Although yesterday didn’t see a new post on the blog here from the #Trust30 challenge, I’m still creating. I spent the day working on plans to migrate and upgrade some of the websites I own and run, including this very blog, which the eagle-eyed among you will have noticed isn’t where it used to be.
I’ve also been working on a page to collate everything I do and advertise myself to the widest possible audience. The page should be live in the next couple of days, but here’s a sneaky few peaks:
One of the interesting things about taking on a challenge like #Trust30 is the imperative to create.
Normally, we create out of a desire, out of inspiration that comes in many different forms, whether it be business ideas, marketing concepts or works of art. By being part of a month-long initiative to create something every day, the onus is switched from inspiration to perspiration – we are forced to work to conjure something to post or begin.
Of course, creation-to-order is nothing new – media and ad agencies1 develop fresh, innovative ideas every day, under pressures from clients only too happy to take their business elsewhere if they’re are unimpressed.
So can creativity be forced? Is it possible to access the hidden banks of ideas in our heads to keep the creativity waterfall flowing, or are the people who do it day-in, day-out simply overwhelmingly talented and in touch with their creative hemisphere in their heads?
Truly creative people are able to create from nothing in an instant. It may not be a polished, finished product or idea, but their brains work in such a way as to always be able to supply something. But I also believe that there’s no such thing as a “non-creative” – everyone is capable of it, one just needs to learn how to harness the creative muscle and make it work for you like anything else.
Yesterday I pledged myself to taking part in the Domino Project, Ralph Waldo Emerson-inspired #Trust30 project to create something new everyday.
As I headed to bed this evening, it occurred to me that I hadn’t written anything on the blog today. Sure, I busied myself with updating and catching up on The Indie Film Hub, which had also been hit by my minor health detour last week, but did that qualify under #Trust30 rules?
What is “creation” – how do we define it? How do I define it is probably the more pertinent question; the one thing we can safely say about all art and creativity is that it’s entirely subjective.
For me, this blog represents creation; the Hub represents curation, a very different thing. Even though I create new content to post every day, what I’m actually doing is curating the content I believe to be of value to other filmmakers and people who work in film. The content itself – the lessons, the examples, the information – is all created by the hugely talented people whose blogs, websites and newsletters I read every day.
So what is creation? For me, creation is about intent. Creation is about originating something that serves a purpose. It doesn’t have to be a higher purpose. It doesn’t even have to be a purpose that matters to anyone else. When I first started blogging, I wrote entirely for myself, to motivate me and to explore my life and my feelings. That’s a purpose. That’s creation.
By that definition, I suppose the Hub does represent that. So why doesn’t it feel that way?
What’s your definition of creation? Is it word-count, impact, intention? Or is it more ethereal, more intangible?
After the travails of the last three weeks1, it’s time to get back to the business of blogging and creating top-quality content for all my readers again.
To that end, a very useful little initiative popped up in my Google Reader RSS feed this morning – The Domino Project‘s #Trust30 initiative, based around their new release Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
#Trust30 is a month-long commitment to create something new every day for 30 days, whether it’s blogging, writing, painting, filmmaking or anything in between. The aim is simple to create.
I’m committed, are you? If you’ll be taking part, leave us a link to your site in the comments so we can all help to hold each other accountable.
It’s a very badly hidden secret that I’m a loyal supporter and devotee of Seth Godin, the man I can most single-handedly credit with re-energising me in my low moments and helping me believe that anything is possible.
Never more so than with the latest free eBook from his Domino Project publishing company. Not only is it a great example of using something you give away for free (the ‘SXSW Pokes‘ eBook) to promote something you’re selling (the full-length ‘Poke the Box‘ book and eBook), it’s also full of stories that help you realise that anything really is possible.
The single most important element of SXSW Pokes is that it’s not just a few people telling stories that make you think, “Well, I could have done that if I’d thought of it first,” but instead contains 50 stories from people who make you think, “If they can do that with their lives, just think what I could do with mine.”
I cannot stress just how important I think this book is for anyone to read. Go get it.
If you are the only one getting in your own way of going after your dreams, stop and realize that you are the last person who should be doing that!
What’s your lifelong dream? As you step out to make it real, reach out to someone you’d like to know and emulate. That one phone call may change your life forever!
The initiative I took for myself will always remind me that I’m teh one driving this train, and that I’m accountable to ther person in the mirror most of all.
Just before Christmas, Seth Godin, über-leader of tribes and the man behind the seminal ideavirus revolution, created the website for a new publishing project aiming to launch in early 2011, in association with Amazon.
If you haven’t already, go subscribe to their newsletter and have a look around the site. The Domino Project is, in their own words1, “reinventing what it means to be a publisher”.
These are exciting times for global publishing; when someone with Seth’s ability, influence and forward-thinking partners up with such a global powerhouse as Amazon something exciting is likely to happen, whatever it may eventually be.
If you want to be a part of it, they’re also looking for a Domino Street Team across the world to help them roll out their plans throughout the next 6 months or so. You can read more about the role and the people they’re looking for here or head straight over to the application form and dive right in2; I already have.
The Domino Project is named after the domino effect—one powerful idea spreads down the line, pushing from person to person. The Project represents a fundamental shift in the way books (and digital media based on books) have always been published. Eventually consisting of a small cadre of stellar authors, this is a publishing house organized around a new distribution channel, one that wasn’t even a fantasy when most publishers began.
The Domino Project, thedominoproject.com