creative process

I don't work the same as other people.  As a creative person and a "thinker," I've found that my creative process necessarily requires dry spells, periods of writer's block, and other "breaks" from producing content.  Don't get me wrong; I can spit out some content if I need to, but if I've not allowed myself creative space, I'll know well and good that it isn't high quality. 

The downside to this creative process is that if I have to fit into somebody else's mold, I become depleted, leading to less quality in what I do (this is not to say there are not times to just "get it done").  There may be time periods when I appear to be doing little to nothing.  But it's like letting my fields lie fallow.  If it isn't done, the land becomes depleted and exhausted and cannot bear fruit.  I must let my mind lie fallow from time to time.

The upside to this creative process is that intriguing thoughts come into this empty space and fill it up. In the midst of a current dry spell, I found myself interacting with people who believe very differently from me on a Huffington Post column.  The commenters were aggressive though I tried to be respectful.  I finally came to realize that they were coming to the table with lots of wounds and assumptions that simply come from their experience, just as I was probably assuming things about them.  I decided not to be offended.  But I did find myself intrigued by one theological/Biblical issue raised by one of these commenters.  I suddenly didn't want to know the answer in order to convince them anymore; I wanted to know the answer to the quandary in order to enhance my own understanding.  And then I found myself being forcefully pushed into reading Scripture intently with a mind to really hear what was being said.  I was curious again (the key to creativity, growth and knowledge).  I was on the edge of my seat--and still am.  The theological question is not one I have fully resolved yet, but I am well on my way.

Questions make life exciting.  Not knowing all the answers and yet having something to discover makes life meaningful.  If I could wish anything for people in general--and people of faith in particular--it is that we maintain a curiosity about the world.  But this curiosity cannot come to us as easily in the drudgery of daily life.  We must come aside, in whatever way--even if it is simply in a dry period of doubt or lack of inspiration.  And we must trust that inspiration will come again.

This is the only way I have found to write, to create.  Endure the time of fallow ground, for the bloom will come again.