Routines can cause creativity to flourish. They also can destroy it. It all depends on how they’re implemented and managed.
For example, I have a standard routine when it comes to my writing and drawing. It’s a sort of ritual that prepares me to do the work. Once I start it, my mind, heart, and body recognize it’s time to work. They may struggle against the routine, but they’ll eventually obey. The routine becomes paramount, not the end product itself. The end product doesn’t matter just yet. What matters is getting the words and the pencil strokes on the page. A beginning always is better than no beginning.
Sometimes, though, the mind, heart, and body rebel. They refuse to work no matter how ironclad the routine. At those times, I have to remember grace. My routine failed today. I can try again tomorrow and the day after that. The routine is a tool to get the work done. I may pretend it’s the supreme commander so that I don’t flake out on the days “I don’t want to,” but I know it needs to be deposed from time to time. On the days I rebel against the routine or find myself sinking into a pit of disappointment, despair, and frustration, I stage a coup. I free myself from my routine. I need to do something else, pursue something that restores my soul and sanity.
Routines, too, can become ruts – something to be avoided as a writer and an artist. Luci Shaw says a writer has to be “a pioneer, working close to the cutting edge of innovation, attempting the original, the untried. She or he must constantly reinvent a personal style, not rut-bound; must attempt the experimental, the stylistic branching out. Even if it fails, it constitutes a form of growth.” A routine can cause me to play it safe, to fall into repetitive motions of writing and phrasing. I have to be aware of those things and force myself to take risks.
Risk-taking can occur within that routine; it provides a necessary foundation for launching myself and my art into the unknown. With it, I can explore new modes and methods. I can test a different style because the routine sets me free to be a “pioneer.” The routine can cause creativity to flourish, but only if I don’t allow it to kill creativity with its hard-nosed laws and deeply-engrained ruts.
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