I consume tons of information – often via podcasts while stitching – a lot of it around creativity – and some around business and marketing – they often overlap and intertwine. There is a lot of discussion and advice, especially lately, around finding your voice, curating and focusing.

I have struggled with all three – especially the focus and curating. I’m all over the place and I think there is validity to the argument that it’s easier to make progress if you focus your efforts narrowly. For example – I know I could grow the sewing and craft pattern business – my newest venture – much faster if I focused solely on that. Maybe I should. I also know there is a lot more to explore and experiment with in my own stitch-work and I could sink into that exclusively. Or I could dive deeply into painting and drawing – It would be an adventure and I would love to spend a bunch of time working out exactly who I am and what I want to express in that.  And there is the question of what to share publicly – is it smarter to only present one sort of work? I feel the conflict – the conflict of posting work that I can imagine seems out of place or for a different audience. I’ve considered and am considering possible changes and solutions – like having separate homes for the different kinds of work I do. A home devoted exclusively to the craftier end and another home for projects that are more experimental – I love both and don’t want to stop sharing either. It sounds reasonable and I’m not ruling it out but I can’t imagine running two sites – the time and expense and also I immediately see places where the two would overlap – for me it is all deeply connected.  I remain puzzled and conflicted.

I hoped that the work and exploration I did last year ( My Big Creative Year series) would somehow work this out for me but it didn’t. Something did emerge though – maybe the beginning of some clarity through the daily sketchbook work. I recently passed the one year mark – 52 weeks – what I committed to – but it’s been so good for me I decided to keep going. It has not been at all convenient but it has been undeniably good for my creativity and imagination. If you can find and commit to a little space each day to play, to listen to yourself (on the good days and the bad days) and experiment interesting things will happen.

That relatively small daily practice of showing up began to reveal things to me after about 9 months – I began, or really am beginning to recognize my own voice in that medium, a voice that feels natural to me. Themes, imagery and a vocabulary are emerging as well as a sense of what I’m attracted to and what my strengths and weaknesses are.

When I went through my big stack of little squares (it weighs  3 and 1/2 pounds!) I saw that many of the ones I like best, the things that felt the best to me felt connected to the other work I do. I couldn’t quite articulate how though. And then – while packing and shipping paper flamingos I addressed a box to someone who lives on Fable Lane. I thought – what a charming address to have – I bet Fable Lane is lovely.

The word kept popping back into my mind and it occurred to me it’s a common thread in so much of what I have done – for the last ten years especially – the idea of fable – all the meaning and sensation that word conjures. I think it’s something to explore intentionally – I’m not sure exactly how yet but the idea of investigating that passes the first test – I’m having some ideas that make me happy and curious. More on this soon.

There are so many reasons not to start, to feel overwhelmed or underwhelmed, afraid and stuck. Maybe something feels too big, the hill too steep to climb, or you’re afraid of failing  or being disappointed or disappointing.  Maybe your momentum gets hijacked  by some bit of drudgery – some unpleasant, boring but necessary task that has parked itself between you and everything you’d like to be doing.

Whatever the reason stuck is stuck. When you are stuck you lose your clarity, focus and drive. It is a place of frustration and a spinning anxiety and inertia that develops a momentum of it’s own- feeding and compounding and perpetuating the stuckness. It is not a creative place and certainly not a happy place.

Curiosity can break that cycle. Curiosity is an energetic place and you can apply your curiosity to stuckness with a very simple exercise: make a list of questions – at least ten.   To get started the questions can be small or absurd or silly – in fact absurdity can be good for waking up curiosity. And I have found the more questions I can come up with the better they get but the exercise is less about finding solutions ( although they may occur) and more about tapping into the energy of a massively powerful part of your mind.

Even in the case of drudgery, when the objection is  that a task is boring or unpleasant I might ask myself questions like – How could I make this better?  Is there ANYTHING fun or interesting about this? What if there had to be? How could I segment  or order this differently? Could I ask someone for help?  What part of this is not essential? What could I take away? What happens if I don’t do it?  What if I only had 15 minutes?  How could I apply a system here?

There is an element of novelty and perhaps a refreshing of perspective at work here too but it’s curiosity that gets you there. If you can spark your curiosity – even just a little – you can get yourself moving.