The Perils of Creativity

Creativity is elusive, tantalizing, edifying, agonizing, or — with apologies to my English teachers for ending a sentence with a preposition — some combination thereof. Throughout my life, I’ve gone through phases in which I’m extremely productive, and others in which I feel like a barking seal.

The past two to three weeks have felt more like the latter than the former.

January typically is a low-key time. The days are cold and short, the streets are deserted, and my muse usually is in hibernation mode until after my birthday in the middle of the month. Considering the four birthdays and two major holidays that occur in the 30- to 35-day period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I guess that comes as no surprise.

But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

I have four primary hobbies — writing, photography, reading, and listening to music. The first two qualify as active, while the third and fourth vascillate between active and passive. When they work together in groups or in tandem, I am at my best, but recently they haven’t been working at all, even in isolation.

After reading six books in six weeks, I’ve had trouble finishing a long-form magazine article. As for taking pictures, I’ve spent most of my time going through the more than 5,000 I took in 2010 — most of them in an 11-month period. (Last January wasn’t too hot either…)

After writing a variety of blog entries in November and December — so much to process in so little time — this is the first of 2011. I have started and stopped several other essays during this period — another source of frustration — that ended up as part of the Fragments series.

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve compensated by engaging in two other enjoyable, though extremely passive pastimes — watching football and going to movies. Fortunately, between the NFL playoffs and the Oscar contenders moving into wide release, January is the month for both.

Slowly, I can feel the muse is getting restless again. On a single train ride from New York to Virginia, I managed to complete two long-overdue entries that I hope you will enjoy in the coming days.

My brain is filling up with things to process, and rather than feeling saturated or spent, I’m starting to feel like I can deliver on them again. My desire to get outside and be creative is back.

In other words, look out, folks…