Creativity: Do You Know What You’re Doing?

Sometimes I do my best work when I don’t know what I’m doing.

That’s not necessarily what a potential client wants to hear—but even though I may not lead with that line, it's still true.

When I don’t know what I’m doing, I have to function on instinct instead of autopilot. I’m able to tap into my creativity instead of leaning on logic. I must listen intently and respond to what I hear in the moment instead of assuming I already know it all. I’m more easily able to access the new, connect the strange, and identify possibilities.

When I don’t know what I’m doing, I’m saying yes to everything and no to nothing. I don’t have a preset path that might actually lead me away from where I want to go. I don’t get hampered by assumptions or hemmed in my shouldn’ts and can’ts.

It’s the magic of beginner’s luck.

This serendipitous cluelessness used to happen most frequently in my college creative writing classroom. I’d spend time finetuning a lesson plan for a topic I’d covered many times and then enter the classroom full of confidence. I was ready to impart my knowledge. I knew exactly what I was doing.

And then it would all go to hell. Maybe no one had done the reading (!!). Maybe no one thought the story I’d assigned to be as brilliant as I’d thought. Maybe the writing exercise that had worked a dozen times before failed utterly.

Whatever the cause, I’d be left with a smile—or grimace—plastered to my face and forty minutes left to go but no idea how to get the concept across.

And that’s when I got good.

One time, my dud lesson was on figurative language. The students didn't get the concept, and the beautiful exercise I’d tossed to them had thudded to the floor. Desperate, I looked around the utilitarian classroom for inspiration for a new exercise. Ceiling tiles? Commercial carpeting? Their messy book bags? Just before the pause went on too long, I blurted out, “Everyone pull off one of your shoes.”

There were raised eyebrows and jokes about smelly feet, but they did it—college students tend to humor professors when they do something unexpected. “Okay,” I instructed, faking my authority because I wasn’t thinking beyond the next sentence, “Pretend you’re the size of an ant. Shrink down and imagine you’re looking at your shoe and don’t know what it is. What does it look like? What does it resemble? Focus on details and use different senses—the sole, the shoelaces, the material, and, yes, even the odor.”

They laughed a little, but they were all observing and thinking—turning over a boot, staring at a sneaker, bending a flip flop. And they started writing.

When I sensed their energy start to wane, I had them write from the point of view of an alien who’d landed on earth and needed to describe the shoe in a way their fellow aliens back home would understand. Then I gave them the options of elaborating on what they had, coming up with a new perspective, or trading their shoe with someone else and doing the exercise again.

By the time I had them stop so they could share some of their work, everyone had material to work with. It was the exercise that showed up the most in their end of semester portfolios. I even saw more figurative language than usual in their other stories and poems.

I’d succeeded because I’d had to embrace the fact that I didn't know what I was doing, cede control to my creativity, and ride the wave wherever it went.

We all have times as writers when we cling too much to a plan—to a body of knowledge and skills we consider safely ours—to our confidence that we know how it’s all supposed to go. Until things change.

Maybe you’ve made a detailed outline, but when you hit a certain section, you have no interest in writing it.

Or you’ve built your book around your tried-and-true professional presentation, but the structure makes no sense on the page.

Or you’re writing a paragraph that sparks a totally new thought, but you don’t think you have the skill to explain it.

Or you’ve always known how a chapter is going to end, until suddenly you don’t.

None of these are times to panic. They are instead time to embrace the unknown. Listen to the part of yourself saying what you planned is no longer working and the part of you that is whispering “come out here—there’s so much more to try.” Don’t be afraid to no longer know what you’re doing. Because when you don’t know, that’s when you can discover. That’s when you can create.