I’ve always been creative. It’s part of who I am. There’s a thrill I get from writing, making, and performing that is (a) essential to my wellbeing, and (b) impossible to get any other way.

At the moment, what with … *gestures at All This* … it’s hard. Of course it is. We’re all struggling with adjusting to this weird new reality. That said, at least for me, things aren’t completely hopeless. It’s been worse. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve felt stuck, frozen, blocked. Those were some really dark times – but they seem to be in the past, and despite everything, I’m pretty confident they won’t return.

I’ve been thinking about why this is, and whether there’s anything here that might be helpful to you. And so, for what it’s worth, I’ve realised that my creativity exploded when two things happened.

1. I stopped worrying about the rules

I used to be big on rules. Very big. In a low-rules environment I would hunt out or invent some rules and follow them. I’d pick up on chance remarks made by friends and turn them into rules for my behaviour when around those people.

In many situations, that’s a valid approach. It helped me feel safer, which is a perfectly cromulent aim. Eventually, though, the strategy outlived its usefulness, and I consciously unpicked most of the rule-structures I’d built up.

The heading up there doesn’t say that I stopped following the rules, it says I stopped worrying about the rules.

I still use rules in quite a few areas of my life, because I find they reduce stress, big-time. A rule is a decision made in advance, and making decisions in advance can really take the pressure off.

However, it’s true that for a long time I fenced in my creative expression with rules I’d made up but never fully articulated to myself.

Rules such as “I am allowed to write only high-brow literary fiction and poetry” or “Now that I know how to make patterns, following someone else’s pattern is cheating” or “I can’t perform a song unless I personally believe in its text”.

I’ve worked hard on dismantling those restrictions.

So my first published novel is literary (…ish? – maybe it depends who you ask), but during my career I may also publish speculative fiction, poetry, stories for children, crime, biography, cultural critique, or any other damn thing I please.

I’ve mostly made small art quilts, but that won’t stop me from launching into a king-size double Irish chain if the mood takes me.

And it turns out, despite what the headweasels think, that I am allowed to learn opera arias. Furthermore, singing cutting-edge a capella music in a kickass chamber choir (whenever we’re allowed to go back to that!) doesn’t preclude me from playing around in Garage Band or indulging my fancy for textile-based folk songs (of which there are almost certainly more than you think).

Follow rules when they’re useful. When they’re not useful, do everything you can to let them dissolve.

2. I figured out what makes my creative engine go

To be clear, I’m not trying to tell you here what’ll make your creative engine go. If you haven’t figured that out yet, feel more than free to give my choices a try, but don’t rely on their working for you.

Back in the twilight of the last millennium, when I was applying for my creative writing Master’s, I wrote a short personal statement about why I wanted to do the course.

I explained how I’d been writing ever since I was a small child, but my writing had always been shoved aside to make way for the rest of my life. I’d had the typical packed schedule of a viciously overachieving school and college student, and creative writing had always felt squeezed into the cracks.

I wrote expressively and persuasively about how much I craved the opportunity to make writing the thing I was supposed to be doing, rather than the thing I did when I stole time for it from other obligations.

Then I got into the course. Yay! All I had to do, for a whole year, was write!

It turned out to be my most blocked year ever.

I think I may actually have produced more work in my fourth undergraduate year, when I wrote my dissertation, ran a successful students’ union election campaign, and sat my final exams, than I did in my Master’s year.

It’s true that there was a certain amount of emotional stuff going on, which definitely didn’t help. But it’s also true that the exclusive focus on one art form fed into the depression.

(In reality, being me, I was not 100% focused: I also did plenty of singing, knitting, and literary translation. I don’t like to think what would have happened me if I hadn’t.)

Writing fiction was the one primary thing to which I was supposed to be devoting the bulk of my time, and I responded by running hard in the opposite direction.

Many people work best when they focus on one thing. It turns out that for me, variety is absolutely critical.

In order for variety to function properly for me, there also needs to be permission. Experience has shown that I work best – and I produce most – when I’m officially allowed to work on whatever is burning hot right now and when I’m able to jump in and work on a project when moved to do so. I deliberately set things up so that’s as easy as possible.

This is the opposite of the self-discipline / daily quota kind of approach – which, again, works for many many people.

Such an approach may become useful at a later point in my career, when I have more demand for my work and more overall control over how my day goes. But for now, full-on permission works a lot better than trying to force myself to work on a particular project at a particular time.

Before the lockdown, I’d been experimenting with having more regularity in my days, and that too was working really well for me (oh well). To be clear, I focused on developing routines and habits that facilitate and support my process, rather than trying to make them help me churn out more product.

It’s a question of balance.

Here’s the truth: I’m not as prolific as I want to be in any of my art forms. As my health – and the current unpleasantness – permit, I’m trying various techniques to see if I can increase my output.

What’s much more important to me, however, is that when I think of my relationship to my creative work, I feel a loving, energetic warmth, an excitement to get down to it. That’s priceless, and it’s something I aim to preserve, now that I’ve found it.

My top three elements of a healthy creative life: Variety – Permission – Regularity, in a beautifully flexible balance.

(What are yours?)

Did you notice?

I didn’t realise when I first drafted this post that I said “two things happened” in the title, and then proceeded to talk about two things I did.

Active verbs: “I stopped”, “I figured out”.

I have a dreadful habit of assuming I have less power than I do.

Anyway. This post is really about finding out what works for you.

If you’re looking for ideas, check out Reboot Your Creative Drive, my free course on how to bring more creativity into your life. It contains seven concrete, straightforward techniques anyone can try – even (perhaps with modifications) during a pandemic. It might be just the nudge you need.