I take any chance that I can to recommend Steven Pressfield's “The War of Art”, so let's start by doing that again. Great book. Read it.

Looking at creating as an aggressive endeavour is much more useful than waiting for the inspiration to come. The more active you are, the more you invite inspiration.

Execution Over Inspiration

John Cleese's creative process nails this. He said that if he needs to write, he forces himself to put in the effort, regardless of if he wants to do it. He knows it may come to nothing, but he puts in the miles. The inspiration itself could come later, in the shower, but its flowering from seeds sown in the active, relentless pursuit of progress.

(By the way, Cleese has an amazing presentation on creativity here.)

The other benefit of treating the creative process as a war, something to be confronted head on, is you end up prioritizing execution over everything. Nothing counts if it's not delivered, and most people don't know how to deliver, so you win by default.

Mindful Inefficiency

In talking to my team this week, we chewed over a concept that I'll call “mindful inefficiency” (as far as I know, no one has beaten me to making up a bullshit term, so I call first dibs). The discussion came from me sharing this, one of the earliest examples of motion graphics.

The question was whether we thought it would be possible to do this with AI. The answer is “almost certainly not”, by the way. Whilst AI can generate sound and music, its ability to connect them with visuals is clunky at best. There's lots of plugins that can do it though.

But here's the thing. If you're using technology to do the creating for you, you're locking down your brain's own ability to create. God knows how long Fischinger spent on his Optical Poem, but I would bet that he didn't approach it like he was going to war.

The Play Problem

The problem with a delivery-at-all-costs mindset is that it shuts down your ability to play. And play is essential for creation.

At my VFX company, it's a balance I struggle to maintain. Should we be playing, or delivering? Businesses don't play. Ok fine, we'll deliver, our clients aren't paying us to play. And then, bit by bit, your creativity dies, AND WHAT WE DELIVER IS CREATIVITY.

How you manage that balance is on you, but you have to manage it.

So if you think you're progressing too slowly, it's probably fine, if you're finding time to experiment and play. If your progress is slow because of annoying technical hurdles, then reach out, they're always solvable.