When we create we need to open all our doors and windows, look over fences and under rocks for our ideas and inspirations. We have to get our hands dirty. We have to be open and willing to look foolish or be wrong.

Creating, by its very definition is unusual and must occur “off the beaten path.”

We can’t be worried about stepping on the grass or looking silly in front of the neighbors.

In other words, you can’t create and critique at the same time.

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Forgetting to separate critiquing from creating is where I often get into to trouble when I’m starting things.

I forget to tell my inner critic to “take five” and just develop my ideas. To create and then critique.

Take writing this (or any other) blog post for example.

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First I get the seed of the idea and then I have to dump all my thoughts about it onto the page.

Yes, all of them. The dumb ones, the obvious ones, the muddled and unclear ones. Even the contradictory ones. All of them.

If I start evaluating the thoughts as I write them, I almost always wind up saying something other than what I really mean. I get tied up in the grammar or how to order my ideas and I fail to get to the heart of the matter.

And, I find it’s the truest thoughts that get axed first.

Why?

Because the truth can sound like a cliche or seem too obvious to mention.

Because saying our truth makes us vulnerable.

People might know what we really think. And they might disagree with it.

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So to write a successful post, I have to write down everything I have to say on the subject (the good, the bad and the ugly), and then – and only then! – can I go back and start editing.

(Don’t be fooled, editing is just another name for critiquing.)

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Now, in spontaneous singing (improvisation) it may appear that these processes of creating and critiquing happen simultaneously. I argue that they are still separate; you just switch (rapidly) back and forth between the two.

You have an idea and develop it (creating).

Then you check in to see if the idea is succeeding (critiquing).

Once you’ve evaluated what you’re doing, you must switch back to creating to come up with the next idea. When we try to critique as we create, we cripple ourselves.

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I experience it as having a separate office (with a door that closes *grin*) for my inner critic. She must be on site — she serves an important function — but she can’t always be in my space. If she raises her hand to object every time I have an idea, we will get nowhere. But if I permit her to share her opinion when I ask her for it, she helps me decide if I am making music or just making noise.

(Then she gets to take a coffee break while I go back to the work of creating. *smile*)

I have had so much musical input this month that I haven’t even begun to process it (let unload my poor overworked digital recorder *smile*).

Yesterday, I went back and listened to some of my friend Elise’s wonderful workshop at the beginning of the month. She taught us a great 4-part round she learned from a Brazilian visitor.

So today’s song started out in Brazil (kind of) and then headed somewhere else. *smile*

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More than a year ago, my singer friend and mentor Bruce gave me an assignment to create some set lists. It came out of conversations about how I could find a repertoire I wanted to sing. He suggested that I imagine scenarios — “What if you had to sing two songs tomorrow at Carnegie Hall?” “How would you arrange a  two-hour concert?” — and figure out what songs I would want to sing in each case.

(My percussionist brother gave me basically the same advice again earlier this summer.)

Have I completed this eminently concrete and useful “assignment?”

Uh … no.

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Then, in August, I heard Seth Godin speak at the Pantages theater. He distributed a miniature workbook called ShipIt. ShipIt is a workbook designed to help you finish your thing and send it (actually ship it) out into the world. The key piece of advice on how to use said workbook?

Write in it.

(And if you’re wondering if I’ve filled in my workbook, you can stop wondering. No.)

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I seem incredibly resistant to this advice to write things down so I had to ask myself why.

A lot of it is my issues with starting.

I feel incredibly tentative when I start trying to figure something out.

One of the things I learned in Italy is that this shows up in my improvising, too. (Surprise, surprise.)

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Writing this blog has let me (forced me to *grin*) practice starting week after week. I learned from writing post after post, that even when I don’t have any idea what to say when I sit down, there is always a point where momentum takes over.

I write down what resonates.

Everything that resonates, whether it connects or not.

I move these ideas and thoughts around until connections start to form. All of the sudden, I’ve sorted out what I have to say and I can see the way through to the end of the post.

(It feels like a “click.”)

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Over the last couple of years of blogging (and improvising!), I was delighted to discover that if I could just getting moving, I could usually see a direction. What to do next reveals itself. That’s what happened with the Passion Pays the Bills series of posts. I wrote the original list and then figured out each post’s content as I went.

For my next developmental step, however, I think I need to practice starting in more intentional ways. It’s not that I need to have everything figured out at the start, but I need to be more deliberate in selecting which ideas, projects and opportunities to pursue.

That’s where writing stuff down comes in. (I think. *smile*)

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As we say in my family, lessons are repeated until they are learned, so it won’t surprise you to hear that a few weeks ago, my bass player friend Anthony suggested I sit down and — you guessed it — do so some writing.

He thought it could help me find a way to expand my Songtaneous message (I’ve been procrastinating updating the Songtaneous web site) and find connections between the motifs of my musical goals and my self-employed existence.

I felt pretty discouraged by my first attempt, but I’ve noticed things shifting over the past few weeks. Ideas for projects and people with whom I’d like to work have been surfacing.

Don’t worry, I’ve been writing them down. (*wink*)