I’m not creative, mate
I have known I’m bipolar for a very long time, and I was diagnosed as clinically depressed before my psychiatrist at the time changed her mind about my condition (based on new research) and diagnosed me as bipolar nearly two decades ago.
But I’d never felt myself as being creative. This, beside loving acting in plays, beside painting, beside taking photographs and developing them in the school darkroom for long hours at a time, beside enjoying reading… I honestly didn’t put two and two together and realise that my bent was a creative one. I thought I would do what my father had done and all my friends did—go into the everyday work world.
So I did, and failed miserably. I was always in trouble for slacking off, not doing my job, and in general hating or not understanding what I was doing. I joined the Air Force on a six year contract––because I couldn’t hold down a job––saw other parts of the world, and still ended up clinically depressed after two years. In my final years in the RAAF I took up playing the synthesiser and drum machine and started writing pop songs. After my time with the RAAF was up I followed my dream and moved to England to pursue a career in music, but after five years I felt I had given it my best and had not made it, so I gave up on my dream and looked around for something else to do. I still didn’t see myself as a creative.
I thought I’d go to university and so at age 34 I read for an Honours in Psychology. I then found a job in London working for Rupert Murdoch in an Internet news company and I was able to be very creative and thus I thrived. But I didn’t see myself as creative. While on the train to and from London I wrote a self-help goal-setting book based on my Honours research. Still didn’t see myself as creative.
My father died here in Adelaide, my mother was alone, and my fiancee told me to return to Adelaide because that was where my heart was. She and her five-year-old son—who I adored like a biological father would adore—couldn’t come home with me because the son’s father wouldn’t let him out of the country. That was 1999 and a psychiatrist here in Adelaide diagnosed me as clinically depressed and signed me off from having to work.
In 2002 I set up a consultancy helping small businesses deal with websites (‘Why would I need a website? I already have a fax!’) and I was able to be creative again. Then, in 2005, I started blogging and then podcasting and vidcasting, becoming one of the first PR bloggers in Australia, winning awards and being flown around the world to speak to business audiences. I was able to be extremely creative and I shone. I was so happy. But I didn’t see myself as creative.
Of course, my time flying near the sun couldn’t last. The ‘Business’ internet business radically changed when Google introduced Google Analytics, and suddenly, overnight, businesses wanted consultants who could explain to them the intricacies of their website traffic. I am number blind and so couldn’t pivot my business and it died within a matter of months.
I took up acrylic painting on large canvasses as a way of keeping my spirits up, but still didn’t see myself as creative. I started working in call centres to earn a living, but couldn’t take the strict rules call centre operators work under, and had to give that away for my mental health.
I started a PhD program, looking at business communication in the then-hot topic of 3D virtual worlds like ‘Second Life’, and that was going well but the virtual world scene failed to take off like everyone expected it to, and my research became old-hat and irrelevant. I quit the program.
I then re-trained at Tabor as a counsellor and spent four years after graduation firstly mourning the loss of my marriage, then failing to generate any business, totalling four clients over the four years I was in practice. I spent more money on insurance and industry body fees than I earned. I wrote copious numbers of documents, worksheets, self-help planners… folders and folders of counselling material aimed at helping my clients. I even had a notable website that was mentioned in the media. Still I didn’t see myself as creative.
I also spent three years lazily writing my first novel, having wanted to write a novel since 1997. I still didn’t see myself as creative. I had been writing ambient music for a few years and had published five albums on Bandcamp, but still didn’t see myself as a creative.
After that four-year period of not-counselling, I enrolled in a Masters in Creative Writing & Communication program and it was there that I found my spiritual home. I discovered that it’s okay to take one’s time to finish a novel, because sometimes the ideas just don’t come easily, but also that it’s better to hit the keyboard every day at the same time so that the muse appears more often than it does when it is randomly called.
I discovered that I really enjoy the short form of the creative non-fiction piece. I also discovered that I am verbose, so my short creative non-fiction pieces usually end up being mid-length. I discovered that my first novel, which I thought had several things wrong with it but didn’t know what they were, did indeed have several things wrong with it, but none of them irreparable.
I discovered that, like with my counselling studies, I have a tendency to buy lots of expensive professional books that I use for one quote and then never read again.
