It’s the first Saturday of the month and it’s time to talk about creativity.

I’m still stuck in “hard time” mode, but I promise that won’t be what this month’s creativity post will be WHOLLY about. I just need to acknowledge the difficult period I’m going through. There is a lot of flux going on with the job and future stability and it’s impacting my creativity. BUT what I’ve found to work in the past is a) give myself grace, b) know that this will be a difficult “season,” and c) stick to my rituals. So I thought I’d talk about that last piece of the equation for this month’s creativity as I’ve already talked about the first two AND ask for your input this month.

Though, to be fair, maybe you haven’t read those earlier pieces and I should just do a brief recap “in a paragraph” here. Work has gone topsy turvy and both my husband and I feel like the rug was pulled out from under our feet (as our school where we both teach is going to suddenly be closing at the end of the school year). First was the denial, then the depression, then the anger, and now just dealing with it. Thus the Grace I’m trying to give myself for the next few months (as my yearly goals are now going a bit wonky). AND the mentality that this is only a season (and I will only let it last a season) before I get back up on my feet creatively speaking. BUT that doesn’t mean all of my creative efforts have come to a screeching halt either. So here we are back to talking about routines.

I don’t know about you, but every time I hear someone talking about rules for writing or illustrating in the terms of “you should,” I tend to balk. “You should be writing (or drawing) daily.” Not only do these statements seem come with a great deal of attitude (almost an “I’m better than you because I work harder than you) but they also come with guilt. I actually heard an illustrator I admire once say something like “if you’re not creating daily, it’s because you don’t love it enough.” I’ve come to realize this simply isn’t true.

Do I see daily work as fruitful? Absolutely! Do I know several creatives that do it? Yes! Is that me? Nope. And that’s okay. Yet, I say that already with the guilt fairy sitting on my shoulder telling me that again it’s obviously because I’m inferior to “real” artists/writers. And there goes that imposter syndrome again. If you’ve ever felt that way or heard that voice, join me now in flicking that guilt fairy off your shoulder.

“But Jena,” I can hear some of you say, “surely you don’t experience that guilt! You DO so much!” BUT we ALL experience that guilt! And yes, I’ve heard many people tell me over the years that I DO a lot and “how do you get it all done?” I’ll get to that in a minute. I’ll tell you my trick and you won’t be surprised (if you read my past creative blogs) and you’ll even think it’s boring. But first, follow me down a rabbit hole.

You see, a few months ago, I stumbled across this amazing video by Brooke Glaser.

The title intrigued me and caught me because I DO periodically think I’m lazy. I’m doing SO dang much, and yet it’s never enough for me. I want to do more. I want one of Hermione Granger’s time turners! I do!

(And yes, I’ve read Jane Yolen’s “Take Joy” wherein she talks about there being NO such thing as a time fairy. And she’s right, but we can dream, can’t we?)

I have been piling things on my “to do” list for a while now and struggling to fit in creativity of my own sometimes. I was determined that this school year would be a change. In the video, Brooke Glaser mentioned this book: “Daily Rituals” by Mason Currey. I tracked it down via my library and thought this would be an interesting read. It has a series of mini-biographies of a ton of different creatives (writers, artists, composers, etc.) focused solely on their routines. I thought this might be the break through I was looking for in order to change up my routines. (Insert laughter track here.)

It did not. I realize now that I made a fatal mistake in thinking that this was a book I could read from the beginning to the end. I’m not sure how the biographies are organized. I thought they were alphabetical, but they’re not. A B-name creative is suddenly followed by a W-name creative. I kept reading weirder and weirder biographies of people I didn’t recognize the names of and got to a gal smuggling snails under her boobs into France and gave up. I do NOT see that in my future! (And no, I’m not joking.)

What I should’ve done instead is to look up creatives I admire (like Jane Austen or Frederic Chopin) and read their bios looking for tips. Had I done that, I might’ve enjoyed the book more (and I might eventually go back to it, but not right now).

Back to the hats I’m juggling: I’m a full-time elementary teacher (that’s the biggest time suck of all and it’s taken me years to figure out how NOT to let it dominate my life and time), a volunteer for SCBWI (helping with conferences, webinars, monthly meetups, etc.), a blogger (interviewing TONS of other creatives inspires me and I refuse to give it up), and a creative (both a writer AND an illustrator/artist). There’s a LOT of time sucks in there and that doesn’t include the curve balls life throws at me OR the time I want to spend with my husband. And self-care. Let’s not forget that! 

So how do I do it all? Schedules. I told you it wouldn’t shock you, and yes, it’s boring, but hang with me a minute. This was the first year I sat down with an artist’s year map (via Staci Bloomfield) to look at bigger picture goals. That was an interesting exercise and it helped me to focus differently on creative goals. I don’t think I’ve ever started “big picture” of time and narrowed down from there. So I set the whole year’s big picture goals in place. Then every month, I map out the month now. I figure out all the things that MUST get done and try to map out a loose goal. THEN I map out every week. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s all left a bit loosey-goosey when I know there will always be life factors that throw things for a spin.

BUT that’s why I set the goals and have the routines. I come home from work and get to creative work every day, trying to focus on “work for others” during the work week (like blog scheduling or SCBWI stuff) when I don’t have the brain power after a long day with children to create from scratch. Then the weekends are “free” for my own creative work. BUT I also leave time every evening to spend with my husband, which may include also some sketching.

Lately I’ve been too tired to art in the evenings (we’ve entered “end of school year” tired season, as well as “start of spring” allergy season). I’m wiped out. Plus now I’m adding in other “hats” like polishing my resume, looking into taking grad classes, etc. and April and May are in giant flux. At this point, I think my year goals may even be askew. BUT I’m still trying to include time to write and art in the cracks.

SO this is where I ask you, dear readers: what do you do? What routines do you have in place to ensure your creativity happens? Many of us have 9-to-5 jobs, so how do you work around those? I’d love to hear your responses. 🙂