I think most people have heard about authors having a writer’s block. Not being able to write anything new.
I think this happens to all creative people now and then.
Well at least it happens to me. It has happened before and probably will happen again. Hopefully not anytime soon
Not being able to do anything creative, is a disaster for me.
I always have several projects that I’m working on. It’s also helping me through bad days and chronic pain. Having several projects on the go gives me joy. And this pretty much sums up who I am.
But this Spring was very busy and much was going on.
So I stopped posting landscape pictures on Instagram, because it took so much time and energy.
Then I stopped taking pictures because it wasn’t fun when I couldn’t share.
Didn’t think much about it at the time as I still was quite busy. And doing creative projects wasn’t my priority.
I was going to make garden figures out of wire and beads , something I usually like and enjoy creating very much. But it felt like an impossible task. It felt better to just do some dull cleaning or other things I usually try skip to work with my creative projects.
So I managed to make 4 but it didn’t give me any joy. Last year I made over 20 garden figures.
Spring came and went and I found I didn’t want to knit, or crochet or do any mending.
When housework and painting houses etc sound more fun than doing what you loved it’s pretty serious don’t you think?
Still I didn’t think too much about it at the time. It has been a very good Summer perfect for outdoors activities. We aren’t really spoiled with this much nice Summer weather. So we hurried to get outdoor chores done, as we were thinking it’s not going to last.
And we got so much done. But my joy for creativeness was totally gone.
I had a lot of plans but never bothered to start. I would find things for the next project and then just leave them there.
I only did very simple things, not really managing to keep my mind focused on anything creative.
I had plenty of time to do some things but I would rather just play a silly game on my phone.
Sounds a bit like a depression, right?. But this only infected my creative part of the brain.
I put off everything thinking I would do it tomorrow, and tomorrow turned into the next tomorrow and so on because it all felt like an unwanted task.
Even posting and writing on social media was really tricky. But I have obligations to the mending community and I felt really sad not being able to do a better job.
After all it’s supposed to be the fun part of life.
Feeling guilty for not being able to make anything productive and not managing to follow up with what I was supposed to do, didn’t really help.
So I was fed up with not being able to create and just tried to force myself to do something. Well, I get all my socks darned and I did a few very easy projects that I wasn’t required to think too much. But it still wasn’t fun.
Making blog posts for Mendingmayhem and learning people to mend . Seemed impossible and I felt more and more guilty for not managing to get back on track. I didn’t know how to proceed.
3 weeks ago I found some yarn I thought it might inspire me to knit a simple scarf. So I searched for patterns, but I didn’t find any I liked or had the energy to do.
So the yarn sat untouched.
I felt like a balloon with out air – very deflated.
Not a creative bone left in my body. Except for the twig birds maybe it’s been the only project I actually had a good time with lately.
I realised creativity can’t be forced. I already knew that, but I still felt I had to try and be creative.
And everyone was telling me that I’m always creative. When really, my creativeness was as dry as sand from Sahara.
Last week my sister came and she asked if I could fix her jeans. She has very long legs and rarely ever find jeans that are long enough for her body.
So I said yes. And I was actually looking forward to it. For the first time in over 6 months I was really looking forward to doing something creative. Once I started working on my sisters jeans I also started working that yarn for the scarf I had left untouched.
So hopefully my creative block is going away.
And my creative energy will return along with the joy of creating.
I’m writing this because I want you to know if it happens to you, you are not the only one. Katrine.
You can listen to it over at Seworganisedstylepodcast.com
