On Wednesdays, I share articles related to various aspects of the creative health landscape and at the end of those articles, I share links to other articles you might like.
Why? Because other people’s words can provide a different perspective on a similar topic or a similar perspective in a different way.
And because I like to do what I can to share the work of others to help move it through the world towards the people who are meant to come across it. Especially when it’s an older piece from someone that I can perhaps bring new eyes to.
Here are the links I shared in May’s articles with a quote from each one … do go read the ones that inspire you and support these other writers in whatever ways you can!
On Flow and Creative Process
In relation to my article:
Quotes I loved from others:
From Kailey Brennan DelloRusso:
“We as humans are deeply cyclical. It’s part of our biology and psychology. Even the way we breathe and sleep is cyclical.
But we’re conditioned to think of time and productivity in a straight line, like we’re machines, but we’re not. We’re animals. And we move in rhythms.
Think about the seasons: summer bursts with energy, autumn slows down, winter rests, spring begins again. Creativity moves the same way.”
From Shinjini:
“Sometimes, farmers allow a field to lay fallow for a year, and while those fields may not be productive, that rest regenerates the soil and leads to better crops in the coming years.
Creative fallow periods are also regenerative and, I wonder, if we are so focused on maintaining a creative streak, where is the time for creative restoration?”
From Jono Hey:
“The idea of displaying contradictory or paradoxical traits was very freeing to me. To be creative, you don’t have to be this or that. You can be this at times and that at times. And perhaps this fluidity helps us towards creative insights.”
From Ian Temple:
“It’s useful to remember that creativity is not just one thing, and there are many ways to be creative. You can walk to the post office, and you can walk to the post office creatively — backwards with your gloves on your ears while whistling a diminished scale and taking multiple unnecessary left turns. Creativity is something you can access in a huge variety of ways, no matter how your brain works.”
From Alma Hoffmann:
“I did some research with the goal to explain to non art majors what creativity is and how it works. This is a daunting task for sure. How can one properly define and explain all the layers of creativity, a creative life, creative stages, and creative outputs in one hour? But as daunting as it might be, when a class is curious about something, you go there simply because they are asking.”
On Time Management and Alternatives for Creatives
In relation to my article:
Quotes I loved from others:
From Kate Broughton:
“If I know I have an appointment, or that I will have to leave the house, or that something will break the flow, I do not start the work. I wait. I wait for the long stretch of uninterrupted time. Because I know that is when I work best, when nothing is going to disturb me, when I can go all the way to the end of the thinking without being pulled out of it halfway through. Sometimes I stay too long and I need to remember to move and exercise and take care of the body, but those long periods of time allow the brain to settle into deep work, and in that deep work I can review, refine, align, and make sure everything I am doing is coherent and in integrity with everything else. Those long stretches of time matter. They matter for accuracy, they matter for creativity, and they matter for meaning.”
From Michelle Rial:
“Caffeine can be amazing for creativity . . . until it isn’t. Try not to fall into the trap of squandering your mental alertness on a pile of emails that only needed a simple “sounds good!” What happens then is we don’t make any progress on the juicy stuff, we feel defeated, and we reach for another cup. And then . . .”
From Shanetta McDonald:
“When women are disconnected from their energy, they’re disconnected from their ideas. From their intuition. From their ability to lead, create, and imagine something different. So the movement I’m building is about energetic freedom.
I help women get out from under the weight of societal expectations that quietly drain them. And we question the systems and norms that make exhaustion feel normal. We create a new standard where they are supported enough to actually access their full capacity.”
From Eugene Toh:
Not every idea leads somewhere.
But staying in the loop changes what eventually does.
Creativity, then, is not about occasional breakthroughs.
It is about repeated practice.
And the shift is a simple one.
Not waiting for ideas to arrive.
But choosing to engage, again and again, until something begins to take shape
From Steph Wright:
“This process spotlighted how much I held back because I convinced myself I needed the ‘ideal’ structure and set up in order to be creative. What I’m learning is that I keep creativity alive in the pockets. What’s most important is nurturing my idea seeds and taking action so they can fully bloom into creative works.”
On Creative Thresholds and The Nervous System
In relation to my article:
Quotes I loved from others:
From Sarah Robertson:
From Hannah B. Makes:
“It takes conscious intention to work with the stories of our bodies that are experienced and remembered in our nervous system.”
From Annie Murphy Paul:
“Think about the words we use when we can’t seem to muster an original idea—we’re “stuck,” “in a rut”—and those we reach for when our creative work is going well. Then we’re “on a roll,” our thoughts are “flowing.” The language we use is full of metaphors that borrow from our experience as embodied creatures; metaphorical movements reverse-engineer this process, inducing the body to make metaphor-evoking motions as a way of prodding the mind into the state the metaphor describes.”
From Jane Clapp:
“The body is not a boundary but instead, a threshold or meeting place between what is seen and unseen, known and unknowable. It carries me through this world, lets me touch, breathe, and feel but it doesn’t contain me. If I believe I am only this body, I make myself small.”
From Natalie Eslick:
“The art scars, the fears, the particular dread of the blank page that has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with being a soft, feeling animal who was told, in a thousand small ways, that her creativity was not worthy of serious attention. We are not machines built to produce constant output, as much as we are led to believe that, and we carry big feelings about making.”
On Shame and Authenticity in Creativity
In relation to my article:
Quotes I loved from others:
From Erik Thor:
“Most of the expectations you have about your creativity and your ideas are wrong. You’re being unfair to yourself. You’re expecting too much, too fast. Creative shame is a deeper problem that affects most people, most of the time. It makes us raise walls around ourselves and our institutions. It makes us hide behind masks. It makes us filter ourselves around others. Worst-case scenario? You walk around with brilliant ideas that you never share with the world.”
From Anna Zelenska:
“There is no schedule that will suit everyone. If you force yourself to produce too much too quickly you will likely become discouraged that you are creating what seems to you like junk. If you create too slowly and hold yourself to overly high standards before sharing, you will fail to progress in your skills and you will not learn what resonates with readers or viewers. You will miss out on the serendipity of creating something amazing through bringing work to completion again and again.”
From nishita:
“Understanding that the “creative career” has always been at odds to commodification and your personal creative process gives you grounds for thinking about it more clearly. As a creative or artist you keep sacred the parts of process that maintain something more human and personal.”
From Coffee With Keats:
“To announce that our creative interest is, in fact, among our most important of responsibilities, an activity that gives meaning to our lives like no other—that would surely be a bridge too far. We would overcommit ourselves. After all, what if it does not work out? There is no shame in quietly retiring a hobby. Let the old guitar collect dust in the garage. Put away your unread books in the storage cupboard. You will find that no one will miss their presence except you.”
From Lois Mac:
“Every single piece of advice I was trying to implement had been written by someone with a completely different creative identity to mine. I was trying to wear their wardrobe and wondering why I kept tripping over the hem.”
really loved this! you're right, it really does bring so many different perspectives together - I know for me at least I can get caught up in my own head and emails like these remind me to look outside the box 🥰🥰
Wow - thank you so much for the love 🥰🫶 I’m grateful you felt connected to embracing creativity in the pockets of the day! May we always remember that our studio is wherever we choose it to be 😍