There are popular myths that claim some creative works manifest spontaneously in their final, completed form like stars falling from the sky. The Beatle Paul McCartney allegedly woke up one morning with the song Yesterday in his head, and that song went on to become the most recorded song in history. However, what gets lost from the Yesterday origin story is the fact that after McCartney woke up with the song’s melody, he toiled over the tune for months before it was finished and ready to be recorded.
Projects don’t just spring into the world fully formed. Their creation involves an act of will. When we listen to a tune or read a story or view a painting, the existence of that work is a testament to the intentionality of its architect.
Creative works stem from creative processes. Sometimes these processes start with a cluster of ideas already developed, like McCartney’s melody. Sometimes they start with just a single influence like an intuition, an image, a riff, faint spark, a packet of seeds, a germinal concept, or a few words. Sometimes they start with a little accident that, for whatever reason, presents itself as a possible new angle to be developed rather than a goof to be erased. Sometimes they start with nothing at all except the will of some creative person to improvise something new.
The dancer/choreographer Twyla Tharp in her book The Creative Habit describes how she learned to improvise. “I played some music in the studio and I started to move. It sounds obvious, but I wonder how many people, whatever their medium, appreciate the gift of improvisation. It’s your one opportunity in life to be completely free, with no responsibilities and no consequences. You don’t have to be good or great or even interesting. It’s you alone, with no one watching or judging. If anything comes of it, you decide whether the world gets to see it. In essence, you are giving yourself permission to daydream during working hours.“
When we improvise, we brainstorm. We take an idea and we start unpacking. We develop, excavate, elaborate. We create variations on the idea. We look for patterns. We try inversions, consider related ideas and patterns, look for relatives, look for opposites.
Watching someone fully absorbed in improv is a wonderful sight. Athletes do it all the time when they are forced to break from their pre-rehearsed plays. Think about professional basketball, soccer or tennis players. So much of what they do is improv. Their specific actions are rehearsed but their broad movements spring from split-second decisions and reactions to the activity of the ball.
Sometimes we say people who are fully absorbed in improv are “in the zone” or “in the flow.” They appear to be oblivious to the outside world. Their manner is both intense and yet relaxed. Their activity absorbs all of their focus.
Being in the flow is a state of meditation. While focused on our activities, amazingly, time may seem to compress. We immerse ourselves in the flow, and when we emerge, the clock has taken a giant leap forward.
As Tharp says, “It’s you alone, with no one watching or judging.” This is an important point. No judgement! A sure-fire way to break us out of the zone is if we interrupt our focus to judge our work. The moment we start asking ourselves if our work is any good, the flow ceases. We go from the singular state — pure doing — to a dual state — doing/judging. We become self-conscious. We begin to filter our work, to censor it. Our judgement confines our focus, boxes it in. Judging ourselves equates to inhibiting ourselves. We plummet from a world of imagination, which is vast and whimsical and free, to a world of measurement, which is limiting.
Many writers talk about the writing process involving two subroutines that employ different parts of the brain. The first routine is just about getting ideas on the page; and the second routine is about refining those ideas.
We have to be able to shut out the judgement when we’re in the first routine. Improvisation requires a safe space, a judgement-free space. If our inner judge creeps in, it stifles the creative process. Improvization reaches towards inspiration, bottles it like a firefly, and carries it back to share with others.
This improvisation subroutine is largely where the project becomes a project. Before this stage it is just a spore of an idea. Only the nucleus exists. It is no more a project than an acorn is a tree.
As creators, our task is to pioneer paths to undiscovered lands and come back with evidence.
The Silk Road was a network of trade routes with vibrant activity connecting the East and the West for 13 centuries. Travelers from Europe ventured out along its routes and came back with exotic new goods such as silk, teas, and porcelain; explorers from Asia returned home with honey, wine and horses. The Silk Road brought curious and sometimes frightening individuals from far-off lands wearing strange clothes, speaking peculiar languages, and exhibiting perplexing customs. The Road cross-pollinated commercial, cultural, political and religious influences, and it changed the course of history.
As creators, our task is to pioneer paths along our own Silk Road and return to relay our experiences.
In his book The Soul’s Code – In Search of Character and Calling, author James Hillman reminds us, “Let us not forget that societies are elevated and rewarded by those who are inspired.”