Time to Write

How to Stay Creative Despite the Pandemic

The pandemic has gotten in the way of many people's usual means of expressing their creativity. However, it has also prompted some of them to find alternatives.

FROM THEATRE TO SCREEN

The Salt Lake Acting Company was about to celebrate their 50th season before the pandemic closed down their theatre. "And [the question] was how do theater people do theatre without a theatre?"

They decided to connect with audiences remotely by producing a series of digital shorts they shared on YouTube. These pieces average five minutes and feature a variety of formats. Instead of just shooting material intended for the stage, they created new scripts.

If you're interested in having a look, this is the link: https://www.youtube.com/user/saltlakeactingcom/videos

HOW TO LABEL ART

Bombay Sapphire drinks company is releasing bottles of their Bombay Bramble featuring the work of three up-and-coming artists on the labels. The company initiated this, but it makes me wonder whether artists could explore doing something similar with other brands that want the public relations value of supporting the arts.

WORKING WHILE WALKING

British photographer and agency owner Rankin says, "I'm currently working from my walk. Every morning between 6am and 8am I walk with my dogs and dictate emails or listen to books...I find myself having to be very disciplined in making sure I find ways to inspire myself...In my opinion, you can be more creative if you find some form of boredom in your life." (The full interview with Rankin is here.)

What can you do to make sure you are keeping your creativity active?

Feel better and write better with joy triggers

It's easy to feel overcome with anxieties these days, and often that leads to writers block or just a lack of motivation.

Arianna Huffington has a method that's worth trying. She called them joy triggers. Those are pictures, words, or memories that give you joy. They remind you of the positive things in your life, or those you were privileged to have in your life previously. 

For ease of use, you can make up a little joy triggers scrapbook in which you paste photos (print them out from your digital files) and key words or phrases. They can represent things that gave you joy in the past, give you joy now, or things you're looking forward to.

It's easy to forget to use them, so it may be helpful to get in the habit of starting and ending your day with them, and also to set a timer to remind you to do it a couple of times a day. Or, if you find yourself feeling low, that can be the trigger.

Below is one of my joy triggers, the lovely Great Dane named Audrey who we have had the pleasure of dog-sitting over the past three years. She's now ten, which is quite old for that breed--I think of her as the Maggie Smith of Great Danes.

Give your own joy triggers a try and feel free to let me know how you get on, either in the comments are at [email protected]

 

How to Worry

How annoying is it when people tell you not to worry?

Very, right? It's almost like saying, don't be so tall or so short.

Simply willing yourself to stop sure isn't enough. However, I ran across an idea that might help:

Therapist Jenny Taitz tells her clients to schedule a 30-minute or two 15-minute sessions of worrying. You can worry about several things or focus on one. You can list the worries and jot down ideas for how you might deal with each one, or you can just review the worries. 

I tried this quite a while ago and I did find it helpful. It doesn't totally free you from worrying the rest of the time, of course, but I found it easier to dismiss the worries when they came up outside of the appointed times. I found that one fifteen-minute period was enough, and I set a timer so that I wouldn't get lost in thought and go over the time limit.

There's certainly enough to worry about these days and if you find yourself being overwhelmed, give this a try. Feel free to let me know how you get on, either in the comments or at [email protected]. Good luck!