Do you think it’s something particular about working in a so-called ‘creative’ job that means people ask writers about what they do and how they do it?

Wait, that doesn’t sound right. Let me clarify. I’ll start with the first part, and explain why I put ‘creative’ in inverted commas…

I’m a writer (obviously, or I wouldn’t be trapped in this cave) and it seems to me that most people I talk to see this as a ‘creative’ job. Yes – it is. But I’m not entirely sure that it’s any more creative, necessarily, than any other job. Surely it’s the way you do it that decides whether it’s creative or not?

I think you can be a writer yet not be especially creative (though I admit it would be hard to be successful) just as I think there are loads of firefighters, dentists, accountants, construction workers, IT specialists, engineers, solicitors (etc) who apply a huge amount of creativity to their work. In fact, I think it would also be hard to be successful in any of those jobs without applying a little creative thinking every now and again.

So onto the second part, which is that this perception of creativity makes people curious about how things are done when I go to work. I can understand this. Writing novels can seem a very mysterious thing if you’ve never sat down and tried it. Yet at the same time, people find it hard to believe that their jobs are just as mysterious to me. What does an accountant actually do all day? How do they do it? Where do they get their ideas from?

Everything I know about writing stories and being creative I learned from being a songwriter. That was my first profession. It was a profession I’d been preparing for over many years. I’d read about it, studied it, worked at it… then became diverted from it when I found myself producing books!

All of this is a bit of a preamble to me explaining that much of my inspiration and motivation still comes from the same places that I went to when I was a songwriter. So here’s a little article I just read that applies to songwriting, novel writing, any kind of writing, but also to all those jobs that people might not think are obviously ‘creative’. They are. So I suppose I’m saying that this could apply to a lot of people.

Or maybe it’s just me. Oh well, check it out and let me know…

http://sivers.org/goals

It’s called ‘Goals Shape the Present, Not the Future’ and it begins:

You have a goal you’ve been putting off.

If it was a great goal, you would have jumped into action already. You wouldn’t wait. Nothing would stop you.

Sobering thoughts for those moments when I’m trying desperately hard to write and a bit of my brain just can’t get going.