of existence.
At least, that is how it works for me.
On another note, I’ve been finding that having deadlines also increases my creative output. I don’t work well under stress, but I do under pressure. Yes, there is a difference.
Stress is generally considered negative and is treated by me as such. Pressure can be positive or negative, depending on other circumstances going on at the time. I can work with the pressure of deadlines. In order to get work done, I have also given myself internal deadlines that were not imposed on me by anyone else. They’re not always as effective as external deadlines imposed by an editor, but they still work, which is what the point is of them.
In this way, creativity as my business is beginning to pay off.
