by Sandra Tayler

The summer of 2019 was supposed to be one of quiet work. My husband and I had books to make. But then a toilet clogged which led to a plumbing discovery. Ten days later I had a backhoe digging up my street, three rooms with flood cuts and no flooring, a hole jackhammered in the concrete subfloor of my office, and three creative professional workspaces relocated to incredibly inconvenient locations in our house. All because the sewer line between our house and the street needed to be replaced.

Instead of focused work we had six months of massive disruption to our work schedules, living spaces, and lives. (Replacing the sewer line took two weeks, repairing the damage to the house took much longer.) Through all of it I learned a lot about managing to do creative work through disruption. I would get a second and very differently shaped lesson on weathering disruption only a few months later when the shutdowns of the Covid-19 pandemic hit.

Through both major disruptions I learned that you can find ways to continue to nurture your creative growth no matter what disruptions come your way.

Disruptions that ambush you

Both my plumbing-disrupted summer and the pandemic were disruptions that sprang on me unaware. Many disruptions do. So if you find yourself suddenly ambushed by a disruption take a moment to assess the following.

Look clearly at what you can’t change

With the pandemic there were so many things outside my control. Services I relied on were shut down or limited. Grocery store shelves were empty of my habitual purchases. The sweep of disease was far beyond my control. It was important for me to recognize that and let go of trying to control everything. Spending hours predicting the future wasted energy.

I sincerely hope that at the moment you are reading this you are not living through a pandemic, but even in more standard life circumstances there are lots of aspects of your creative life and career that are forever outside your control. Big corporations will make changes that affect how your book sells. Governments may apply taxes or barriers that you did not anticipate. People you expected to help you instead ghost you.

None of this is in your control.

If you can’t control it, you have to adapt for it. That adaptation is easier when you recognize that you’re coping with things that you can’t control.

Look clearly at what you can change

My plumbing disaster had a lot more pieces that I could control. I could choose how to proceed with repairs. I could spend my time on doing the repairs or I could spend money having someone else do them. I could choose flooring. I could choose whether it was more disruptive to displace the kitchen table and turn that into a workspace or if it was better to retain family gathering space and work in a closet. I frequently did not like the choices that were available to me, and sometimes having to choose felt like an extra burden, but being able to choose did give me some power over the flow of my life.

So when you’re faced with disruption, identify the choices you have and use them wisely. Small choices have a cumulative effect especially if the disruption happens over an extended period of time.

Disruptions you can prepare for

Some of the disruptions in our lives we can plan for in advance. Folded into that crazy summer of disaster clean up, my daughter got engaged and we planned her wedding. It was a wonderful event, but it definitely added to the sense of disruption in our lives. Our house got more crowded as her new husband more-or-less moved in, then shifted again when they both moved out. The reality of those changes naturally turned out a bit differently than we pictured, but we were able to consciously decide the shape of many things as we prepared for her to move.

When you see a disruption coming, take some time to evaluate the impact of the coming disruption on your creative goals. How will you get creative work done while planning a wedding or a move or whatever else may come your way. You can choose whether to carve out a daily space for your creative work or whether to let your creative work rest while you cope with the disruption.

Preserve your creative space

The most valuable thing about your creative work or project is you. If you break by pushing too hard or caring too much, or mis-match your expectations to reality, then you’ve broken all of your future projects until you find time to heal. This is important to remember when facing disruption. It may not be a period of significant creative production. The early pandemic certainly wasn’t for me and many creative people I know. Sometimes the most important creative work you can do is to self-protect in the middle of disruption. Grant yourself a quiet retreat into some measure of comfort so that when the disruption calms, you have energy for what comes next.

Disruptions you choose

Sometimes we choose disruption. We make choices that are going to disrupt our lives, our creative processes and the lives of others. Make sure the disruptions you choose support your priorities and goals. Going back to school to get a masters degree is a huge disruption, but it is worth it if it fulfills a dream or opens a life path that you want.

Be aware of what your chosen disruption may break for other people. We are all entwined in relationships and communities and disruption often creates strain. I certainly wish that when big bookselling corporations make changes they would consider the impact on the small author. (They don’t, sadly). When people want to disrupt the way things are in the world, they often speak of breaking the old system and replacing it. Yet the disruptions with the most power to change the world are not based in destruction, but in growth. If you want to change the world, nurture growth in yourself, in your creative work, in your small business, in your friends.

Disruption is often not the creative person’s friend, but it does not have to prevent you from writing the things you want to write.

What disruptions have you faced / are you facing in your life right now? What are you doing to protect your creativity?

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About Sandra

Sandra Tayler is a writer, editor, and publisher with credits in over thirty different titles. She is a consistently successful crowdfunder, and has spent the last thirty years managing a household alongside several small businesses. Her book, STRUCTURING LIFE TO SUPPORT CREATIVITY, is a non-fiction book meant to help creative people make more space in the life they have for the creative work they want to do. Sandra lives in Orem with her husband, three cats, a minion, a cryptid, and a family of very demanding scrub jays who insist that Sandra's only real job is to put peanuts on the deck rail. You can find Sandra online at sandratayler.com

Top image by Deleyna via Canva.