Aspiring creators often express frustration with not having enough inspiration to feel ready to sit down and do some creative work. These people often say to themselves that they will finish their projects “eventually”, once sufficient inspiration strikes them. They repeatedly postpone their work, using lack of inspiration to justify doing so. This often reduces their creative output to almost nothing.
However, in reality, this kind of problem can be easily avoided. The entire idea of thinking you need to wait for inspiration to strike is usually misguided. It is most often simply used as a nice feel-good excuse to subconsciously justify procrastination. It’s a way to avoid really facing your challenges, while still feeling high on your own imaginary creative genius that you will “eventually” fulfill.
But in fact, learning to be creative at will is not even remotely as difficult as some people might imagine it to be. There are really just a few simple steps and behaviors that you will need to embrace in order to achieve it. No excuses. Learn to control your creativity.
The first step is to always set aside time (preferably every day) to do creative work. No matter how uninspired you feel, you must still try. You should also divide your work into lots of small actionable tasks so that the scope of the work does not feel so overwhelming and intimidating. Additionally, you should also give yourself clear deadlines. Work expands to fill the amount of time allocated to it.
The second step is to stop being so afraid of the judgment that comes hand in hand with bringing your ideas into reality. A creation which does not exist cannot be judged. Don’t use that as a shield.
The third step is to use an evolutionary and emergent approach to how you work. Nature is able to spontaneously create beauty even without any form of intelligent guidance. So can you. The trick is to mix order and chaos together in how you work. The loosening and tightening of constraints, the push and pull of wild whims against stringent critiques; these are the rising and falling tides of what it means to be creative, the heartbeat of beauty as it exists in our world. Live in harmony with that, and creativity will soon be yours.
This game dev tip is an excerpt taken from a small book I wrote. You can find more information about the book here on my website.