Without Some Method, Any Creative Process Is, Sadly, Only Madness.

I’m always busy. If I’m not busy doing work for my clients I’m busy marketing my business. It’s like a cyclone or hurricane that has been swirling around me since the early 1970s.

I’ve been in this hurricane for so long that I truly believe I would be lost without it. But every once in a while, like today, I drift into the eye of the storm and find myself with that I call the Think Day

What this means is that I will be able to clear my head a bit to make room for some new thinking that needs to be done in preparation for getting sucked back into the storm.

These days start at about 8:00 in bed, when I am simply lying prone and going though things in my head. I am fortunate to have incredible credible clarity in the morning.

Within that clarity is it possible to see things in great detail, and because I have a writer’s brain, once ideas enter, they tend to stick around and remain fairly vivid until they are spit out onto a page or computer screen.

None of this, and I count myself fortunate in this regard, has ever fucked up my head in any way. Because at an early age, and though the help of some pretty amazing drugs, and a pretty amazing friend, I was able to teach myself a very important mental trick…compartmentalization.

Compartmentalization In Action

Compartmentalization, and the ability to do that well is all that stands between my sanity and the chaos that would most likely result in some sort of nasty addiction or harmful coping mechanism.

I learned this technique in a conversation I had with a very famous person whom I was fortunate enough to get to know well in the early days of my professional writing career.

This person was a musician, singer, songwriter and performer. One day we were talking about his creative process and as this person described the process to me, I realized that what he was doing was compartmentalizing the entire journey of creating an album, which, back then was still 12 inches in diameter and made of vinyl.

He created all the chords he was interested in on a guitar, and wrote then down. Then he created melodies for those chords and refined them one by one. Then the went away and wrote lyrics for all the music. Then he recoded the demo versions of each song, refining them even further. They he got his band together and gave them all the songs, and they all worked as a unit to create the full arrangements of those songs.

They did this all one song at at time, because they were confident that the songwriter’s vision of the whole album was solid. After a lot of fine tuning and meshing of various parts, they went into the studio, and very efficiently recorded the album. Then the boss and his engineer and maybe sometimes a producer, would mix the album until it was in synch with the idea that was in his head.

Now I have read enough musical bios to know that this compartmentalization method doesn’t work for every band or every collaborative process. But there was something about it that really appealed to me.

And after my agency career was over and I started to wear not just a writer hat but also those of an art director, strategist and producer,

I found that this methodology that I acquired from the very famous person served me well.

And I still use it to this day.

How This Works For Me

The learning here is simple. Everybody needs some sort of method or structure to work within. Not having this structure will invariably reduce the chances of actually getting anything done.

My preference, and I stress that is not useful for everyone, is one of compartmentalization.

I tend to work from start to finish on one thing at at time. A good example of this are these longer format piece that I write.

1. I think though the whole idea of what I want to say

2. I figure out where I want to start and where I want to end up.

3. I write the entire piece all at once. (And it’s relatively easy to do if you have done 1 and 2.

4. I fine tune this while proofing it.

5. I publish it and hope for the best

6. I try as hard as possible to stay true to this process on every job or piece I want to create.

So there you go. Another valuable creative insight from someone who does this for a living and has since dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Take this advice for what it is, and go do some good shit. Be part of the stuff that makes the world a better place. And don’t let anything or anyone discourage you.

jim out

In addition to being a beBee Brand Ambassador, Jim Murray is a marketer and creative professional. His partner, Charlene Norman is marketing strategist and operations tactician. Their collaboration, Bullet Proof Consulting, specializes in Brand Engineering: Helping companies achieve more effective branding, stronger reputation management, greater productivity, higher efficiencies, and ultimately, increased profits. In short, Bullet Proof helps companies change their thinking for the better. Find out more at www.bulletproofconsulting.ca

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