The Infinite Creator Podcast

Get full access to The Infinite Creator at bethlapides.substack.com/subscribe

Making sense of being a creative person right now. Creativity and war and peace. Solutions for developing and painting your creative life from a creator, creativity coach and muse.

Get full access to The Infinite Creator at bethlapides.substack.com/subscribe

How - and why - to keep creating work during dark times and when everyone is feeling not ok from a debited creator and creativity coach.

Get full access to The Infinite Creator at bethlapides.substack.com/subscribe

Dreams, goals, locating your true desires. Creativity coach and author Beth Lapides on how to get where you are going.

Get full access to The Infinite Creator at bethlapides.substack.com/subscribe

Substack has added a podcast feature - so I'm experimenting with it. I know some of you - even you who like to read - sometimes prefer to listen. And it's a time thing too. So to start out with recording the written stacks and adding a little bit of commentary. This one is kind of meta becuase it's about growth and adding the podcast is in fact growing.Infinitely yours, Beth

Get full access to The Infinite Creator at bethlapides.substack.com/subscribe

I have a few clients Who have been obsessingAbout problems this week. And the thing about being a storyteller?We love problems.

Because stories are really nothing without problems. Conflict! Drama! Issues!Even comedy. Pain!So we’re drawn to problems.Or maybe we were drawn to problemsAnd so we became storytellers. Either way. Here’s the thing.It’s like a plank of wood. You look at a plank of wood. Your eyes - our eyes at least - storytellers’ eyes - go to the knot. And a knot in a piece of wood Is where there was an infection. A problem. And the tree just grew around it.

But the knot is where our eye goes.Because it’s the most interesting part.The problem Is where it’s all happening!

But there’s the rest of the plank of wood.Without all that boring nothing going on part The knot wouldn’t be so interesting.It’s in the context of the un-problemsThat the problem becomes interesting. And yes. Looking at problems Is great for storytelling.But not always great for living. For living - as a storyteller As someone Who needs to stare at Even dig around in That knotted area -It is super helpful to - As you walk away from your desk - Look at the rest of the plank of wood.Look at solutions. Look at un-problems.Look at beauty.

Oh problems will arise. Sure. They always do.But you don’t have to always Be drawn to them. In the way that you always have to be drawn to them In your work. This shift in focus Will help give you the fortitudeTo get back into it tomorrow.When you will be at it again. Becuase you are writing every day.Right?

(If not - or if you are and struggling - I can help with that.)

And one other possible tactic.When you end up obsessing about the problem.See if you can convert it into a question. And then remind yourself to love the question. Sometimes solutions, answers, stories and peace of mind Can ride in on that love.

Infinitely Yours, Beth

The Infinite Creator is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work - while supporting your work with incoming inspiration and motivation - consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Thank you for reading The Infinite Creator! This post is public and free - so feel free to share it as a way of supporting this work.

Get full access to The Infinite Creator at bethlapides.substack.com/subscribe

There’s a drift in the creative communityOf assuming the reason You are not moving forward on a projectOn maybe your whole careerIs resistance.

And resistance is real!I even resisted reading “The War of Art” Because who wants to read a whole book about resistance?!But here’s the thing!It’s so key.And may be the thing That helps you understand why you aren’t Moving forward!I saw a video of a peony blooming today. Here’s the link to my Insta.It’s in my stories right now.My first thought wasIt’s like a flower waving hello!And I mean it would be enough.If that’s all it was.I watched it again. And again. Was I resisting the annoying to do list? Duh. But was I actually mesmerized?I was.

And after the third Maybe fifth time through(after all there was that list to resist)I realized part of what was happeningPart of what made this flower video So completely compelling Was the retreat.Of individual petals.Even though the flower kept blooming Each individual petal did not move Irrevocably forward!Or outward - to be more specific.

Out and then in.Forward and then back.That’s what made it feel like It was wavingLike a hand.Oh hi!Like the watery wavesCrashing in on the sandAnd then heading back out to sea.I watched some more.The flower continued to bloom.As a whole.But each piece of the flowerEach petalMoved forward and pulled back.Breathed in And breathed out.As the flower flowed onIn a general trend of blooming.

What does this mean for your work?

Sometimes you are not resisting.Sometimes you step back to assess.You take a break between drafts.You put things in the drawer.Becuase you have a question. You sleep on things. Sometimes for years.(Great story in The Ankler today about Cormac McCarthy doing just that).Sometimes you are building the musclesYou are going to need to execute the next piece.Sometimes life.Life is real.And what you are making work about.So.Sometimes you are catching up with yourself.Backing away doesn’t always mean You are resisting.It can.But it doesn’t always.

Especially if you look at the whole Of your workAs the flower.And each piece of your work As a petal.Are you blooming in general?If not - probably resistance.If you are blooming in generalMaybe you are backing up specificallyTo get perspectiveMomentumClarity.And the thing is They may look the same From the outside.Because most peopleWill not take the time To perceive your wholeness.Some people will.A great agent or manager.Your collaborators.A lover. Maybe.A creativity coach.(If you need one, we might be a good fitAnd you can set up a call to explore that here.)But whether you answer aloneOt with helpThe question is the same.Are you resistingOr are you re/treating?

