Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is that the work brings inspiration. If you want
Speaker 1: more ideas, set aside a regular time to do creative work.
Speaker 1: Most likely the ideas will get in the habit of coming.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is based on my recent interview with novelist
Speaker 1: Camille Pagan. Recently, Before Breakfast has started featuring one longer
Speaker 1: episode a week where I interview someone interesting about how
Speaker 1: they take their days from great to awesome. Camille has
Speaker 1: written a lot of books. She also coaches other writers.
Speaker 1: She tells them that one of the most important things
Speaker 1: they can do is to set aside a regular time
Speaker 1: for their writing. It doesn't have to be much, but
Speaker 1: it has to be regular, and it has to be something.
Speaker 1: Here's why. If you set aside six to six forty
Speaker 1: five am most weekday mornings for writing, your brain starts
Speaker 1: to think of this as creative time. It starts to
Speaker 1: come up with ideas knowing that you have the time
Speaker 1: to take them seriously and to execute on them. Your
Speaker 1: brain builds a habit. Whereas if you wait for inspiration, well,
Speaker 1: inspiration maybe a long time in coming. The work brings inspiration,
Speaker 1: not the other way around. I think this is great advice.
Speaker 1: I have been blogging about four times a week for
Speaker 1: the past fifteen years. I don't always know what I
Speaker 1: am going to write when I sit down to post
Speaker 1: on my blog, but because I have been doing it
Speaker 1: so regularly, when I sit down to post, I always
Speaker 1: come up with something. Some stuff is better than other stuff,
Speaker 1: but the work brings the inspiration. You might find the
Speaker 1: same thing if you carve out thirty minutes at night
Speaker 1: most days for your drawing. You might not always know
Speaker 1: what you are going to work on, but when you
Speaker 1: get to those thirty minutes, you will do something. The
Speaker 1: regular practice means you will create more art, and thus
Speaker 1: create better art than if you hadn't had the practice.
Speaker 1: Choreographer Twila Tharpe wrote a whole book called The Creative
Speaker 1: Habit in which she talks about just this. She would
Speaker 1: spend time regularly just trying out movements. As she got older,
Speaker 1: she hired dancers to try out her physical ideas, but
Speaker 1: she still built in regular time for this creative experimentation. Now,
Speaker 1: people like Tharp and Pegan do creative work for a living.
Speaker 1: So they can usually carve out more time than people
Speaker 1: with day jobs. But a lot of Camille Pegan's clients
Speaker 1: have day jobs, so they look at their schedules and
Speaker 1: they see what can work for many busy people with
Speaker 1: jobs and families. It's going to be a time in
Speaker 1: the early morning. If you are a night owl, it
Speaker 1: can be time at night. Some people make do with
Speaker 1: sessions on each of the weekend days. A little bit
Speaker 1: of time Friday night, Saturday morning, and Sunday morning can
Speaker 1: also work. Three times a week is a habit. But
Speaker 1: don't tell yourself that you will do creative work when
Speaker 1: you feel like it or when you come up with
Speaker 1: a good idea. Good ideas find you when you have
Speaker 1: built in space to do creative work. We often think
Speaker 1: of this as happening in the other direction, but it
Speaker 1: isn't true. The work creates inspiration, so best to do
Speaker 1: the work in the meantime. This is Laura, Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
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