How Do You Start Creating?
Updated: Sep 17, 2022
When you sit down to create -whether it's drawing, painting, or writing, do you use a prompt? What helps you get into your creative space? Is there a certain kind of music you listen to? Or, does that depend on what you're trying to create? If you're creating from a sense of fun, getting away from our adult selves, ever think of playing whimsical music? What's playful to you? What makes you smile?
When I sit down to write, it either has to be calming classical music, piano preferred, or silence with the hum of the furnace through the vents, the occasional loud car driving by on one of the hillsides around my house. Writing is best at home, in solitude.
Do have a community of writers amongst you while you write? I used to be in a virtual community with three other women writers; they all lived in different states/provinces and time zones, We used to come together at 1 PM EST on Mondays on zoom. Each of us took a turn with reading a poem of our choice, read twice. Our first line started with the one that jumped out to us most.
One of my painting classes started with a poem read to us. It had nothing to do with our assignments. It felt more like turning the page, starting with a fresh piece of my painting paper, a new breath to start the creation for the day. I had never thought of listening to a poem before painting. Listening was as refreshing as swimming laps and created the calm I needed in moving onto my next task.
Do you do yoga and meditation before or after? What about you? What is your process before creating?
—© 2022, Amanda L. Mottorn, an emerging creative is author of Finding Moksha: One Woman’s Path in Uncertain Times and Artist at Modern Moksha Designs & Publishing.
