Bang Your Head Against Ajar Doors
Go looking for ‘thinking’ images online and you’ll faced by many pained faces. Chins rested on clenched fists, heads on tables with unlit lightbulbs hovering above, mind mazes stretched out in front of head-scratching hand models. Rodin has a lot to answer for, but he’s not wrong. The act of thinking can be as heavy as the bronze it’s cast in.
Conjuring up great ideas is no walk in the park. Or if it was it’d be a walk lined with brick walls. And brick walls hurt. No matter how much people tell you they’ve spent their years attempting to knock through them with their noggin, they probably haven’t. No matter how difficult the task, brief or project there’s always an easier way through. A mere brushstroke to begin proceedings, or a clumsily scribbled sentence to dirty an infuriatingly crystal clear, taunting page.
Ed Sheeran, that musical fella from Suffolk accepts that when he switches on his creative tap “shit water is going to flow out for a substantial amount of time” before “clean water” starts flowing.
So, turn your shitty tap on. Leave the jackhammer alone and scratch at the surface instead. Find a way in that comes easy. And stop ignoring the obvious answers, the seemingly derivative thoughts. See them instead, as small openings, ajar doors. Doors that when eased open, open your eyes to less expected solutions, or at least the beginnings of them. Be drawn to the chinks of light for chances are they’ll lead you to become bathed in the warm glow of bigger beams.
“I don’t know how to do it, untilI’m in the middle of it”, admitted Sandy Powell, the multi-award-winning English costume designer recently. Which neatly bridges us on to the next closely related Happy Thought;
Start on Page Two
It’s rare, that when nudged open, those ajar doors lead you conveniently into the natural beginning of any creative project. But that’s ok. Page one is best left for later. For page one is daunting. Blinding with potential and heaving with the weight of expectation. How to start? Where to start? What to start with?
Much better to not start at all.Dive into the dialogue, paint the crows feet, pick the pocket lining. Anything that turns your taps on and gets the creative juices flowing. For as hackneyed a saying as it may be, setting said liquid loose really is the aim of the game.
Don’t concern yourself immediately with being ‘right’ or starting the project ‘correctly’. Get on with whatever you want to get on with. Whatever’s on the top of your mind or tip of your tongue. Then let it flow in all directions. It, and you, will get to the official start eventually.
So stop thinking. Stop starting. Stop worrying about being right. And believe whole-heartedly in the opinion of James Stephens;
“What the heart knows today, the head will understand tomorrow.”
Article appeared in Creative Review
Top image: Shutterstock
