Play Your Cards Right and You Might Have Fun and Be Creative at the Same Time

Happy tax day if you celebrate.

⊙﹏⊙∥

I had a lot of fun this week. I’m not trying to brag, so bear with me while I make a point.

On successive days I played Pickleball, Ping Pong, went bowling, attended a euchre party, and went to dinner theatre to see a show. It was one of the most jam-packed weeks of fun things I’ve ever had as an adult. As you might guess, it wasn’t the most productive week for my creative projects.

I did advance all of them, and got a couple of things done, but it took all my skills for planning, my routines, and some tenacity to find those time slots to “write.” (“Writing” is my catch-all term for my creative pursuits, but my projects involve web development, graphic design, and desktop publishing, along with all the traditional stuff that goes with writing.)

But the point I want to make is about having fun.

Creativity should be fun. Your learning, activities, and projects should have an element of fun—or at least joyfulness—so that you want to partake.

I wanted to learn how to draw a few years ago and searched for the right book. I landed on “Drawing on the Right Side of Your Brain” which was good but wasn’t a lot of fun. I’m not saying it wasn’t worth the hard work, but it became a bit of a chore and doing chores alone, in your spare time, makes them vulnerable to being shoved aside.

If my choice was between Pickleball with friends on a sunny, warm day, or work through the next exercise from that book on drawing, alone in my basement, I’m choosing Pickleball.

That said, you may choose differently, and that’s cool. That informs you of what you care about most. I did fun stuff this week but also worked on my creative projects. There wasn’t a lot of laughter as I worked, but I enjoyed it.

In fact, had I been taking a class about Drawing on the Right Side of Your Brain, maybe I’d have chosen that because in-person or on-line classes can be a lot of fun just being there.

A couple of years ago, I saw a TEDx talk on drawing, and the guy pointed out that almost anybody can draw a silly face. You make a bulbous nose, put two dots for eyes, and add a mouth with another line. That’s it. That’s a face.

You can have fun with it.

He inspired me to find a simpler book on drawing, which led me to How to Draw Cartoons, which I worked through joyfully. It was all about having fun as you make shapes and cartoons. It opened up a creative channel for me.

When I first started writing fiction, it was fun.

I was writing vignettes, character studies, and flash fiction. My first instructor, Lorene Erickson, knew that writing should be fun to bring out your best work.

That said, writing a novel and self-publishing the book is a ginormous amount of work calling on a bunch of skills and many facets of “writing.” It’s not easy and can often feel a lot like “work.” But I stick with it because I have a blast writing the stories, describing people, and weaving funny stuff into the situations.

Start with fun.

If you’re just starting out with creative pursuits, try a bunch of stuff until you find something fun.

If you’re trying to get back into something creative, or you’ve hit a road block in your journey, look for the fun that got you started. Try some new stuff to find a different, funner angle into your work.

Find a class, in-person or online, to learn something new or open a creative channel in your mind. The camaraderie can be a huge boost in fun.

It’s cliche AF, but if it’s fun, it doesn’t feel like work. Pro tip: if you also get paid for it, having fun while working will feel like cheating.

At least that’s what I’ve been told.

All the Best

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a great, creative week.

Mickey from Renewable Creativity

References

Here are links to the books and video I mentioned:

https://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive

https://www.ted.com/talks/graham_shaw_why_people_believe_they_can_t_draw

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/how-to-draw-cartoons-10