This is probably the last episode of Muses & Monsters' first season. It focuses on (live) performance as an aspect of the creative process. Jeroen, having little experience with creative performance himself, wanted to pick Bram's brain on the topic. How does one go about delivering his or her creative art form in front of a live audience? Does that performance or delivery become an intrinsic part or an extension of the creative product? Or should the performance be perceived as a creative product itself? We asked ourselves these types questions. We are not sure if we were able to formulate any intelligible answers but, well here you go: episode 6.

-

For this episode of Muses & Monsters, we did some major prep work. During the whole month of January we slacked off in very professional fashion to get inspired by the topic at hand: procrastination. Behind our microphones, we delved into four archetypes of procrastinators, as presented by a Business Insider article. That way we tried to come up with some concrete cures or simply ways to acknowledge procrastination as part of the project of being a creative person and move the f on.

So, which one(s) are you? A performer, a self-deprecator, an overbooker, a novelty seeker... or maybe a combination? Find out together with us in episode number five.

-

A few weeks ago, we recorded a conversation about what is generally considered the nucleus of any creative endeavor: inspiration. 

We also discussed the interesting (or frustrating) fact that we tend to be inspired by similar things much of the time. Moreover, Bram gave Jeroen some more insight in the benefits of archiving unpublished creative work and collecting inspirational objects.

We asked our Instagram followers  what creativity related topic they wanted to hear us talk about next. Well, we gave them a choice: between 'Inspiration' and 'Failure'. Interestingly, the latter won the vote (no fraud involved by the way).

So, is failure merely the opposite of success? Or is there more to it? And either way, doesn't the definition of failure depend on how one defines success? What should you do when failure occurs? Is there a specific understanding to be had about creative failure versus other kinds of failure?

These, and many more questions popped up in our goofy minds. Hopefully some of the answers we came up with for ourselves are of use to you as well.

Slightly later than anticipated, Bram and Jeroen have hooked up their microphones again. They discuss another component of many creative processes: collaboration. Mainly, we tried to find out what we are really after when we choose to collaborate. Do we have an outcome in mind or are we simply hoping to discover something that is unknown to us, so far?

Like every episode, we confronted each other with some dilemmas and finished up with analyzing a haiku, relating to the episode's topic, that one of us wrote . Between the lines, several advantages but also disadvantages and pitfalls came up, as well as likes and dislikes when it comes to working with others on a creative project.

Here it is: the first episode of Bram and Jeroen’s conversational podcast about the muses and monsters of creativity. The topic at hand is: self-censorship, quite symbolic for a first podcast episode that was long overdue.