Have you ever thought that it’s okay to be messy? To NOT clean up your desk and put everything in order at the end of your writing time? To stop writing mid-sentence? To leave prose when drivel is all you’re creating?
Sounds wacky, but doing these things can increase creativity.
Contrary to what some ultra-organized folks think, being spontaneous and not OCD about your work space and your writing might be the best writing tool belt may make a difference in your productivity.
“Why?”
“How come?”
I can almost hear you ask.
Those who allow themselves to be messy seem to have an edge when they return to their writing as the tasks of organizing and re-reading what’s unfinished, un-edited makes it easier to pick up where they left off.
That’s the key: You really don’t stop for the day or stop the writing project. You’re just taking a break from it so it’s easier to begin again.
You can also beat the fear of starting any writing project when you know that professional writers prefer to be messy and thus avoid fear of writer’s block that shouts these questions: What if I can’t complete the short story? What if a reviewer doesn’t like my work? What if I’m not good enough to write another cookbook?
You really don’t want to be inside my brain, but if you did when I begin a new writing project, you’d get an earful of worry, misgiving, okay, alarm. What if, after 100 plus books and ghostwritten projects and well over 1000 magazine articles, I can’t research, can’t compose a sentence, can’t finish what I’ve been contracted to do? That’s the worry I go through. At one time fear paralyzed me for weeks. Then with plenty of self-talk (encouraging words spoken out loud), I got going and realized it’s okay to be scared and that’s when I learned it’s easier to overcome this if I’m messy.
Now when I feel the fear of starting arrive, I understand it is part of my creative process, start to write, walk away, then return. I leave the work disorganized for a reason. Yep, you might say I bless my mess and my mess then blesses me.
I am not alone in believing that a bit of mess might lead to success. A University of Minnesota study split participants into two rooms (one tidy, the other messy) and asked each group to come up with different uses for Ping Pong balls. The groups brainstormed a similar number of ideas, but the messy-room ideas “were rated as more interesting and creative when evaluated by impartial judges,” according to the Psychological Science study. While orderly environments “encouraged playing it safe,” concludes Kathleen Vohs, one of the study authors, “disorderly environments seem to inspire breaking free of tradition, which can produce fresh insights. Being in a messy room led to something that firms, industries, and societies want more of: creativity.”
As you consider the new year or whatever part of the year is left as you’re reading this, be brave, be strong, be a writer and be messy.
Thank you, Eva, for a great look at an underappreciated writer’s tool. Messy works. Maybe because it holds onto the feelings of the project on hand and makes it easy to slip back into a comfortable and welcoming atmosphere. A clean and spotless office, on the other hand, can beg of you to not get it dirty, to not change anything. But creativity cannot live in a sterile environment. So mess up that desk, don’t vacuum, and scatter some papers around. It will feel just like home when you return, with your characters welcoming you back for the next chapter, as if you had never left.
I feel better already! Thank you Eva!
Thanks Eva! The article you referenced about the ping pong balls made sense!! My desk is cluttered so that’s a good thing. My problem is that I can be in the middle of writing a sentence when I jump up and throw in a load of laundry. I need to fix that habit!
Me, too, but that’s okay. We need to get up and walk around a bit. Just get back to the writing. Thanks for the note. You made my day.
I love this! I never thought about the benefits of messiness, and as a sometimes messy, always creative person I find it life affirming. I envision for me a balance between messy enough to feel free to explore but not enough to make me feel anxious and overwhelmed. I have definitely experienced that satisfaction of making and then cleaning up a mess. Both necessary processes. If we don’t let ourselves make a mess then we don’t get to enjoy the satisfaction of cleaning it up, recovering what treasures might lie amid the wreckage and sometimes making a mess and playing around is just plain fun!!