Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Getting Stuff Done

I have finished Matthews Stole. The Ordination went really well.
So now onto the next thing. I have been thinking what will I do next? I am finishing off a couple of small Christmas gifts for some special friends and to tell the truth procrastinating by cruising the web and looking at other peoples stuff.
My biggest problem is that I want to do everything and I never really seem to commit to one craft or activity. I am not going to change this is me. I spent quite a bit of time between Midnight and 8 am thinking about this. I was at work, which last night entailed walking around in the rain quite a bit. It is raining here is South Australia, we claim the title of driest state in the driest continent. You would not think that this week. We had our whole months rain in the last 24 hours. This was accompanied by hail, lightning, thunder you get the picture.
My biggest problem is that I put things off because I think I will get to that on my next day off or when I have time.... I will then sit down and read a book for half an hour. That time wasted well not really wasted but I could have done something else. I want everything to look amazing and compare myself to others and then don't do anything.

Mary Gordon of Creative Voyage says
Joking aside one of the biggest blocks to being creative is to set a perfectionist bar which means that the drawing never goes beyond the first mark because it isn't 'right' or the article beyond the first sentence because it doesn't read 'right'. It order to do something 'good' you have to do a lot that is really 'terrible' These are just words and judgements. Remember in order to do something great you have to practice. We don't see the novels that don't work, or the films which never get released, or the pots which get mooshed back into clay and rethrown. We only see the end product. Much of being creative resembles the RTO. And its an essential part of being creative. If you refuse it as a creative person your art will never move forward and grow.

Mary also wrote this on Micheal Nobbs blog Sustainable Creativity
part of this is too make a grid of what you have done in the last week and focus on what you really want to do. I spent a lot of time vegging out on the net, sleeping and working. Not so much on creating something.

Mary suggested that a secret journal is one of the things that can help get the creative juices flowing,

So 20 minutes a day, I can do that. So a small journal and a felt tip pen is a first step. I can do this.
I will make a committment here now to spend 20 minutes a day on doing something creative even if it is a flop. Maybe that stitch book I have been thinking about for so long will come about, maybe not. At least I will draw something.

1 comment:

Sandy Pine said...

Hi Peta,
I know exactly how you feel. You know how I am always complaining about losing my mojo. I have tried to journal too. The one thing that has worked is keeping a small notebook on my bedside table and just before I go to sleep I jot down something or TRY to draw and idea or concept. Just every now and then, there is no pressure to do it. Then I go to sleep thinking about a project.......
sometimes I wake up with a fresh idea and the enthusiasm to try something new........