We’ve been doing the Write Without the Fight 5-day Challenge this week, and one of the tenets of creativity that I teach is and believe in is –
Creativity responds to positivity. It is chilled by judgment and bullying.
And yet, when we aren’t writing and days or weeks go by, what do we likely do? Scold ourselves. Sometimes even threaten? If you don’t get this done, you’re not… (fill in your own blank.) We think we can bully ourselves back to our desks, and somehow magically, once we grab ourselves by the ear, and make the wretch sit their ass down, they’ll somehow magically create.
Creativity likes hugs, not thugs.
The Creative Selfie Retreat
In 2 weeks, October 22-23, there will be a gathering of the curious, excited, positive, and creative people on the banks of the river Zoom, and we hope you’ll be among us. We are going to come together and take the Creative Selfie – three creativity assessments that give a person a well-rounded view of their creative abilities, preferences and opportunities.
The Creative Selfie is my own curation of three bona fide peer-reviewed creativity assessments that each paint a different picture and give the participant a different angled view of their own ways of thinking.
Can Creativity be assessed?
Legit question. Traditionally we assess creativity only on what has been created. Margaret Atwood, of A Handmaid’s Tale? Creative. Margaret so-and-so? She’s only dubbed creative if her creativity has been finished, put out in the world and broadly accepted. That way of judging creativity might work for the world, but it sucks for the (would-be) creative person.
We want to know if/how creative we are, now, long before we finish things, publish or win awards.
The Creative Selfie gives you that insight into yourself, that hope for a future that’s within your talent’s grasp. You can read much more about what the Creative Selfie is here. As I said this week, the Creative Selfie is the bedrock of my personal beliefs about what is worth teaching of creative theory and creativity coaching.
The Creative Selfie empowers, enlightens and jumpstarts writers to start, keep at, finish and submit their creative visions.
Why a retreat?
This is the first time I’ll be offering it in the form of a “retreat.” Friday evening 4-6pm, and Saturday 9am-5pm (all Pacific Time) and I’m excited bec I know this will give us the opportunity to not just learn new information about ourselves, but also feel it.
Our own creativity is precious. And our egos protect it from the slings and arrows of others. If you’re even one iota creative, you’ve been teased for it. For being “weird” or “nit-picking,” “perfectionist” or “head in the clouds.” It can be hard to see your creativity objectively. It can take time for new – even factual – information to come in and alter your sense of your own creativity. For this reason, I feel time and a safe space, activities and community will help make the assessments and their information land better.
Why get assessed?
If you know me, even casually, you know I’m creative and you probably also think I’m something like, “flighty” or “crazy” or “out there.” And, of course, you wouldn’t be wrong, exactly. I’m all those things. But bec of the creativity assessments in the Creative Selfie, I’m not only that. I’m able to shift gears better and perceive what I should work on, have my same great, original, out-there ideas, but select and perfect them better and get things done.
Because of the assessments in the Creative Selfie, I have built something I truly care about – something I set out to build and have succeeded in doing – my creative life, surrounded by writers, with time baked into my life to write regularly.
I’ve done that steadily over the past 6 years, and I had the steam and ability to keep at it, bec of what I learned about myself in creativity assessments. And creativity tools.
Before that I was constantly creative, always busy, and never amounting to what I was hoping to create. Never finishing what I started. Now, I have a non-fiction book – Write Without the Fight – finished and in editing phase, and a first full draft of two novels written – with distinct plans for how and when I’ll re-approach these works.
Come to the Creative Selfie Retreat
Have some fun. Get your mind blown. Start fresh on Monday with a new origin story.
Starting today, I get it. I get me. I get how to put all of my creativity into what I’m doing and bring about the best work that is in me.
That could be you. And if you want, you could even get yourself a cape. Hope you’ll come to the Creative Selfie Retreat.