Ranking Creativity

Yesterday I cleaned my office out – getting rids of lots of books that I don’t want to read or keep. I cleaned off the desks and under them a little bit, too, all in prep for ripping out the carpet which I can’t quite seem to make myself do. I don’t know why. It’ll be hard work but mentally easy. I know how it works. I’ve spent time learning how to pull it up – I have special tools to help with things like the left-behind staples in the floor. I’m ready to mask and glove up and get this terrible, disgusting, stinky carpet OUT of here, but I’m stopped somehow. There’s a fear, and I feel it, and it isn’t like me. What on earth am I afraid of? Lala did it in her office, and it’s so much better. If my hardwood floor is too terrible to look at underneath, I can get a huge Ikea rug which would be a million times better than this carpet. But I’m still scared of screwing it up.

There’s also a part of me that doesn’t want to spend my precious free time ripping out carpet. December is my month to READ, and I’m loving it so much – I don’t want to take time away from that. Basically, all I want to do is read. On the week days, I do my work just so I can get back to whatever book I’m reading. I started my “studio journal” yesterday – idea courtesy of Janine. In it, I’m chronicling how the year is going in kind of an art-journal way. I’d love to visit it every Sunday when I plan my week. Yesterday I wrote down some of the books I’ve read this month and made some notes about them and about how I feel in the project so far. But I still don’t know how to rate the creativity I’m feeling/not feeling. The whole idea of the year of play is to be more inspired, but what kind of yardstick do I use? Maybe I should do it every day and take an overview average? What would I rank?

How good did my creative work feel to do today?

Is this perhaps the question that matters? Isn’t it the best way to rate inspiration level? I’m dropping a pebble into the well to see how long it takes for me to hear the splash. I wish I could just clock that, write down the seconds it takes and extrapolate from there. I should probably ask myself that question at the end of the day. How can I set that up so that I remember to do it? Excel spreadsheet? Take an average? Will I really open it at night? Maybe add it to my ToDo list to do when I’m done working?