Creativity in the Cracks
Reflections on Interview with Robert Schenk
“I plan stuff so life can happen in the cracks…. When I have two hours to be creative, I do so much. When I have so much time with nothing planned, I waste it.” – Robert Schenk
Robert talked last week about how much he plans. He plans his days out weeks in advance. He plans his time for writing, his time for his mood-driven and art-making style of DJing, his time for trail running, his time with his partner Sam. But, with wisdom beyond his 26 years, he knows that his plans are just scaffolding. He plans, as he says, so that “life can happen in the cracks.” He plans so that he can accomplish all he needs to in a week and still have two unplanned hours in the DJ booth.
I am addicted to my calendar too. One of the things that has most surprised people about my writing process when I’ve described it at book events is that I wrote and edited most of AFTER ANNE in 20-minute increments each day. As my husband David likes to say, I wrote a book in the time he takes each day to putz around. Of course, there were longer writing intervals too. But I found a daily time minimum to be my most helpful tool in going from the blank page to full ones. I wrote a book largely in the cracks of a busy life.
Like Robert, I find that I can be so much more productive creatively in small windows of scheduled time than I can in whole days of unscheduled time. The blank day is as intimidating as the blank page. When I have an unscheduled day, the only way that I’ve been able to trick myself into getting creative work done is to break it up into smaller chunks with smaller goals.
There’s a careful line to draw here. At some point, overscheduling can crowd out the play. It can become its own addiction. It can keep my eyes glued to my phone notes app and the detailed schedule I keep there, never looking up.
But it’s also true that planning for creativity can serve as a much-needed break for those of us who live a structured life. It’s a meditation of sorts, a shift from the linear day. In that way, planning for creativity is not about fitting in more, but about balance.
I am pretty deep in a new project now, and Robert’s words remind me of that old daily time minimum, with its slow plodding power. It’s the best antidote I’ve found to the highs and low lows of this book launch season. When I can get up the heart to do it.