Good job proving me wrong :p

First, this is going to be a series of posts, so I’ll be talking about working in the near future. It’s separate from the issue of whether a person *can* be creative.

Second, once you start talking about how people become successful, now to define success, and what motivates successful people, you venture onto very thin ice. None of this is simple or straightforward.

Third, saying “Hard work is required” is probably the easiest thing a person can say. It’s a wide-accepted truism that feels extremely comfortable; it fits very nicely inside our cultural norms. We hear “You have to *want* it” from sports casters, teachers, employment counselors, and so on.

But it’s OT for this post, if you know what I mean.

I’ve seen plenty of previously “non-creatives” try their hand at various artistic disciplines, some do well, some do poorly, but all of them either keep at it or give up based not on their belief, but on their desire. If you want it bad enough, you’ll keep at it, learn to do better.

For the most successful creatives (“success” in this context meaning “creative success,” not “commercial success”), it’s not about the result, it’s about the process. Cool as it is to show off your new painting or share your latest song or short story (and yes, it’s very cool, we all have egos, or we wouldn’t be doing this stuff…), what really keeps these folks going back to the easel or keyboard is the high they get from the process of creating something. If that high grabs you, you’ll be compelled to come back to it, whether you believe your results are “creative” or not.

Now, I’ll grant you, neither desire nor belief is enough in and of itself. I’ve known (as you probably have) people with a ton of desire and a buttload of belief, who just can’t get their perspective or anatomy right, or whose stories continue to be cliche-ridden and boring, whose music is awkward and derivative. But that’s not about “Can you be creative?” so much as “How do you get better at it?” Which I’ll leave alone for the moment, since it’s addressed in subsequent paragraphs.

Just my own .02.

But I seriously do love their passion for the books.