Curb Your Creativity

I was talking with a friend and coworker about our recent articles for the newspaper. Frustrated after reading her most recent piece, she pointed out one major difference between articles she had written earlier in the year and her latest. She talked about how she wasn't taking as many risks with her writing and not being as creative. Why?

"Creativity takes energy."

Just look at the title of this blog post: "Curb Your Creativity"? Really? I've never even seen "Curb Your Enthusiasm." And it doesn't even make any sense. But, I guess it's better than what I had before: "Creative Work." Ugh.

As I mentally looked back on my articles from The Sojourn this year, I noticed the same thing my friend did. I've gotten boring. I'm not taking chances. I've fallen into a routine with my words.

And I hate it.

But what can I do? I'm always tired. I work three jobs. I get giddy when I'm able to sleep in until 8:30. I have endless amounts of work stacked neatly on my to-do list. And creativity takes energy. Energy I'm quickly running out of. One reason might be that in the past 30 hours, I've spent more time in the radio station than sleeping.

So things are tough. It's so difficult just to type this right now, let alone produce a good, quality, interesting article. I don't believe in coffee, so that's no help, I'm just stuck in a place where writing has become difficult. And it's never been that way before.

If I want to keep growing as a writer, or at the very least, not get any worse, than I have to get more sleep. But with all the other things I need to do, where will I find time? Unfortunately, I don't have a choice, it's something that I just have to do, whether I can or not.