CREATIVES IN QUARANTINE

by Nzingha Florence

As a creative, being forced to be in the house is never and will never be fun as a creative. It’s in our very DNA that we should be exploring the world and creating masterpieces that reflect our perception of all that we see. However, one thing I can attribute to COVID-19 is free time. All this free time as a creative has us bored in the house, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. This time can be utilized to really honing in on your craft and planning for your next projects once we’re finally free to move how we want to. With school, jobs, social lives, and personal issues, it’s hard to have as much time as we do now to really focus on creative endeavors. Now is the time! As a fellow creative, I have a few ways that I keep my creative juices flowing and continuously working on taking myself to the next level.

WRITING A LITTLE BIT EACH DAY

As writers, we should be writing at least once a day. Even if it’s only for 10-15 minutes, we need to write. Why? Because you never know what ideas could be born within that small frame of time. Something that seems completely unimportant such as a random free write or just writing down how you feel that day could be used for something great in the future. I’ve had instances where poems or random phrases I was jotting down just to get them out there have blossomed into beautiful bodies of work that can now be utilized. You never know what concepts could come out of what you put into the universe. So you have an idea? Write it down. Had a weird dream you want to remember? Write it down as soon as you wake up. Write, write, write.

WATCHING YOUTUBE TUTORIALS

I really was sleeping on YouTube until I realized that a lot of the successful creatives we know today learned to enhance their craft by learning on YouTube. YouTube is a great resource to acquire new skills when it comes to your work. I have recently been watching YouTube videos of different filming techniques and how I can incorporate them into my own videography. Trying out what you’ve learned, practicing it, and seeing the end results is a lot more rewarding than you think.

SOCIAL MEDIA CLEANSES

We’re all pretty much addicted to social media at this point in our lives, and if you’re one of the rare unicorns who doesn’t connect to the rest of the world through social media, more props to you. But the vast majority of us at least have an Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or Snapchat account where we scroll mindlessly down the timeline. We’re constantly looking at other people’s lives, comparing, analyzing, blocking, laughing, fantasizing, and even crying depending on the circumstances. When you clear out a distraction like social media, you create space in your day to just be alone with your thoughts. During that time is when some of your greatest ideas peer out, hidden behind everybody else’s thoughts and opinions. Sometimes I like to put time restrictions on those certain apps, and sometimes I like to delete the apps off of my phone completely. I know that social media is a big aspect of creatives’ lives especially because that’s where we promote our work, but it’s good every once in a while to have a healthy cleanse. A week, two weeks, a day, a month, anything helps.

MANIFESTATION

I’ve been big on manifestation for a good bit of my life, but during this time, I’ve really been taking the time out to manifest what I want for the future. I usually manifest while I am meditating or doing yoga, but you can do it anywhere at any time. As long as you’re in the right headspace to think about your future and leave the fear of failure at the door, you can practice manifestation. Be open-minded and unafraid to think big. The bigger, the better. Once you put an idea out into the universe, the possibility of making it a reality increases tremendously. Before, it could have just been a dream, but now, it could be a plan.