Fearless Creating

Last night I cracked open another of Eric Maisel’s books (this time, Fearless Creating) and surprise! I related. His books are aimed at artists of all types: writers, painters, dancers, musicians, filmmakers, but his insights into creative psychology is applicable to everyone - everyone creates, at some level.

Randomly, I opened the book to a section about choosing creative projects; specifically those projects we may try to dismiss as “too difficult” to approach.

You know the ones: An idea pops into your head, with a lot of vigor, motion and excitement. It’s raw, its powerful, its energizing, you love it — and then you immediately pull back the reins. It’s too difficult, too dangerous, too something.

“Deep creativity often means dangerous creativity” says Maisel, and in my case he’s certainly right. The more of my emotional blood I spill onto the paper, the more risks I take, the deeper my words and images become. But that doesn’t keep me from dismissing difficult and dangerous projects out of hand.

Maisel asks creatives to stop the dismissing, and look more deeply at the ideas we think are “too difficult”, and examine how we handle them. It may be “too difficult” to do.. but it’s probably not too difficult to think about.

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