Interrupting that Creative Flow: Please Stop

In Composing a Symphony, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky talks about how a creative person is always working. Even if he is not inspired, he can't just sit around and wait for a good idea to be bestowed upon him. And once he does get inspired, it is extremely annoying when someone breaks his creative flow.

This used to happen to me all the time in high school. I'd be writing a paper for a class when I'd hear "Samantha, dinner!" And I would scream back, "I'm in the zone, Mom. I can't eat now!" So I got used to reheating the dinner from that night.

It happened a lot in my Creative Writing class as well. I would write continuously for the entire period, and then be forced to stop by the screeching bell commanding me to go to my next class. I can't leave now!! I thought. (And then the song "I Can't Stop" by Flux Pavillion would start playing in my head).

I'm always thinking about what my next idea is going to be for a project, or a story I'd like to write one day. Which is why I have so many random notes saved in my phone. When I'm bored I'll look back at the notes and edit them, add to them, take things out, etc. Tchaikovsky talks about the creative process, saying: "The process is something more than copying; it is actually a critical examination, leading to correction, occasional additions and frequent curtailments.” A lot of my ideas never take off, yet some of them develop and become realities. 

I think part of the reason why my group's Golden Doorknob film is working out so well (thus far) is because no one interrupted our creative flow. Dana, Taylor, and I literally sat at a table in the campus center dining hall for hours just talking. No one had to go to class or finish writing a paper. We developed and wrote a storyboard for the project that day. Then we began searching for other people who wanted to help us out, and would be just as excited as we were about the video. That helped our creative process as well. When people aren't constantly belittling your ideas, you get stuff done. "Teamwork makes the dreamwork," my senior year English teacher always used to say. 

Amen.

Dana and our amazing editor, Andrew in post-production.