Creative Phases

Creative work isn't one activity. It's at least two. In the generating phase, the job is volume: rough, flawed, even silly options. In the evaluating phase, you compare, cut and refine. Trouble starts when you try to do both at once. The inner critic is faster than the inner maker. It compares a half-written line to the finished work of someone you admire, and the line loses. If that happens every session, you eventually stop starting. In The Creative Act, Rick Rubin describes the process as seeds, experimentation, crafting and completion, and each stage calls for its own posture. Early phases reward curiosity and openness. Later ones reward rigor. Separating the phases doesn't lower your standards. It schedules them, so ideas have time to show their potential before anyone judges them.