Hi, I’m Lena, and I’m an artist/writer/teacher/coach, and I’m obsessed with creativity. Not only has creative work fueled all of my careers, from academic writing and teaching 20 years ago to art and creative writing now, I’ve found that a lot of the standard rules don’t really work for me. I don’t do well in a quiet, well-lit room with no distractions—that sounds like the on-ramp to a migraine to me. I tend to have no success with advice along the lines of “just clear your mind,” “just follow this 3-step formula,” or “do your creative work in exactly the same way daily to form good habits.”
My creativity is more like a wonky yet delightful cat—runs on plenty of sleep at weird times, suddenly appears zooming around the room when you thought you’d have a quiet afternoon, and needs plenty of food, water, and encouragement to keep the engine purring.
(See also, my inspiration for this metaphor: my delightfully bonkers beast, Ben.)
Joking (or maybe half-joking?) aside, I do my best work when I can distract my inner critic, not try to force it to not exist. I listen to music—usually specific playlists I’ve had for years—when I write. I have tv or movies or audiobooks on in the background when I make art. I come up with ideas pacing in the afternoon sun with my phone as voice recorder, or, in a pinch, writing a paper idea on my arm with a pen.
What I’ve found is being around interesting storytelling and other people’s creativity makes mine so much more willing to stay focused and consistent. The hardest time in my creative life was being expected to write my dissertation alone without any coursework or regular interaction with classmates to distract me. The best is when I am mid-way through my yearly spring rewatch of Canadian time-travel tv show Being Erica, churning out new ideas with ease, so prolific and energized I wish I didn’t need to sleep so much.
My storytelling Patreon brings this concept to you—what if, instead of staring at a blank screen, a blank canvas, you gave your brain something to chew on, something to play off of to take off the pressure. I’ve been leading SoulCollage® workshops for a year where I tell part of an original fairytale remix, and then leave participants to create. Almost every time, someone is surprised at how many ideas they had, the number of cards they made, the creative direction they didn’t intend to go in, but were inspired to that created something fascinating and new. Now I’m taking these stories and putting them in a Story Library for anyone to use with whatever project they’re working on.
-a linked novel in stories remix of Cinderella
-lots of surface pattern design and illustration work over at www.reveandbloom.com
-so much sewing—I’ve been sewing some of my clothes by hand this year and it’s so fun!
-Jewish protest art for JFREJ
-reading novels that make me feel good to be alive; dipping in and out of endless nonfiction about time and creativity
-very slow progress on a memoir about my experience of time, trauma, and how we make it beautiful