Running out of juice…

Why did the orange stop? It ran out of juice.

I may have mentioned that I’m going through a lull, one of those times where my creative juices don’t seem to be flowing very freely. I guess most people don’t worry about these things, but I do. It’s almost as if my life is a bit less lived when I don’t feel the urge to create something. Of course I could always force myself, but what is the point of that? Forced thrills aren’t thrilling at all.

I’m sure that there are people in this world who wake up each morning full of the creative vibe and ready to create from the moment they’ve finished their muesli. These are the people that make it their business to be creative each and every moment of the day and who, sometimes at least, have huge success with their outputs. I’m thinking Picasso, Stephen King, David Bowie. They are (or were) fountains of creative juice that can’t be stemmed.

I’m not one of those. Compared to these, and so many more, I’m a trickle.

Of course they say that there’s a creative process. Is that really true? Surely process kills creativity; at least it does in my experience of being creative. Process, a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end, is by definition ordered and planned and surely that isn’t what getting the creative juices flowing is all about. Isn’t creativity a little bit chaotic, anarchic, random, and isn’t that what attracted me to it in the first place?

Is it?

I suppose that it could be. After all, when making an omelette it’s no use cracking the eggs after the other ingredients have been eaten. Perhaps my approach is too random; maybe I should try harder and work to a method. Perhaps I already am, or maybe I’m too structured. What if the true creative cracks those eggs at the end of the process, what if he never cracks them at all?

I’m talking nonsense now I think. Even so, getting the creative juices flowing is such an effort sometimes, almost painful, so difficult. Sometimes it’s bound to be nonsense. Sometimes I find myself asking why I do it. Why do I even bother to try when most of the time it’s a struggle and all of the time it’s a disappointment?

The answer to that question is that I don’t know, I really don’t know – and if I don’t know then maybe I should stop.

Or do it more.

Perhaps that orange should have been clockwork; rather than relying on juice.