While in the zone, you experience euphoria — like a runner’s high. All is right in the world, the stars are in alignment, and nothing is getting in the way of completing something for a change. Everything comes together in a quasi-transcendental, cosmic convergence. It is a thing of beauty.
Douglas Cootey, ADDitude
Back at uni, we had exams but once a year: pass, or retake the whole year, no resits.
A number of high-flying high-achieving kids who always excelled in class anyway, took to popping Pro Plus and pulling all-nighters of revision to get through. I was never tempted. Not only am I wary of Dangerous Things (see previous post) but I have my own in-built Pro Plus: it’s called ADHD hyperfocus.
Works like a charm. It’s how I created my Fab Free Motion course last year, stitching each week’s lessons, filming, editing, writing and uploading just in the nick of time before starting all over again for the next week. As long as I stayed a week ahead, no problem!
This year, the pressure was in checking everything over: all the lessons and links, then tweaking the time-scale and timings, ready to open the doors before Easter. Now that’s done, ‘all’ I have to do is welcome new participants and get ready for my thrice-daily (or more) checks and individual support and advice from now until June. Luckily, this is definitely the fun bit, seeing what different things people do from the same starting points and suggestions, and watching their progress, sharing their excitement when it all starts to click (can’t wait!)
Dangerous games
I first discovered this dangerous game of last-minute adrenaline-fueled activity at school. In June 1986 with only hours to spare, I found myself able to memorise 65 quotes from Midsummer Night’s Dream, Morte d’Arthur and To Kill a Mockingbird; the workings of sin/cos/tan (short-term working memory only), and the nomenclature of alkanes (methane, ethane, propane and all the rest).
At uni, grey matter freshly emptied* (blame the cheap student union beer) come early summer it would be topped up again in short order with fascinating facts about soils (the gripping tome Practical Pedology was written by one of our suitably elbow-patch-on-corduroy-jacketed lecturers), the genetics of sweetcorn, and auxins, glycines, and organophosphates and other things that are probably banned now.
*Perhaps not entirely emptied: I actually enjoyed an RSC production of Midsummer Night’s Dream a couple of weeks ago and found myself almost word-perfect for muttering Snout’s ‘wall’ speech under my breath. Yes, in my only dramatic role I played a wall. What of it?!
Closer to the present day, I’ve frequently been spurred to finish complex embroidered and beaded tassels, tree decorations, book covers, cakes, jams, biscuits, fudge, yards of bunting, numerous Christmas stockings and such, all at the last gasp before the elves have to quit the workshop and pack it all on the sleigh.
And on it goes. When any sort deadline starts breathing down my neck, sketchbook pages can quickly be filled…
Fabric and thread and paper and colour all mingle and mound up in glorious swathes of creativity, all over my desk and adjoining tables and floor…no time to stop and tidy, I must keep going! Clock is ticking!
Threads stick to my tummy and pullover cuffs, trails of snipped scraps follow me out of the room, sometimes out of the house; words flow from my fingertips, the sun shines, birds sing, and all is FANTASTIC.
Until I finish, and then it’s not. It’s also raining or blowing all the time at the moment, which doesn’t help the mood. It’s been a tough week, psychologically and meteorologically.
This is the creative crash. The downside of the upside, the collapse face-down in the grass as I cross the finish line.
There must surely be a better way.
It probably involves things like taking regular breaks to avoid burnout (ha!) or doing a little every day and starting sooner than you think you need to and planning your time.
All things I obviously encourage my students to do, build time into my courses to allow us to do, and all absolutely solid advice. Doesn’t apply to me, though - don’t be silly! It’s very much Do As I Say not Do as I Do!
Also, if I paced myself and worked steadily with no need to crash at the end, I wouldn’t get to waft listlessly around the house in the aftermath of a creative explosion. Too tired to tidy, too washed out to do anything interesting, and too bored and uninspired to start anything new. The only sensible course of action this week has been to go and see a friend for coffee and cake.
And why is it, that all those things I was so desperate to do when I was busy, have ceased to be alluring? Where is my urge to clean the grout on the kitchen floor now my work is done? Why do I no longer feel the pull to paint the dining room, or declutter my socks and tights, or weed the garden?
All I can do now is plod on, pootle about in my studio, keep an eye on my students via the interwebs, and in time the ideas will slowly creep back in, like guilty teenagers trying to sneak back into the house and up the stairs without waking anyone. And I know, for all their sneaking, come the next deadline (whatever that may be) I’ll suddenly spring to life, fully alert and energised to finish the next project, once again locked in fierce competition with the clock while battling all the distractions that would pull me away.
What’s the secret to your creative process? Crash and burn or a more measured approach? Let me know in the comments!
Until next time, unless I see you in class first,
Links to a few things mentioned:
Practical Pedology by Stuart McCrae: all you ever wanted to know about soil and more
The evolution of sweetcorn - just in case you have a touch of insomnia and need a cure
I’ve been a crash-and-burn girl my entire life. Stacker, pile digger, junk collector, roadside furniture scooper-upper, space filler, project starter, motivated finisher, other times perfectionistic abandoned-er, creatively quirky, time waster, boredom beholder, jack of all trades, and noted master of none. 🤪
I crash and burn too. Last week I was in a frenzy of quiltmaking, this week I sat and read fantasy all day every day. For months I've been trying to decide what to make for a show, and during the night it came to me. I needed that idle time to imagine it into a plan.