Fanning the Flames: Adding Fuel to your Creative Fire

Now that we’ve looked at the fire of our creativity and witnessed its passion, power, and purpose, we need to take stock of how we add fuel to keep those fires burning, however they show up in our lives. The fuel will be as diverse as the creatives who use it to feed their fires. However, certain tenets will hold true across the board. 

We all have moments on our creative journey and within specific creative projects where we lag, are worn down, and frankly want to scrap it all and walk away. In those moments, in the times when creating feels heavy, water logged, and hard, we need to fan the flames of our passion for a creative life and find ways to keep the fire burning. 

Fuel and Fans - what’s the difference?

Fuel is what we add to our creativity to keep us going - essentially self care in its varied forms - physical, mental, spiritual, emotional. Movement, journaling, nature, freedom of expression. This conversation is one we keep coming back to and it’s one that is always evolving and shifting the narrative. Self care gets used as a way to escape or decrease accountability. I am a huge supporter of grace in our lives in so far as it is helpful in overcoming shame for a creative life, guilt over shifting priorities to fit our season of life, and being kinder to ourselves in a world that would have us burnout and rot. However, resilience, and accountability are the flip side of the grace coin and self care often becomes a little lost in translation. 

Fueling Self Care in the Creative Practice

Physical - Movement breaks, snack breaks, skin care, comfy clothing - all of these things contribute to our physical health and wellbeing which is paramount to being able to actively create. Our physical bodies do the creating, to care for them is to fuel our very bones to sustain creative work. Creating takes a physical toll whether from sitting in one attitude, prolonged creative sessions, or using our bodies as the actual tool in our creative expression. Taking care of our bodies through movement, nourishment, and hygiene adds fuel to the fire by making us feel prepared, refreshed, and invigorated. 

Mental - Structure and presence - the two pieces that bring peace and stability to our mental state allowing us to dial into our creativity and find respite in it. We like to think that we, humans, don’t need structure, that no rules and being left to our own devices is better than living by someone else’s clock - and while someone else' s clock might not work for us, we have our own rhythms that help us work best when we structure our lives and practices around them. It’s not a lack of structure, but a better understanding of our own rhythms that can help us lock in and stay present long enough to see ourselves with clarity and compassion. A much better mindset to bring to our creative practices and projects. 

Emotional - Grounding and expression are key components of the emotional vulnerability required to create. They are also two techniques for taking care of our emotional health both inside and outside of the creative practice. Taking a few minutes at the start and end of each creative session to simply hurl emotional bombs at the wall and see what sticks and what falls away can allow for more clarity and exploration when we step into our creative projects. Alternatively grounding ourselves in an emotion we are seeking to understand or work through can afford us more freedom as we create. Creativity asks us to actively engage with our emotions on a visceral level, having healthy outlets for emotional output outside of our creativity helps to maintain clarity and peace in the process. Whether that’s journaling on your own, therapy sessions, weekend catch ups with friends, or grounding in community and purpose, emotional wellbeing will bleed into every component of your creative life.  

Spiritual - This isn’t about religion or belief. Spiritual wellbeing in this context of a creative life is about settling into a pace of peace and curating an environment that drives purpose; a space centers creative intent. Spending time in nature, being intentional with the ideation phase of the process, and leaving sacred space to daydream and envision give the creative wiggle room to pivot, evaluate, and slow down to really see yourself in the work, and the larger goal of impact. Spiritual self care may be setting intentions for a creative session, taking inspiration from nature or grandeur in the world around you, or appreciating the sacred calling that creativity aspires to. However you take care of that ephemeral quality of yourself and your creativity, remember that you are the vessel through which creativity becomes reality.  

Fans are drivers like romanticizing, connection, spontaneity, or consumption. They are ways we engage with our creative practice and show up in places of inspiration and momentum. These are the mechanisms, the habits, the changes in the wind that help us reignite that spark to see us through a creative rough patch or long project. It’s important to keep in mind that all of these fans that can keep creativity burning can also be used to create a smoke screen that keeps us from our creativity as well. Everything in moderation and to serve a purpose. 

Romanticizing - I love romanticizing creativity in my life. I also know that nothing will get done unless I sit down when I don’t want to and simply do it. For me, romanticizing my creative practice looks like settling into my favourite chair, using a gorgeous leather bound jacket (an incredible gift for my thirtieth birthday) for my idea notebook, hoarding my favourite pens like gold, and maybe pouring a glass of wine to start my next blog post. It’s a sacred space, ritual component, a romantic atmosphere that I create just for me and my creativity. The point is, this romanticizing helps get my butt in the chair to write, it helps me get in the right headspace to go to the studio for class. Having rose coloured glasses when it comes to our creativity can give us that boost of excitement, especially during a rough patch. 

Connection - This takes us outside of our hermit practice and brings us into creative community. You may be part of a writer’s group, artist collective, or bookclub already. These connections to others who also value creativity is paramount to jump starting a creative lull. I am fortunate to have several friends who are creative and generous and simply delightful. Those connections fuel my desire to create more after a single conversation on a random Tuesday night than hours spent sitting in front of my computer. Whether people in your life or strangers in an online community, connection to humans and especially other creatives who understand protecting a creative practice in the middle of a life are the connections that propel you forward on your journey. 

Spontaneity - This mechanism sparks a sense of adventure, freshness, and brings passion back into the mix of a long project. It doesn’t always have to look like a chaotic last minute writing sprint on the subway, or a haphazard idea-a-thon at two am. Spontaneity in the creative practice can be choosing to paint outside instead of in your studio space. It can look like starting your session with a writing exercise about three colours you see at that moment, or using twigs you found on your daily walk to make patterns on your table. This method can shake new ideas loose and inject fresh perspective into a longer project. Routine is important, we can’t always wait around for inspiration to strike, but we also get stuck in ruts more often than we’d care to admit. Be strategic; fan the flames of your creativity with some fun in unexpected ways. 

Consumption - What better way to fan the flames than to consume the creativity that lights you up. This is a dangerous one. It can stall you and take you out of your own creative pursuits, but it can also inspire, empower, and embolden you to create more. Balance is key when it comes to consuming creativity and actually creating your own work. In my practice this phase comes in waves. But the tides always recede, leaving me time to reflect and create before I get swept up again in a good book or a new obsession with a live show. It’s also a great way to build community - supporting local indie creatives and joining the network of people who only want to see creativity thrive in a world that needs more of it day by day. 

Whether you’re adding fuel to your fire or fanning the flames higher, pouring into your creativity is investing in your soul. So much of what we do as creatives can feel draining - the vulnerability, the promotion, the output. Here we see how much our efforts affect our creative practice and that we can be equally as effective at filling our wells.