Monetising Creativity
Or not.
Like a podcaster who records an intro after they’ve interviewed someone for an episode, I’m writing this introduction with a point of view that only formed after writing the piece below. Ostensibly this post is about the feeling I’ve had of not being creative anymore, of not having ideas, or more accurately not having my NEXT BIG IDEA that will lead to my NEXT BIG SUCCESS.
But after writing for what felt like hours (it was) and then searching my camera roll for recent relevant images to accompany the piece, something didn’t feel right. I’d just written about not feeling creative, so who was this person in the pictures and videos making pottery, rearranging the living room, hosting drawing workshops, hanging art in the bedroom, visiting galleries, and snooping around antiques markets?
I decided not to post the piece, something I’ve learned to do when my gut says no. I closed my laptop - it was dark out, 6.30pm-ish and my tummy was rumbling. I had a tiny snack to ward of the hunger, ran a bath, poured a glass of wine, and submerged myself in the frothy, scented hot water. Like many people, baths are where I have ideas (also on walks) although still not the BIG IDEA apparently. (Read my piece on previous revelations in the bath).
My thoughts were spinning, always a signal for me to try to slow down, and then like a bolt I saw clearly how completely wrong I’ve been all this time.
I hadn’t stopped being creative. I’d just lost the ability to monetise it.
Similar to some of the concepts in the podcast I mention later in this piece, which questions if we find ideas or if ideas find us, this revelation had just dropped into my mind fully formed, like Paul McCartney waking from a dream and writing Yesterday in ten minutes, although my revelation is likely to be far less profitable.
Suddenly it was so obvious that it was embarrassing. How did I not see this before?
In January I wrote about 2024 being a fallow year for me. Well in some ways, perhaps 2025 has been as well. I hadn’t lost my creativity. I was just in a period of grief and process and reimagining, at least that’s what this hopeful optimist will tell herself.
Anyway, here’s the piece that is absolutely not about me losing my creativity…
It’s been a funny couple of years in the Henson Household. Sometimes it feels like nothing much has happened and then I realise that so much has happened that my brain just hasn’t been able to process it. Life has been less about work and more about living and somehow that doesn’t rank as highly in my made up score card of success and significance.
I’m reminded again just how much of my self worth is tied up in my work. There’s nothing wrong with that, especially if like me, you love your work and your work is linked with your creativity. And I do think my creativity is a huge part of who I am. The problem is when the work slows down and you aren’t sure what you have to offer without it.
When I get booked on a photo shoot, I am BUZZING with energy, some of it nervous (15+ years in and inexplicably I still have some self doubt before each shoot - “maybe this will be the one where they figure out I’m a fraud!”) But mostly it’s the excitement of challenging my brain and being around people on set and creating something together. Without that, who am I?
This morning I was chatting with a friend who’d popped over for a coffee. We’re both creative people who work in the same industry, but we also do a lot of other mostly unpaid work on social media, because we enjoy it. Content creators, I guess. Ick, but yes, we are that. We’ve also both lost our mums in recent years. Mine a year ago, hers almost four.
As I’ve done with anyone who will listen over the past year, I expressed my frustration with not knowing what my next idea/goal/dream is right now. I’ve always known what I wanted. And then I’ve worked towards it and tried to make it a reality, with some success (although I’m still waiting for the abundant riches).
I wanted to be a stylist working for global brands - tick. I wanted to write interiors books - did it. To buy a house by the sea - I’m sitting in it as I type. To design wallpapers - done. But now, it’s all a bit fuzzy. The dream is still something with the home, interiors, writing, sharing my knowledge, but that’s where the vision gets blurry.
It’s all very well listening to podcasts or reading books on how to manifest your dreams, but if you don’t know what your dream is, then what do you do? If you feel like your creativity has deserted you, how do you get it back?
I think you just keep going. You keep showing up. You keep making space for ideas by doing other things. The love/job/experience of your life shows up when you’re not looking, so they say. You keep asking questions and seeking a connection and making a positive impact in the world, even if just through your friendships or the things you do for your neighbours or the way you speak about yourself to yourself and to others (positively of course).
And you remain hopeful. I think that’s it.
My very clever friend Laura Walker is studying for a PhD in Psychology and wrote about the difference between optimism and hope. I’d never considered how they differ, but as someone who has always identified as an optimist, now I’ve been made aware of their subtle differences, I feel a shift in my thinking.
It is the sense of agency, and associated planning, that really distinguishes hope from optimism. Being optimistic simply means expecting things to work out for the better - Laura Walker
I listened to this very interesting podcast on my walk/run this morning which gave me hope that ‘the idea’, whatever it is, is out there trying to find me. It’s just not the right time yet. It was a brilliant reminder to make space every day for the idea to find you. This episode is peppered with words of wisdom from Rick Rubin, Liz Gilbert and Martha Beck and I highly recommend a listen.