I discovered that I have no knowledge of the mechanics of the English language, that I have no idea what an adverb is, what a past participle is. What a gerund is. And somehow I reckon I am not too disabled by that. I have read lots over the years and seem to have picked up some of the rules of writing from my reading. Do I need to be a mechanical engineer to be able to drive my car and take it to the dealer when it needs a service? I have bought (but not yet read) three of June Casagrande’s books, and two Tredinnicks, so there is hope for my further development on the mechanics of writing.
I’ve learned that this degree program is perfect for me, it is what I should have taken many years ago. I NOW, finally, see myself as a creative person, and I realise that as a writer I am a long way forward from my very amateur beginnings three years ago (Kelley & Kelley).
I know I am a long way from 10,000 hours of practice, but I’m pleased and proud that I have at least started (Ericsson et al.; Gladwell).
Now that I have undertaken this degree, I plan on stretching myself further. I have written a cyber-crime novel and have started on its sequel, but next semester I am enrolling in a module on writing Romances. I’ve never read a romance novel, have no idea how they are structured and what the genre’s tropes are, and I’m excited to be stretching myself as a writer.
Now realising the importance of writing regularly, to a schedule and at the same time each day, I will work hard to meet those goals. I am very much a night owl and so my writing will take place at night, when the world has calmed down a bit. I always listen to my ambient playlist when concentrating, so will continue that practice.
The beginning of my second novel is graphic, and dialogue-heavy in parts. The other module I’m enrolling in next semester focuses on screen writing, which the novel may be well suited for. Certainly, the module will be both fun and challenging to take.
Over the years I have learned that my night owl-ness is conducive to my creativity. I have tried composing music during daylight hours but don’t seem able to come up with anything even remotely passable. My five ambient albums were created on my laptop sitting up in bed until the morning sun peeked through the curtains or my back became too sore. Acrylic painting was the only activity I was able to be competent at during the day; even the self-help book I wrote on the train to and from London was written in the dark of the morning and evening.
I am now no longer ashamed of my bipolar-ness. I am no longer hiding behind the veneer of ‘normality’. I accept that depression and mania are part of my life, albeit very controlled by excellent medication and an also excellent psychiatrist who I see fortnightly, paid for by the Department of Veteran Affairs because they are very worried about veteran suicide and I have a history of suicidal ideation and hospitalisation. I have used my bipolar-ness in my novels, giving the condition to my lead character. I have been able to describe my condition through the life of that character, informing the reader of what a bipolar woman or man goes through in their emotional and everyday life. I have accepted that I am ‘skinless’, that I have a very porous buffer between me and the outside world. [Crabtree & Crabtree]
I now have another hat to wear, proudly––I am a creative.
Csikszentmihalyi suggested there are ten aspects to being a creative (Crabtree and Crabtree 68) and I can strongly relate to all ten. Crabtree & Crabtree’s (79) proposition of tidal waves of emotions running through me speaks deeply. I have a fit of energy, then sometimes a period of doing nothing but posting funny memes on Facebook, and then I have days where I sleep for 12-14 hours at a time. But my medication keeps me relatively stable and I no longer suffer the swings and arrows of outrageous emotions. That does affect my creativity, though. My readings have led to an understanding that I need the bipolar swings to propel my creativity; with a reduced emotional lability I find my creative juices not what they were when I was living diagnosis- and medicine-free in England in the 1980s-1990s, writing pop songs. I am torn between being stable and less than fully creative, and being unmedicated and fully creative. My current psychiatrist, charged by the DVA with keeping me alive, wants me to forget my creativity. I’m undecided—life or creativity. I don’t know…
Casagrande, June. The Best Punctuation Book, Period: A Comprehensive Guide for Every Writer, Editor, Student, and Businessperson. Ten Speed Press, 2014.
—. It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences: A Writer’s Guide to Crafting Killer Sentences. Ten Speed Press, 2010.
—. The Joy of Syntax: A Simple Guide to All the Grammar You Know You Should Know. Ten Speed Press, 2018.
Crabtree, Jeff and Julie Crabtree. Living with a Creative Mind. Zebra Collective, 2011.
Ericsson, K. Anders et al. “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance.” Psychological Review, vol. 100, no. 3, 1993, pp. 363-406.
Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: The Story of Success. Penguin Press, 2017.
Kelley, Tom and David Kelley. Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential within Us All. William Collins, 2014.
Tredinnick, Mark. The Little Red Writing Book. University of New South Wales Press, 2006.
— The Little Green Grammar Book. UNSW Press, 2020.