Being Creative Means Publishing More & More

Hey everyone,

I hope that you guys are doing amazing wherever you are.

My name is Bhumu Shakha and this is my video for today.

Yesterday I ran a creativity workshop in Chiang Mai and basically what we do is we sit down and we do writing exercises.

So I made them write a haiku,

Which is a Japanese style of poetry,

5-7-5 words.

5 words in the first sentence,

7 words in the second,

And 5 in the last.

And then we wrote other things,

We did other writing exercises where I gave them a word and I asked them to write a story with it and things like that.

So I do these writing exercises all the time,

Not only with my workshop attendees,

But on myself,

With myself,

By myself.

And I've noticed how useful they are.

And obviously these individuals who attended my workshop found them really useful as well.

The good thing about attending these workshops or running them is that I get to meet all these amazing creative people,

All these amazing people who are writing in a manner where I think a lot of them are really talented.

They have this talent inside of them and they write and I think to myself,

Oh my god,

These people are so much better than I am in writing.

And they're brilliant,

They're absolutely brilliant,

The way they write,

The storyline,

The words that they use,

Their vocabulary,

Amazing stuff,

Amazing.

And then I ask them,

When was the last time you wrote anything?

When was the last time you wrote a story before this workshop?

And they usually say,

It's been 10 years or it's been 5 years or it's been years since I wrote something or months since I wrote something.

And thinking to myself,

I'm always looking at them like,

But why?

You're such a good writer,

Why are you doing that?

Why aren't you writing more often?

And that's where the gist of it is,

Right?

It doesn't matter how talented you are,

It does not matter how much talent you have.

Really,

Talent doesn't even exist most of the time,

But it doesn't matter how much skill you have or genetically how great you are at something.

If you're not going to do it,

It doesn't really matter.

It doesn't really matter,

Guys.

And so I am average,

I'm an average writer and I'm not as good as some of these people who come to my workshop,

Obviously.

But I'm writing every single day and that completely puts me in a different league because I'm actually writing and pushing my stuff out there,

Shipping it out,

Letting people read it,

Getting feedback,

Writing more and more every single day.

And so I do that and I'm getting feedback constantly from people.

And so I'm a writer,

I'm actually a writer.

Whereas those people who are not writing but who have a talent for writing,

They really seriously have a talent for writing more so than I do.

They're not writers because they're not writing anything,

Because they're not pushing anything out,

They're not shipping anything,

They're not getting feedback,

They're not constantly interacting with their writing and all that stuff.

So that's where the big difference comes in,

Guys.

It doesn't matter if you have the talent for acting or painting or writing or music or whatever it might be.

If you're not putting yourself out there,

If you're not pushing yourself out there,

If you're not shipping stuff,

There is no point to it.

You're not doing what you're supposed to be doing.

And so those people who are pushing stuff out there,

Who are shipping stuff,

Even if they're less talented than you,

Even if they're less genetically endowed than you,

They're going to be more successful than you at that craft because they're pushing themselves out there,

Because they're shipping stuff out there.

And that's the main difference between people who are successful and who are not in these kind of creative fields,

Is that those people who are actually doing stuff,

Who are writing,

Painting,

Creating music,

All of that,

And they're actually pushing themselves out there.

So there's two aspects to creativity.

First of all is actually doing the creative task,

So writing.

Actually writing is a part of it.

But the second more important part is shipping yourself out there.

So a lot of people will have thousands of stories that they've written and they're all sitting in their laptop in a hard drive,

Safe and sound.

But what happens is that they're afraid,

Because they're afraid to put themselves out there,

Because at that point you'll start getting feedback.

And as soon as you start getting feedback,

You know that the people are going to either say good things about you or negative things about you.

And you have to be prepared for that,

Because a lot of people are going to say really negative things about you.

And a lot of it's just not about you,

It's about them.

They're feeling stifled or they want to be creative themselves,

But they're taking out their anger on you,

Totally fine.

But you have to prepare for that.

Most people are not.

Most people are uncomfortable with feedback,

Uncomfortable with specifically negative feedback.

And so they don't,

They have all this stuff in their laptop,

On their hard drives.

They never push themselves out there,

They never publish anything in order for the world to see.

And again,

So they're not a writer either,

They're not a creative person either,

Because those are the two aspects of being creative.

Writing,

Or creating,

And shipping.

You have to ship,

And then you have to repeat.

And you have to keep on repeating over and over and over and over again until the day you die.

That is a true,

True mark of a creative person.

Because either you do one or the other,

It doesn't matter.

Because if you're creating a lot and you're not shipping,

Then you're not really creative.

And if you're not creating a lot and you're shipping,

Then again,

You're not doing anything right.

Do you know what I'm saying?

I hope that makes sense.

So,

Just give me a second,

Let me just switch off this notification.

Okay,

Sorry about that.

And so that is what creativity is all about.

So when I meet all these people in these workshops,

Again,

I feel so much sadness,

Right?

Because they're so talented,

And I always obviously tell them,

Go write.

Go write stuff.

Don't be afraid.

There's still people out there who are not writing.

So if you just write,

You're a billion miles ahead of them.

And if you just keep on pushing yourself out there,

If you keep on shipping stuff,

Then you're three billion miles ahead of everyone else.

Because everyone else isn't doing that stuff.

And so if we can just do that,

And that's the reason I do this every single day.

I ship something every single day.

I write something every single day.

Because it's important.

Because it's important for my creativity.

It's important for my own mental status.

I need to do this stuff.

It's important for me.

So I do it.

And I implore you guys to do exactly the same.

If you are a creative person at all,

Write or create and ship.

Those are the two things you need to do on a constant daily basis.

And then repeat over and over and over and over again.

That is how we're going to become better creatives.

Because the more you do,

The more practice you put in,

The easier it gets,

And the better you get at it.

I might never get to the status of being as good as Anne Land or Virginia Woolf,

But I can get closer and closer and closer every single day the more I write.

But if I don't write anything,

I'm not.

I'm not a writer.

I'm not what I want to be.

That's not right with me.

That's not all right with me at all because I have a limited time on this planet,

And I need to do whatever I need to do to take advantage of it.

I might be dead tomorrow.

I want to make sure that I write as much as possible before that.

I hope this makes sense to you guys.

I hope that you guys have an amazing day wherever you are.

I'll talk to you guys the next time around.

Bye for now.