The Cycle of Creativity

I came to a realization the other day, and it was really monumental. 

One of the best things about running Wandeleur is the people that I meet along the way. We are a lifestyle website, yes, but our purpose is beyond the average recipe or beauty feature. We aim to find and highlight people who help to inspire a life filled with color in tandem with these stories. Melanie Norris is a portrait painter who we are featuring this week, and while setting up her post I literally stopped multiple times to reflect on her answers.  When talking about creativity she noted, “I personally find creativity to be cyclical. There will be times when I can’t paint enough, and others when just a simple drawing eludes me completely. I think it’s important to listen and be aware of that, but not shut it down when things become difficult or frustrating. Some of my most ambitious work came from days when I didn’t feel like being there.”

Reading this hit me like a ton of bricks, as things do when they’re so perfectly relatable. Though I’m not a painter, I feel this exact way with writing. There are some days when I can’t get enough and have so many ideas flowing that I feel like I may burst. And there are others when writing even a paragraph feels like the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

You know when the reality of a situation is obvious, but it takes someone else to say it for you to accept and truly realize it? That’s what happened in this case. The truth is, I have been feeling frustrated with myself lately because of how little I’ve been able to write for this blog and on a personal level. Between Wandeleur, working full time, and Gracie in the mix, it’s been difficult to keep up on simple tasks like emails, let alone sit down to write how I want. At the end of the day, sometimes I’m so tired that when I sit at my computer (if I even get to that point) to get a post done, I just stare. It’s the most frustrating thing to want to be able to do it all, but not to be able to get it all done.

But then there are days when things just click. I will be heading into work, and all of a sudden an idea will hit me, and I’ll spend my lunchtime in a writing trance to get it out. Or, I’ll come home from a long day and a second wind will catch on, and after putting Gracie to bed I’ll dive head-first into things. Some weeks it happens a lot, and others not at all. There doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason behind those moments. They just are.

I find so much empowerment and drive in these times. They’re invigorating and energizing, and the reason why I love blogging so much.

So, when I read Melanie’s advice, I felt a sense of relief. Creativity is cyclical. Instead of feeling frustrated in creativity not happening on-demand, I need to be patient with myself and learn to appreciate those inspired moments when they do happen. It’s almost as if recognizing your limits enables  you to embrace creativity more. There’s such a power in recognizing that.

Turns out, creativity is also universal. A painter’s advice has served as a stepping stone for my writing. I kind of love that notion. 

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Photography by Maya McDonald