Re-treating after allTreating yourself well.Again.And again.As you must.If you are going to bloomFor a whole career.As I like to re/mind myselfCreate come from a word meaning to grow.Not a word meaning to make.

And growthBlooming Becoming It’s a dance.A wave.A spiral.An explosion.It’s many things.And sometimes it moves In what looks like retreat.Moving backwards is challenging.That’s why they put cameras in cars to help you.Do that for yourself.Give yourself toolsTo back away - dance - with grace.And be gentle with yourself.And tough too.Like a flower petal.

xx B

The Infinite Creator is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber! Or upgrading your free subscription to paid! xx

Thank you for reading The Infinite Creator. This post is public so feel free to share it:)

Get full access to The Infinite Creator at bethlapides.substack.com/subscribe

Oh! It’s jacaranda season. I love the jacarandas. One day abracadabra And everywhere you lookThe most magical purple.But not for long.They’ll be gone. And hardly missedIn the summer hum.But somehow This feeling of knowing they will be gone?Oh, no.I know All the things bloom and fade.Fade and bloom.To everything there is a season blah blah blah.But it feels, and I don’t know why -More so with jacarandas. Intensified.

Maybe it’s the way the purple Looks different In different light - Different Against different backgrounds.Maybe it’s the way the purpleJust makes differentSo valuable.The way the changing hueIs changing just like you doAs you go From sky to walls.From meetings To hold my calls.Maybe it’s the wayThe changing colorMagically transforms you Into someone who walks aroundKnowing It’s not going to last.I’m not going to…. But then the beauty warns you Not to go there.Stay here In this fleeting now.Don’t dive into the never.This is the purple gazeThe ultimate spring days fever.

You can’t even pretend with the jacarandas. I mean a rose.Looks like it might last forever.A rose is a rose is a rose.And don’t get me wrong I love a rose. Have them growing in my own garden.But a jacaranda.Might be gone before you even finish Saying the word.

Jacaranda. Abracadabra.They cast their purple spell.Maybe the bloom and fade of these treesFeels so intense because of when it happens. In this tender moment As spring curves toward summer -This moment of shift.When the LA air is still cool.But the days are long.This yet that.As purple is.This yet that.Blue yet red.And maybe this year more than everIt’s that purple dream Of a life beyond red and blue.How we are all just So weary of that civil war.Which feels like it won’t fade.But will dig in - just root and root.As we try to un-ban the books.And yes.A jacaranda calls out to be read. And oh the story. Each one of these purple flowersOn a heros journey.We’re all just walking each other homeI feel like they whisper to one another As they flutter the - what? 10, 20 feet of air space.An odyssey.An odd a see an odd season.A changing season.How have I never noticed Until this yearThe jacaranda treesAre timed perfectly to Pride.Maybe because this is the year. We need the purple gaze.As we look towards a bloom and fade.Fade and bloom.

So I look to The lace of purple skirtOn the groundIts own beautiful thing.Maybe it’s going to be ok.Go ahead honey let go.The blooming and the letting go - all at once almost. It is time to be the change. Create the change. Create into the change. Go ahead do it.You are a jacaranda.Abracadabra!

xxInfinitely Yours, B

PS Abracadabra is from the Aramaic phrase avra kehdabra, meaning “I will create as I speak”. From three Hebrew words, ab (father), ben (son), and ruach acadosch (holy spirit). That’s right the father the son and the Holy Ghost - well before Christianity. I create as I speak. In the beginning there was the word. Reach out to me if you’d like to talk about how I can help you transform your creative life

The Infinite Creator is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Get full access to The Infinite Creator at bethlapides.substack.com/subscribe

Strike.It’s a big word.

And, as a generally striking personOne I hold close to my heart#amiprettyyourestriking

Strike.It means so many things. But right now And hereIn Hollywood It means Change.

#wgastrong#sagcoming#dgatoo

And strike In this senseOf picket signs And lines of humansWhose job is actually writing lines.Is a tsunami of change.I almost can’t think strike nowWithout hearingAll the pins fall at once.A victory. And a massacre.At the same time.

Strike - the word - in this now sense Maybe comes from The idea of ‘striking sails’Lowering the canvas.A refusal to go to work at sea.(Or now for usIn the sea change.)Strikes me as likely.And echoey.Lowering.Pencils down.Our sails. Though pencils seem more Like the masts.

And the paper.The canvas.Sitting there.Waiting.As we are.

I keep thinking of a coinMy friend Chris gave me a dozen years agoAs I set out on the choppy sea of starting over.

We can’t control the windWe can only adjust our sails.I keep it on my desk.As an anchor.

As IAs weOf the blusteryTalking tribeThe windy tribeTry to adjustOur sails.Sometimes not sailingHelps you study the waves.If not steady them.Sometimes stillnessIs the movement.The Movement

This nowIs a Movement moment.Like a be in.A love in.A sleep in.A moratorium.Where not doing somethingIs doing something.

Xx

PS We have created special WGA comps for the UnCabaret Friday 5/26 El Cid show - next week. So after you walk the line – come hang out with us – and on us.

The Infinite Creator is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Start writing today. Use the button below to create your Substack and connect your publication with The Infinite Creator

Get full access to The Infinite Creator at bethlapides.substack.com/subscribe