failure

don't worry about failure. embrace it. some ideas are just not going to work. no matter how fantastic it may have seemed when the thought popped into your or as you have planned it out the finished article just isn't what you wanted. you might be able to save the work by doing something extra to it. there just comes a point when you have to throw your hands up and say 'it isn't right'. what you need to take away from moments like this is where it has gone wrong and where you can avoid such problems in the future. it might have been that you have used the wrong materials. it might be that you have used the wrong format. or it may be that you needed to do more planning. remember each failure means that you have learnt something that helps your next project. embrace failure, it makes success that much sweater.

take a wander on the wild side

while you are working on your latest creation you might find yourself going to places you didn't want to go. your work spiral away from the path you had for it. when it comes to writing people will talk about how the characters have taken on a life of their own - as if they were real and suddenly they decided on the life they would lead. personally i think this is a pile of dog pooh. what i think is at work is the creative sub conscious letting you know that there is a different way to go. sometimes it is going to be worthwhile following this new path, other times it is just going to lead you to a dead end. all paths are worth exploring. the other thing to take from this is that when people go on about how their work spoke to them or how their work took over you waon't have to feel so bad if you never have this feeling yourself. now you know that there is a different view of the same process. don't worry about the route you take, or the method that takes you along the route - what matters is that you get to the end and have something that is completed. so explore those creative back roads.

when the muse comes calling

creativity is a bit of a harsh mistress. on the one hand you have to work hard at it, and treat it like a job. set aside some time to do the work you want to do. with luck each time you do this it should get easier. routine, oddly, allowing for freedom of expression. there are other times when the muse will strike. the muse being what she these may not happen at convenient moments for you. however make sure you are in a position to write notes about the idea so that you can return to it as soon as you can. by soon i mean as close to immediately as possible. why? there is a fne line between letting an idea stew and letting it go cold. the other day i had an interesting idea for a story. i quite liked the concept, it gave me a lot to play with. i had the opening and a feeling for the tone of the story. i just didn't know what i was going to do with it. so i thought i would let it rattle around for a bit while i thought of an ending. the excitement i felt for it has been lost. that isn't to say i am not going to go back to it, just that now it will be a totally different beast. today i thought about trying to do an abstract series around 'the stations of the cross'. this isn't a new idea barnett newman has already done a jaw droppingly simple and beautiful sequence of abstract paintings on the subject. i know now i want the sequence to start and end, it is the middle bits i am not sure about. i will sleep on it - and see if inspiration comes to me. if it doesn't then it will be a case of slogging through a number of ideas to see if any of them work and if any of them stick. there is a caveat to all of this - there are times when you are just going to have let an idea go. you have to know when it isn't going to work. don't worry though the effort won't have been wasted as even failed ideas will feed into something else you do at a later date.