My coffee morning friend made me realise that I’m being hard on myself with my incessant worrying that I’m not as creative as I used to be, that I don’t know what I want, that I’ve run out of ideas, that I have no idea how I will support myself in this next chapter of life.
She reminded me that grief over loss and big life changes can take a long time to pass through, much longer than you ever imagine. It’s four years since she lost her mum and she expressed similar sentiments to me about her own decreased level of creativity.
It takes time to find yourself again.
When my creativity has felt low, I’ve turned my attention to things that really matter - family and friends. The best thing I’ve done this year is to nurture those friendships and family connections. I’ve met someone recently who doesn’t have much family and he reminded me how lucky I am. But I haven’t always been the best at maintaining those relationships, especially when my kids were younger and life was more hectic and full. Now I have no excuse.
I have an incredible relationship with both of my children and with my siblings and some of my extended family as well. I’ve really worked to deepen those connections lately, starting a Whatsapp group with all the cousins who are spread out across two continents. Making sure to call uncles and siblings and to see my nieces who live in this country and text the ones who don’t. Checking in with friends even just a text to say ‘Hi, I’m thinking of you’.
Losing someone can really make you value the ones you still have.
And the friendships. Wow.
I’m planning my 50th birthday party for next month and even though I’m not someone who could ever fill a huge club with loads of friends, I can say that I’ll be able to fill a small wine bar with people I care about deeply, both old friends and new, and that makes me tear up a bit. It fills me with a feeling of such elation, especially because when I was in the depths of my toughest times in recent years, I often felt so alone. (I wasn’t but I felt it. Sadness and depression can play dirty in your head). At times I feel like a teenager again, giggling with my friends at a bar or in the back row at choir practice and it feels far better than any job ever could.
I’ve also gone through the motions of ‘being creative’. By that I mean that I’ve participated in creative practices as a way of connecting with people, even if it doesn’t get me to the elusive flow state I’m seeking, that place of nirvana where the world falls away and it’s just me and the piece I’m writing/pot I’m making/still life I’m drawing. I’ve been pushing myself to try new things, new experiences, to visit new places.
Lately I’ve tried my hand at ceramics, having not stepped into a studio since my school days, when I spent all my free time in the pottery studio being the teacher’s pet. Working on the pottery wheel was challenging and I’m not sure it’s my thing, but sitting with a lump of clay and free styling a ragged petaled flower - inspired by my amazing LA friend Kim West - took me to a state of calm I hadn’t experienced in months.
I drove with a friend to a town known for its antiques shops, a place I’d never heard of and had no expectations. Getting out of my usual routine and rummaging in the rain for the sake of it was such a tonic. I didn’t even buy anything, but for the price of petrol and a pub lunch, I’d made space for ideas.
As I sign off, having re-read what I wrote yesterday, I wonder if a lack of ideas isn’t my issue. Perhaps it’s follow through. Perhaps it’s having too many ideas and not knowing where to start, not knowing which one is ‘the one’. But maybe we never really know and it’s the doing that matters.
As a creative person, you have this push and pull between the need to create and the need to make money and those paths don’t always intersect.
I plan to keep talking to people I trust, keep sharing with people I think might benefit from my experiences, keep collaborating and connecting, without any promise of ‘success’, and to keep my hope (not optimism) alive.
Thanks as always for reading (or listening) x
I love this. I think there is a huge difference and it's hard (but worth it) to shift our perspective to where we value unpaid creative time. It has soo many other benefits that are, as long as you have enough money to eat and live, more important long term.
I absolutely can relate to this! As a kid, I did all the creative pursuits - choir, theater, piano and drawing, etc but at some point told myself I wasn’t talented enough to pursue any of them. I ended up being a high school math teacher for over 25-years and distinctly remember telling myself over and over that I wasn’t creative. I wasn’t the idea person but just the sounding board. It wasn’t until I started rearranging and organizing my house all the time when my kids were younger and getting compliments on it that I realized I was actually creative (and teaching is a creative field if you’re in school that values it and you feel confident enough to allow for lots of “teachable moments” and questions from kids instead of following a strict lesson plan or slide deck - I just didn’t see it that way for a while!). That confidence in styling my home (on a low budget!) led me to retire from teaching the first year I could to start my own biz as a home stager. That business has morphed into mostly decluttering, organizing and styling midlife women’s homes with things they already own (because we already consume too much 🙂). I don’t make the big bucks and sometimes business is slow and often I’m just helping a client reset the work we’ve already done in previous sessions (hello, shopping addictions), so in those times, I don’t feel super excited and creative. But, I too, just need to reframe my thinking around that. Just problem solving through a difficult client interaction (sometimes they’re tearing up because they feel embarrassed about falling prey to shopping and bringing more stuff into the already chaotic home) takes creativity.
Thanks so much for sharing your heartfelt thoughts and ideas with us!!