Creativity on demand

Now in my third year as a design major, I'm discovering a disturbing trend: I struggle immensely with being creative on demand. When I started school, I had stars in my eyes and big dreams of finally earning a living doing something I love to do. I thought back to all those days in Chicago when I had my drafting table set up in the corner of my kitchen on Whipple Street, and how on my days off I would wake up, put on a pot of coffee, and draw all day in my pajamas. I thought of all the days and late nights spent doctoring photos and drawing on the computer, teaching myself the ins and outs of Adobe Photoshop. I recalled the greeting cards I used to make, and how everyone who received one would rave about how I really should be doing this sort of thing for profit. And so I went in, thinking "this is going to be great!"

However when forced to create, I lock up. Deadlines paralyze me, as does the fear of criticism. I don't think I'm exceptionally good at anything, to be honest. My book, which has been in the works for years at this point, sits dormant in ancient Word files. Half-finished vignettes and dangling endings plague me, and I don't think I'll ever finish because I just can't figure out how to wrap it all up. I have a portfolio full of stuff I'm not all that excited about. I have a cache of unfinished songs that I've written. I know how to play only parts of songs. I get to a certain point in lessons and give up, opting instead to stick with what I know instead of challenging myself to do more.

This goes with something I realized while struggling with the piece I'm working on in Ceramics class -- I don't do well with delayed gratification. If I'm not good at something immediately, I get extremely frustrated. The trouble with this is that most art, whether it's fine art, design, music, writing, etc, is a process. One must have patience to see the process through, and well, patience has never been my thing.

And now I'm losing patience with this blog entry, so I'm going to stop here.