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The Creative Process Isn’t Linear
There’s one difference between creative people who finish creative projects and those who don’t. People who finish understand that the creative process isn’t linear.
Throughout our lives, we’re conditioned to take a linear approach. The entire structure of our formal education is linear. There’s minimal deviation from the options in front of us and little exposure to the possibilities that surround us. But when it comes to the creative process, this doesn’t work.
Take something like writing. Almost everything you learn about writing in school is bullshit. You learn how to write a 5-paragraph essay with proper spelling and grammar. But that doesn’t help you all that much if you want to write books.
If you’ve been a long-time reader, you know that I make typos and mistakes. But that hasn’t prevented me from writing 2 books with a publisher. There’s a difference between writing to be read and writing to pass a test. That’s why nobody has ever written the great American 5-paragraph essay.
It’s better to have imperfect grammar with something interesting to say than perfect grammar with nothing interesting to say.
