The Creative Blind Spot

Picture in your Mind Three Phrases if you want to Avoid 

the Creative Blind Spot

The Process of Creativity Often Leaves an Artist Blind when evaluating the Work. 

This is why so many who create develop methods of objectively gauging their effort so the work will end up becoming better as the creative process proceeds. 

Here are Three Phrases to Keep in Mind so You don’t experience a Creative Blind spot -- 

Slow is better than Fast 

When you conceive of an idea, take your time with it. 

There will be a burst of excitement about what you’ve come up and that energy is a great motivator to act. And I suggest you run with that energy for a bit and get the idea/inspiration out of your head and on to paper. 

But then you should take a breath. Actually, take more than a breath. Give yourself plenty of space before doing this next step – objectively evaluating the worth of your new idea. You’re looking for clarity and the best way to get that is with mental Separation and Space. 

Ideas often come with speed, but an artist who takes the time to evaluate objectively will be the one to figure out what is good and what is wrong.  

More is Better than Less 

If Captain Ahab had been a Writer or filmmaker; rather than a Whaler, he would still be making a huge mistake spending all his time Hunting One White Whale. 

Enhance your odds for success by increasing the volume of projects you create. 

Too many talented artists get bogged down obsessing over that one White Whale of a project they believe will be a game-changer for their career. If it pays off, the creative obsession with a lone project year after year after year can indeed change an artist’s life. 

But it rarely happens this way. And there’s a better path to take with the same goal in mind. 

In the More is Better than Less approach the prime directive is to work on your White Whale project for a set period of time, then move it aside no matter what stage you are in the process. Take the time to tackle a completely different project which you should promise yourself you will finish. Only then are you allowed to circle back to your White Whale for another round. This approach has at least two upsides going for it -- you’ll have more work to show when someone asks to see examples of your work; and working on other projects beyond the White Whale project will can't help but make you a better creator when you tackle more rather than less. The variety of experience will also enable you to have a clearer perspective when you turn your creative attention back to chasing the White Whale project.  

Shorter is better than Longer 

To be successful, an artist must often immerse themselves in the work, becoming obsessed with the world they are creating. 

But one can end up drilling too deep and along the way, lose their creative bearings. This can happen at many different stages during creative process. Some artists become blind while working on the development phase of a project. Some artists spend years and years of research on a project and never get to the point of turning the work into creativity. Others allow the research to “wag the creative tail” to the point that the work feels stuffed with details extracted from the research which ends up overshadowing the goal of telling a good story.  

Another Creative Blindspot can be summed up with one-word – indulgence. The creator becomes fixated on specific aspects of the creation -- style, themes, tones -- and the work suffers. Creative isolation can also lead to a blind spot when the time spent on a work without feedback can lead to a myopic process where the only person who ends up being gratified by the final effort will be the creator himself. 

Perhaps the most common hazard in working on a project for too long is the mental (and physical) exhaustion that will inevitably take its toll on the creator. When this occurs, the artist is often times blind to the finished effort coming off as overworked and/or creatively rushed, as if the goal at one point in the process was simply to finish the project, because the chance of achieving quality work had long ago been compromised.