The joys of living with a creative 

My wife knows me inside and out, we’ve both been together with each other longer than we’ve been apart. She’s gotten used to my tricks, but it did take some time for her to get used to my creative craziness.

Yes, us creative types are different.

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We have habits and traditions caused by the way our brains work. I’ve been cataloging a few of those idiosyncrasies. Here’s a few of the joys and struggles of living with a creative person:

  • Long periods of silence, followed by the pounding of the keyboard or the splash of the paint brush on the canvas. 
  • The occasional shrieking laugh, sigh, or F-bomb out of the blue. It won’t be directed at any one or anything or a situation or the moment. It will just come out of the blue. 
  • Watching your creative significant lie down for the night and then within minutes, get up and out of bed and then go to a desk or somewhere digging out a piece of paper. They should be tired, but instead they need to get an idea down before they forget it.
  • Watching your significant other figure out what to work on next, second guessing themselves, and having to convince them that their ideas are really good and not full of garbage.
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  • When looking at something for the first time, needing to hide your true feelings because your overly sensitive creative better half will be watching your every facial twitch for a sign or meaning.
  • Seeing your soul mate, experience moments of pure joy and agony, all in a 60-minute period. 
  • Looking over a piece at the request of your creative significant other and feeling doubt because you’re not sure if you should point out an error or mistake or should just be quiet. 

Yes, there are lots of challenging moments, but there’s plenty of joy too. Oh, the wonders of a living with a creative.

Do any of these sound familiar? What would you add or change?


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36 thoughts on “The joys of living with a creative 

  1. Oh my goodness! Yes! Those “out of the blue” moments of inspiration…talking to myself…eager for feedback. Yes! Even the facial twitches you described! 🥰

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  2. And sometimes in the middle of the night, a thought hits me – one that I couldn’t figure out in the daytime. It seems my brain hasn’t completely gone to sleep and is working overtime.

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  3. Mrs. Chess is still working full-time, so I definitely get to see that pure joy and pure agony within an hour courtesy of both her “creative” customers and (some of) her co-workers.🙂

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  4. It is wonderful that you two have found ways to embrace and support each other’s personality and approach to life. How wonderful it must be to jolt out of bed with that creative spark too!!!

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  5. My husband used to go to bed with a problem he needed a solution to and overnight, that brain did its thing. I would say 9 times out of 10, he woke up knowing what to do. Pretty amazing to be able to do that.

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      1. Hahaha! I know what you mean. And sometimes I do have an idea but I also feel if I get up or turn on the light to write it down, I’m going to bugger up my sleep. And that is difficult enough already!

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  6. LOL! Yes. So true! Especially the getting back out of bed. My husband is so accustomed to that. I would also add how my husband knows that when I say I just have one more line to write. Will be done in a few minutes that more often than not it ends up being a lot more lines and a lot more minutes. 😂

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  7. totally relatable, Brian! I was certain my creativity had vanished with changing diapers, this new pup dog and everyone home for 5 days after our vaca and the parentals got Covid and pneumonia. Everyone left yesterday TG and I did have some words pop into my head as I pounded fast and furious before they left. Who the hell knows if they were any good but it gave me hope. and then there was the 5:30 a.m. puppy pee.. hell we’ll see how long it lasts.. 🙀💗

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  8. My creativity is more about solving problems than writing or art. I love the aha moments and after years of practice I have learned to skip the agony. I call the discomfort “creative discontent”. It’s just part of the process. The neat thing about problem solving is you know when you have a solution and don’t need to be reassured by others.

    One of my favorite quotes is Brenda Ueland’s, “The imagination needs moodling,–long, inefficient happy idling, dawdling and puttering.” No agony, just patience and faith in the process.

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  9. I feel like my husband is familiar with all of these, especially the self-doubt one! I would add watching your creative significant other complain about not spending enough time on creativity and yet procrastinating getting back to it because they’re fighting writer’s block!

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  10. Ah so true… each on of them. I am guilty of the out of the blue occasional shriek and laugh as well. May be if I can add one more to it. My partner often talks about my work with his students, his colleagues, friends, my family, his family and so on. It is always behind my back and I think its his way of keeping me motivated.

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  11. Yes this is me! Long periods of silence, then lots of creativity and then second guessing it all before finally being happy with it. Insightful blog post!

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