Rekindling the Creative Spark

Do you ever just take a second to let your creative spark fly?  I'm not talking about fully separated from surroundings day dreaming, but do you ever just sit down at the computer, the canvas, or in front of an instrument, and just let your ideas come to fruition in front of you?  Do your designs tend to fall flat on the paper, or are they everything you expected them to be, maybe even more?  Did you end up with a finished product that you didn't expect to have when you began?

I am fully against the stifling of an individual's creativity.  I find that too often we tend to get stuck in the same rut doing the same things over and over again, almost as if our artwork is coming off the assembly line at a factory or if it's regular day to day process like at your job.  We've settled into a molded routine, and it's hard to break out from it and do something new fun and exciting.  As artists, musicians, authors, and even gamers, we must let our creative juices flow and not be afraid to explore new ideas.

Book series I've read over the years have had this problem.  The biggest glaring example is that of author Rick Riordan.  When I was in fifth and sixth grade, the series Percy Jackson & The Olympians, a five-book saga detailing a young child from New York's adventure with a bunch of kids his age, the Greek Gods, and the battle against an evil demonic monster named Kronos, is something of a legend with me.  It was a book series that I couldn't put down, and got through all five books in about a six to seven month time frame in 2009.  It was all so exciting that I couldn't wait to pick up the first book in the new series from Riordan (Heroes of Olympus), but when I did start reading that first book (The Lost Hero), I found a lot of retreads to Percy Jackson & The Olympians, so I soon became rather disinterested in the new series and never really finished it, especially as life went on and I became busier and busier.  Other series have had this problem too, more notably the attempt to make a three-film series out of Harry Potter companion book Fantastic Beasts & Where To Find Them, a movie that I felt fell a little flat with me, and I've heard it's sequel is worse than the first movie, which makes me want to shove it aside and not watch it, and to me that's totally ok.

I often suffer in my blogging in that I want to retread things I've already talked about.  Even though they've been at least somewhat spread out, there have been multiple blog posts where I've talked about love, food, or even depression and anxiety.  I just seem to get into this comfort zone and then I don't want to leave it.  Other bloggers get into this rut too.  I used to know a blogger quite well that posted lots of pictures and that seemed to be about it, although they did routinely blog about a few choice topics.  I mean, it's good to have a theme for your blog, but I've always wanted to try and broadly touch as many topics as possible.

We have to be willing to break out of our comfort zones and do things we never thought possible while at the same time be willing to try new tactics.  If we're a drummer for example, maybe we need to try a new fill or drum solo to replace something that's getting a little stale.  Maybe we need to stop spinning around on a rotating platform constantly (I'm looking at you Newsboys drummer Duncan Philipps) and start working on updating the drum track for a popular song (as Lord Huron drummer Mark Barry did for their song "Hurricane (Johnnie's Theme)").  Perhaps we've always wanted to dry "driving the beat" as I've called it with the floor tom instead of the hi-hat or ride cymbal.  It's an adventure drumming is, and if we want to keep improving, we must step out of our comfort zones as the drummers we are currently, being willing to update and replace and also willing to experiment.  And when we break our drums.... oops let's replace them right?

If we're an artist, are we using the same colors all the time?  Maybe we can try using a different palette or mixing some different colors to create a new end result?  What can we do with our canvas, and do we truly know the limits of what a canvas can take?  Let's explore and see what masterpiece we can create today, something new and exciting that we've never seen before! 

Video and computer gamers, let's look for a new way to do something.  If we're just screwing around in freestyle or sandbox mode, why don't we go and explore that conveniently placed sketchy looking field over there?  What's over there?  I don't know that yet, but it's worth exploring isn't it?  I think so, so let's go take a look!  If you're still stuck in the Fortnite craze (shudders), try building something bigger than a four-walled house with a log roof.  Let's see your best sheet metal factory-type thing.  Video games have such ridiculously big islands available for you to freely explore for a reason, so get on out and conquer the "world" by storm. 

Take a moment the next time you approach your creative outlet, and be sure to let your spark fly.  Step out of your comfort zone, and know that there are no bounds or limits to what you do, only the drums you have, the canvas size, or the battery life of your controller or wireless mouse.

Happy adventuring, and more importantly, happy creating!