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in his cabinetmaker who was also able to stay on track with our vision, but he made some important suggestions—getting rid of the peninsula and have an island that allows easy flow around the kitchen. Then, of course, adding stools around it to maintain warm and connected dining, made it all come together. Now we knew we had it.

      You can see how our initial vision was sparked by looking at examples, but it developed as we collaborated with others, which I have always found to be a key point of success in any creative activity. But it’s vital to collaborate with those who will further your vision, not stop it or alter it away from the core of how you visualized it. (We’ll talk about how to choose your people in a later chapter.)

      Use Your Tools

      The next stage is to use your tools of creativity, which could be anything from a chef’s knife to a pen and paper—whatever tools you need to bring your vision to life. The key here is to know your tools so well that they don’t get in the way of your vision. And a word of caution here: Don’t “geek out” with tools. When tools become an end-all and having the latest/most expensive/complex version becomes an obsession, the creative process stops right there. The purpose of tools is to enable you to create, not to distract you. I also believe in a minimalist approach to them: Use the fewest and least costly until you have mastered them and add new ones only when a tool really will help you create more effectively.

      Let’s go back to the kitchen and imagine you were learning to cook in a well-equipped one—which made your head spin with all the appliances, cooking utensils, pans—and on and on!

      But say you decided to watch and follow a chef at work who made it look easy and simple. You noticed they also used the same key “tools” over and over, no matter how many dishes they cooked: knives to cut with, pots and pans of different sizes, spatulas and spoons—and they seemed to do all their work with just a few key tools of the same kind. Then it really hit home that it’s simple and that you, too, could learn to cook.

      Work Your Craft

      Now you enter the stage of working your craft, which means to apply the skills of creativity using the correct tools to bring about what you had envisioned. The key at this a stage is to get into action and go to work! Don’t think about it, don’t procrastinate, get to work on your vision. Be ready to side step excuses, i.e. “reasons,” and anything other than getting into action! And then, a key point is to continue. You have visualized an end result, so work until you complete it. Don’t let feelings of “it’s not good enough” or “I can’t do it” stop you. Keep going until you complete what you set out to do. You’ll edit or fix it in the next step.

      I’ve always found it better to get my first version out, let it flow. This could be my first draft of a short film, of prose or poetry, or the first product of a business, or any sort of creative activity. I recommend that you take a “go-flow” attitude, meaning let it flow, don’t stop the flow by trying to edit as you go. Get version one out there in the world!

      Editing and Refining

      Then, the next stage we call editing or refining your work, based on how you visualized it. Having produced your art, you now have something you can refine.

      When I’m editing a film, my first objective is to put the first draft into a form that tells the story I want to communicate. Most often this comes down to cutting out what doesn’t help the story. Less is more in this case, and you’ll find that to be true with most artistic creation.

      Going back to the collaboration of remodeling the kitchen I mentioned, we were all the way to the stage of getting the work done which meant that the cabinet doors were in place. Now is when we hit this step of editing—something wasn’t right but I couldn’t quite spot it, they just didn’t “feel right” somehow. It was while I was on a walk (and much more later about the power of walks) that I realized the design had strayed off our visualization somewhere. Then it hit me that there were no glass fronts on some of the doors as we had in our previous kitchen and were in a magazine clipping. Somehow this was lost in translation.

      By revisiting the original concept with the cabinetmaker and our contractor we arrived back to our vision of how it would look, feel, and work. Some of the doors had to be redone in order to fully achieve our original vision. By editing we were able to get back on track. The final outcome was the design we wanted and envisioned.

      The go-flow approach in the creative process no matter what art form (yes, even life itself) is very workable when you follow it with this stage of editing and refining.

      As you’ll hear echoed in my interviews that follow, use editing as a creative tool, not a destructive or self-critical tool. It is there to further what you have visualized, not to turn yourself inward.

      Sharing Your Work

      Now we come to the final stage of sharing which means getting your work out to the world. There are so many ways to share what you have created, but the important thing is that you do it!

      Don’t let your art sit in a drawer, on a hard drive, folded up in a closet, or even in your head. Share it and get it out to the world! By sharing I don’t mean that you give it away; sharing includes selling it and getting paid for your creation, which I’m sure you’ll agree is tremendously satisfying. In today’s world of social media where “likes” are seen as a reward, there’s really no better result than sharing your work with someone who has paid you and is truly happy with your product. But “getting paid” isn’t just with money, there are many other ways to bring about an interchange for your work with a happy “customer” who may happen to be a friend, co-worker, or family.

      Now that we’ve covered the full cycle of creativity and its parts you can see that your ability to visualize connects with each part of the cycle; your vision is the common thread connecting all steps. Additionally, each part of the cycle interacts with the others in the natural course of creativity.

      By understanding each of the stages of the cycle of creativity, you will be in control of the whole process and able to apply these to any part of your life, making art an everyday experience. We’ll be taking up each of the stages in detail in the coming chapters, but before we go on, answer these questions.

      Summarizing

      1.What does creativity mean to you?

      2.Describe a time you used your power to visualize and then carried it out.

      3.What are some examples of tools you have used for creativity?

      4.What’s an example of a time let your creativity flow when you were working your craft?

      5.List out three excuses you’ve used for not completing a creative project.

      f.

      g.

      h.

       Application

      1.What area of your life would you like to bring more creativity to?

      2.Write down your vision for it.

      3.What are the tools you’ll need to use to bring about your vision?

      4.What excuses have you used for not getting into action in that area?

      5.List three steps you will take this week to get into action. (Check off when done.)

      f.

      g.

      h.

      6. Now look it over and do any editing or refining of that project.

      7. Share your work with someone you feel comfortable with.

      Creative Conversation with Chris Burkard

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