The Blue Like Jazz author shares what he's learned.

Editor’s note: Over the past few months, author Donald Miller (Blue Like Jazz, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years) has recently been writing a lot about creativity. Since Miller is a pretty creative guy, we compiled 10 of our favorite tips to help you in your efforts to become more creative.

A Creator and His Work are One

Ever wonder why the humanmade world is getting uglier?

They are going to build a bridge in my neighborhood. There are proposed pictures floating around on flyers and we are to log on to such-and-such a website and voice our opinions. They are all bad, in my opinion. They are all very functional, and they will work well to flow traffic. But none of them are attractive.

The ancient cathedrals, indeed, the ancient bridges and government buildings, the ancient piazzas were extensions of the city, were the clothes the city wore on a day designed to impress. These monuments were also extensions of their creators. Michelangelo and Da Vinci were sought after to create buildings and bridges both.

A great creator does not see his work as something apart from himself. What the creator makes is a statement about the creator, and a manifestation of their sensibilities, which is one with their experiences. Our modern buildings, our strip malls and stripped-down buildings say that our culture is one with efficiency, with selling goods and services. Was God being efficient when He created a woman, or was He being extravagant? Is a cloud the most efficient way to water crops, or is it functional and aesthetically brilliant? Are the sunrise and sunset more than a functional way to dim the lights?

A Creator Doesn’t Just Talk About Their Work. They Work.

I think half the battle of a creator is in finishing their projects. I wonder how many of the world’s greatest creators never created anything great, because while they may have had the intelligence and even the skill, they weren’t finishers. Finishing is part of the art.

A guy I met once ran into Norman Mailer at an airport and asked him what he was working on. Mailer politely declined to answer the question, saying that when he talks about a book too much, it steals his motivation to write it. I agree with Mailer, and I also think it was a brilliant way to get out of answering a question most writers are asked 50,000 times a day! Regardless of his intention, it’s true that when we talk about our work, we give ourselves the feeling that we are working on something when truthfully, we aren’t.

The Creator Gets Out of Her Own Way

The act of creating is more than work. There is also the process of creating art, which is mysterious. Anybody who says that there is no mystery in creating art is no artist. This can be proven when you ask to see their art and they can’t show you anything.

A creator must learn to work and must learn a work ethic. If she does not show up at her desk, at her canvas, at her block of marble every day, she will never succeed as an artist.

But if she uses the same steel determination to then create her art, she will fail. The violinist Stephen Nachmanovitch says that to create you must disappear, and I agree with him. What he means by this is, the force must stop and the play must begin. When we play we disappear; we are not really aware of ourselves, we are not thinking too much about our existence or our problems.

A Creator Finds a Rhythm ... and Loves the Rhythm

If the work you are creating demands completion before you can find fulfillment, it’s doubtful the creation will be finished, and perhaps more doubtful it will be any good when it’s done. You’ll labor through it, pushing it up a hill like a broken cart. But if you can love the actual work, not the finished product, you’re onto something. If you have a rhythm, if you get up every morning and work for a few hours, and you like the getting up and the work, and you don’t think about how great it will be when it’s done, but rather how great it is every day that you get to get up and do the work, your creation will be tremendous. Don’t think about the finished product. Stop rewarding yourself with something that doesn’t exist, and may never exist. Instead, think about how delightful it is you get to do this, you get to make this, and how delightful it will be to get up and do it again tomorrow.

A Creator Does Not Entertain Hypotheticals

I liked this line from the film True Grit: “I do not entertain hypotheticals; the world as it is is vexing enough.”

Most of the things we worry about as creators never happen. We are not as rejected as we think we are; in fact, our creation has given us a greater community, even if we do have a few critics. And we did not fail as badly as we thought we would; and if we did fail, people hardly noticed. Most of the fears we entertain as creators have to do with hypothetical situations, things that could happen. But this is a waste of valuable creative energy. Most likely, things we think will happen won’t. A creator takes risks, a consumer lives in safety. Are you a creator or consumer?

When you are tempted to entertain thoughts of pending doom, ask yourself what real problems you have, not what hypothetical problems you have. Most likely you have very few real problems. Most likely the resistance between you and your creation is in your head. The only thing you really have to do, then, is work.

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