As I’ve sat and thought about my blog, I’ve come to the realization that I don’t always feel very productive or like what I put out has been worthwhile. This realization doesn’t just apply to my blog, when I think about it I realize that it’s honestly how I feel in regards to most if not all of my creative projects and endeavours. Now, what you may not know about me is that for a stretch of time, I’m talking many years, I was feeling very divorced from my creative side. If you know anything about my mental health journey (some of which you can read about here and here), you know that it was a years long process of figuring out and stabilizing to get me to my current point of symptoms remission in many areas and stability maintenance. It wasn’t until I got out of my most distressing period and had some time to settle that I started reconnecting with my creative side. It’s been amazing to feel creatively motivated again, and it’s almost like I suddenly became flooded with inspiration and ideas. Now? It’s almost as if I have too much to juggle. A far cry from where things were even one year ago. Currently, I have a ton of creative projects and ideas to work with. Sometimes I even think I have too much, and that’s what brings me to the discussion of creative limbo.
What even is creative limbo? Well, limbo refers to an in between, uncertain, and undecided state. As such, creative limbo refers to the feeling of being in the middle or stuck in terms of creativity. I think it is the nature of art and the lives of artists to go through stages of creative limbo, but that doesn’t really stop us from beating ourselves up about it all the same. For me, my creative limbo exists in its current state for a few reasons.
One reason is that I frankly just have too much creative projects in mind and on the go to juggle sustainably and evenly. I have music ambitions in terms of writing and performing original music for a main project, finding music collaborators to form a band for said project, practicing instruments, jamming with friends (which we almost never actually get around to because we talk too much), and a side project involving GarageBand making silly mixes with loops. On top of this, I have writing ambitions mainly surrounding, again, lyric writing as well as my blog. Blog wise, I’m actually sitting on multiple topic ideas and multiple unfinished drafts. The issue with the blog posts in particular is that I tend to write long form pieces which can make it daunting at times especially when my inspiration for the topic starts to wane. Then on top of this I have DIY clothing projects either on the go, like my patch shorts, or in mind to begin as well as ambitions in the realms of drag and burlesque. Basically, there’s no shortage of creative potential for me to tap which actually can make creative limbo worse by causing me to stall and have difficulty prioritizing and setting aside time.
It’s not just the overload of creative ideas stalling me though. Another reason for my limbo, frankly, is my areas of executive dysfunction. Executive functioning is basically what allows us to plan, manage time, organize, start and finish tasks, and the like. It’s no secret that those of us who are neurodivergent tend to struggle in at least some areas of executive functioning, and oh boy do I. I am someone who can very easily lose time to almost anything without realizing how much is slipping away for instance. I also have a lot of difficulty with task initiation especially when that task is complex in some way, it doesn’t even matter if that task is enjoyable or fulfilling. Executive dysfunction unfortunately doesn’t discriminate, a task is a task is a task. This is an issue I can work on strategies to compensate with, but unfortunately it’s always going to be a little bit of a struggle.
Finally, the fact of life is just that sometimes it gets in the way. When you have a lot on your plate, it can be difficult to keep up creatively. It’s too bad too, because a creative outlet is always super useful to help express yourself and relieve stress caused by life. Anything can get in the way of creative time from social life factors to sudden and terrible circumstances. Sometimes the reason I don’t have time is mundane and to do with generally feeling drained and other times it’s because shit has just absolutely hit the fan in my life. But hey, ain’t that just the way?
While being in a creative limbo is definitely frustrating and often downright demoralizing… I think there is something to be said about it just being a part of the creative process. We often feel this sense of failure when our output is low or nonexistent, but I think it really is just a fact that creative limbo is a natural part of the process. That is, you can’t be a creative and not face this limbo at least once in your life. Really, when was the last time you’ve met an artist that never struggled to create at some point? More often than not, I find at least one of my creative friends is in an art slump. This leaves me wondering… if art block or limbo is just a part of the process, why do we get so down on ourselves about it? Why don’t we just accept it? It comes down to multiple factors, but I believe the answer mainly lies in our societal tendency to value productivity over most things. Basically, productivity is close to godliness as far as our world is concerned. We feel this compulsion to constantly be doing, constantly on the go, and this compulsion extends from our work life into all areas of our life including our creativity. The need to produce and not be lazy bleeds into our creative output until eventually we feel we must create, we must work. When we aren’t productive, we often feel bad about ourselves. Creative limbo thus becomes creative shame as we grapple with feelings of inferiority. This honestly can make it a lot harder to get yourself out of the limbo phase, as creation loses its fun and becomes obligation. On top of this, unfortunately it seems many of us creatives have our own little perfectionist streaks. It is hard to accept when you’re having a stall in creation when your standards for yourself dictate that you are highly productive and your work is high quality. Again, this sort of thing makes the limbo stage stretch out longer as we stop ourselves from accepting what we deem as “low quality” work. We could then be actually attempting and producing a lot of work, yet simply not considering it “real” since it doesn’t match up to an arbitrary standard we’ve set for ourselves.
But, again, creative limbo really is just a part of the creative process. It’s natural, necessary even! Yes, granted, an often uncomfortable necessity. Though we don’t like it, the art block stage is actually pretty important. Stagnation, decision paralysis, and lack of direction can help make way for new possibilities and breakthroughs. This part of the process essentially acts as a little reset and reboot. It stops us in our tracks and leads us to new perspective and different ways of thinking as we often need to change our approach to our process in order to move through this phase. It offers us some time to sit in stillness that allows us to gather new inspiration, make connections, and spark new ideas which will eventually lead to a new sense of vigour and creative momentum. In fact, if we accept and embrace limbo as a part of the creative process we will find that we feel safer, more clarity, and trust ourselves and the process more. With acceptance, there is less likelihood that we will beat ourselves up and get stuck in shame spirals which stall us even further. Through acceptance of limbo, we can transform an other wise stuck period into something that feels more positive, a necessary space for transformation.
So, creative limbo is okay and yes, it’s normal. Will I stop getting frustrated when I land in that stage? No, probably not. Am I committed to reframing it so I can appreciate it as a part of the process? Yes, for sure. Did I, in fact, take weeks to write and finish this post? Yes, yes I did. And you know what? I don’t feel bad.