I have taken on this contract of sifting through the most enormous spreadsheet of my life – and to be honest – I hope that I never ever have to do something quite like this ever EVER again. I’m a creative, and creative people like so do creative ‘stuff’. Funny how that is!
So in terms of creativity and me at the moment, yesterday I blasted out a 1000 or so words before I started work, so I was feeling really super-great. Then I started drowning in a spreadsheet, and now I have actually lost the drive for creativity! How bizarre is that? I come across a huge problem that needs fixing, and I don’t think I really have the right skill-set to do it – but for some unknown reason, there are a number of people around me here at work, who all seem to think I can. Cripes – perhaps my can-do attitude has been coming across or something. My issue right now is that I really need to focus, and get the last little bit of this book finished, because I am that close. Hopefully I can get it done over this coming weekend… if all creativity hasn’t been totally lost!
Anyway – I guess that’s my update in my current world. Other than that – Abigail is away with my Mother in Law – and the house is terribly quiet without her.
And I have recently just come to another realisation about myself – what get’s me out of bed in the morning is being creative. Whether it’s designing book covers with Dwell Design & Press, or it’s writing the books – that’s my driver. That’s what gets me up. And that’s what I want to live for. None of this bland-world-spreadsheet business. But my creativity seems to be taking a bit of a back seat.
Leigh K. Hunt 
It’s funny you should write this, I’m going through similar musings myself at the moment. I’ve been working in Hell™ for about five or six months now, and … this week was the first week I really created some product. The rest of it’s been trying to sharpen the tools, so to speak, and it sucks me dry.
I suspect this gives me a strong indication about the kinds of work I’m best suited for. I think I’m a “creative” but I use my brain about 50/50, give or take… But I think that the creative side gets euthanised by soul sucking leaches.
It makes me wonder: what are the roles we can do in the world today that promote creativity? I think a lot of people *want* creative jobs because they’re perceived as fun, but some lack the aptitude, and so on and so forth. And I wonder just how many “creative” jobs really exist.
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You are totally right – aptitude, attitude, and then work ethics towards creativity are completely different things. You might be a create – but have no work ethic, you may want to be a creative and work in a creative world, but your aptitude doesn’t quite stack up… or could you could even have a creative attitude, but your work ethics are out.
I therefore think – that if we want to have ‘creative’ jobs, then it’s probably best to create them for ourselves – like we already do with writing and so on… Once upon a time, I really wanted to go and work in some of the creative ‘think-tank’ teams, and work professionally with other like-minded and quirky people – like the ones for Saatchi and Saatchi… But that’s a tough market to break.
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