E139. Ordinary vs. Extraordinary Times in the Creative Process

Stepping Off Now: Lessons in the Art and Craft of Creativity

Most timelines of the creative process depict it as linear and progressive, an "up and to the right" trajectory (like on a graph). But what I am finding in the final stretch of writing my novel, though, that this phase is entirely different from every part of the process that came before. Nothing about how I'm working as I struggle toward that finish line is like my ordinary creative practice, and I've had to alter both my approach and mindset. It truly is extra-ordinary (in the sense of being outside of the ordinary), and it does not fit with linear-progressive models of the creative process.
In this episode I discuss different cultural conceptualizations of ordinary vs. extraordinary time, and how we can adapt these to help us understand those periods in our own creative process that seem to take us far off course even as we struggle to maintain our bearings.