When one thinks of creative expressionists one does not think of ritual or routine. Impulsivity, openness, flexibility … those are more closely associated descriptors of creatives.
Yet, anyone doing creative work does so with routines that often go unnoticed by the casual observer, whose gaze is focused far more on the creation that the creator.
Maya Angelou would get a hotel room when she was writing. “I have a bedroom, with a bed, a table, and a bath. I have Roget’s Thesaurus, a dictionary, and the Bible. Usually a deck of cards and some crossword puzzles.”
George Bernard Shaw had a writing hut constructed on a turntable, so as to follow the suns light as he wrote. It contained a typewrite, heater, food, a bed and a phone in case of emergency. (Roald Dahl and poet Dylan Thomas had writing sheds as well).
Virginia Woolf, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Charles Dickens, comic writer Stan Lee and Ernest Hemingway all wrote standing up.
JK Rowling wrote often in cafes.
Ann Voskamp writes in a 10-by10 foot cabin along a cornfield.
Jane Austen was the queen of simplicity, requiring only a desk, paper, quill and ink.
Though not all, it would appear that most of the aforementioned creatives seek or sought quiet, a solitary, silent place
where the audible and visual
noise of the world
could be eclipsed
by the voice inside.
Our human creativity originates in our DNA, for we create from the genetic material that we have inherited, from our Creator (father) God. Our creativity is an expression of his ability, his beauty, that we can be creative within the uniqueness of the creativity he placed within each one of us.
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, in our likeness”
-Genesis 1:26
As his creation, we are image-bearers of the God of creation. Within our creation we bear the image of God the father, but also the Son (Jesus) and the Holy Spirit, for we are made in “our image, our likeness.” So when creativity flows from us our need to be still, be silent makes such sense.
Silence is the catalyst for hearing the Holy Spirit within us. When it is his voice we listen to, we create from the riches of our Creator, from the greatest story ever told.
“Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness.”
Wayne Dyer
itsawonderfilledlife 