4 When and where do you create? When and where do you wish to create?
I actually do not have a specific time or place to work out my creative musings, and I am beginning to think that I might be more productive if I did. My work tends to travel around the house, depending on when and where I feel like coming to rest. That's the problem with knitting and crocheting I guess - it's portable. It may start life in the living room because I'm watching TV, but then I might migrate to the music room or the dining room or even the backyard. Maybe my 'where' is just simply 'Home'. My sewing room, our extra bedroom, used to be my 'place' but now it's become more of a storage closet in the last few months, housing anything that I can't find a place for in the rest of the house.
As for time, this is probably an issue that I need to resolve. I do not have good time management skills at all - not even remotely good ones. It might take me half an hour to get one room vacuumed because I will get distracted somewhere in the middle of it and start doing something else. I do not have a set time for creativity. Whenever I am not at work, not teaching piano lessons, not cleaning the house and not caring for my husband's needs. Sometimes I get an entire day to be creative. Sometimes I don't have a single moment's peace. Most of the time I am lucky to get half an hour before bed in the evening and it's when I'm tired, my thoughts are going into hibernation for the night and Alex is trying to force me into watching television with him becase that's how he winds down. I have never had a set time for creativity to flow.
Another problem I have with the 'time' aspect of creativity is simply that I don't really have the support. Now, before you think my husband is squelching my creativity, please understand that if he didn't keep me on track with things, I would be a complete mental case. I would be a hoarder, the city would forclose on my house, and I would probably never bathe. This is because if I don't have someone reminding me to care for things, one task at a time, I get into obsessive grooves that I don't come out of. I could literally spend an entire week doing a certain set of projects and never do anything else that week except pee. I often forget to eat during the day if I'm working on something. There could be a small list of chores and I will convince myself that they will take care of themselves because 'I'm busy creating something dammit all!' I do not have a healthy mental state when it comes to living life like a normal person should. When Alex comes home and sees that I've literally done nothing but sit on the couch all day with a crochet hook in hand, he gets annoyed and starts forcing me into finishing the tasks I should have worked on during the day. Now do I get upset and annoyed with this? Absolutely. But I need it. I am very co-dependent in these regards. Does my creativity suffer? I think so. I think my opportunities for inspiration are already few and far between, and when my husband comes home after a long day at work to find out that his wife has more or less failed to hold up her end of the bargain, he doesn't really feel like supporting my hare-brained ideas. He's also terribly practical to my terribly 'out-there' way of thinking. They do say opposites attract.
BTW, my husband is an AMAZING guitarist, so if I have portrayed him as not being a creative type, it's incorrect. His musical genius surpasses most - he just channels it differently. He has logic and practicality to his advantage. I..... do not.
Since I will begin a lighter work schedule next week, I am going to start establishing my creative times and getting the routine into a set schedule. I am hoping to establish 3 times per week where I can simply sit down and produce ideas and work on projects. I have to work this out with Alex, but I think in the long run it will be a great advantage to both of us.
And as for the migrating projects, I don't think that's likely to die as quickly as it should, but we DID start cleaning out the sewing room again.
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