What is the creative process

What is the creative process? That is what I have been searching for several months now.  Before the question was asked, I hadn’t really thought of it. To me I believed that I was either creative at certain times, which were usually spontaneous, or I was stagnant.

. What I have discovered since studying my own creative process is that my analysis has become less about “significant” creative output such as songs I write or me actually sitting down and choreographing something, but rather my study has turned into more about the creative process in every day tasks. Noticing how I go about walking home, cooking a meal, opening a door, have become more intriguing to me.

When I was younger, I did several things differently when I created than when I do now. I used to notice smaller details and become enthralled and completely distracted with them. I used to take photographs of the same space as it changed over several weeks, and I would get more wrapped up in creating something like a painting, or writing a play, without judging who would see it. As I have grown up and gone to school for music, my creative process has been about priority of “importance” and if something will satisfy an audience or myself at the end. This mindset has generally stunted the beginning and the further development of most creative ideas that pass through my mind. Another aspect of creating that I have lost somewhat is spontaneity and improvisation. I find now that I think very hard about what I want to hear if I compose a piece of music. When I was younger, I would sit at the piano and play for hours just composing, following the flow of my fingers and would often record these, but not go back to them to revise.

I am working to use my analytical developed “refined” taste and sensibilities as well as skills such as time management, organization and combine it with the more innocent and organic flow of creativity that I tucked in the back of my mind from my childhood. The concept of practicing the creative process is a conflicting idea to me. In some ways I see the benefit in analyzing my own process to make it stronger and more effective and efficient to me. I also see that this could be detrimental to the free flowing or impulsive or even instinctive imagination I have inside.