A Year in the Life of Creativity
It’s hard to believe that my creativity blog is already a year old! Producing three posts a month has been exciting, invigorating, and challenging. As the second year of the blog begins, it’s an ideal time to look both backward and forward.
The Pre-Launch
My serious interest in the topic of creativity began several years ago, but the idea to create a website and a blog about the topic began in earnest about 18 months ago. At that time, I started discussing the concept with friends and trusted advisors and sought technical expertise from trained professionals.
Most importantly, I began to plan out topics and write outlines for potential posts. By the time the look of the logo and the site were in development, I had several months of content planned.
I was writing full blog posts from the beginning of the year, so when the site launched at the end of May, there were five months of content (15 posts) up for readers to enjoy immediately.
In The Beginning
The first posts in my blog covered some of the fundamentals of creativity. I provided a working definition of creativity and explored the brain science and personal processes of imagination. There were also auto-biographical posts that explained my creative journey and ways that I use creativity to welcome more abundance into my life.
A topic that rose organically from events in the world and in my personal life was that of diversity and inclusion. The first post on this topic explored the link between creativity and inclusivity. It was followed by related posts about keeping cultural heritage celebrations inclusive and on celebrating LGBTQIA Pride Month more creatively.
Creativity and Emotions
It wasn’t until I looked back on my first year of posts that I began to see clusters of topics. One of those was related to the connection between creativity and emotions. From the five love languages to the creativity of kindness, topics regarding positive emotions have been an important aspect of the website’s first year. On the other end of the spectrum, I also explored how negative emotions could become your creative nemesis.
Celebrations
I admit that I am a sucker for holidays and other occasions for celebration. Events that break up the monotony of daily life are opportunities for exercising our imagination. Because of this, it is no surprise that such events should be a frequent topic in a blog about creativity. In the springtime I wrote about the tradition of May baskets. In the summer, I mused on memories of a Fourth of July boat parade.
As the fall and winter holidays approached, I began writing posts about creativity in those celebrations. I expounded on reshaping holiday traditions to better suite our personalities, tastes, and personal circumstances. That process of personalization led me to discover what has become one of my favorite crafts for the winter holidays: the pomander ball. Two posts focused on this craft: one was about personalization and the other one offered instruction on how to make a pomander that is as different from mine as possible.
A Few Favorites
Not all of the posts from the first year clustered around a particular theme. Some of my favorites have been stand-alone posts. In a post that I loved writing, I used eighties nostalgia as a way to talk about cultural, geographical, or historical references and the importance of not going immediately to the most obvious allusion. Rather, it is almost always more creative to plumb the B-team of cultural references.
Two of my favorite posts were more narrative than informational. One told the story of a classroom discussion of Jell-O salads. Another related a mostly true ghost story having to do with a group of college students, a mysterious stranger, and a road trip to a haunted church.
Memory, travel, and dreams are topics that fascinate me. One of my favorite early posts had to do with a recurring dream I have about traveling without my passport. My last post of the year had to do with memory and photography, but not in the context of vacations, but rather in reference to winters in my home town.
Looking Ahead
In the coming year, the blog will continue to be about creativity, and many of my favorite themes will undoubtedly surface. I do, however, want to expand the scope of my posts.
In the following months, I want to investigate creativity in a variety of realms, including the arts, but also beyond them. To this end, I hope to add interviews with fellow creatives into the repertoire. Many inciteful people have written about creativity, and I would love to review some of their work in this venue. Finally, I hope to add more of my own creative writing (memoire and short stories, especially) into the mix. In the end, I would like to be more creative in the ways that I shed light on the various manifestations of imagination.
What would you like to see in the coming year in my blog? Please let me know through the contact page.
I wish you a happy, creative, and fulfilling year to come!