(Above: a still shot from the 2022 video game, Stray. Video games are an excellent past-time for creative incubation.)
There once was a British dude named Graham Wallas who developed one of the first models for the stages of the creative process. Many artists are familiar with these stages: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification. Today, let’s just talk about the incubation stage.
What is Creative Incubation?
Incubation is the point in the creative process that comes after you have been actively researching or working on a problem. It involves departing from active contemplation and engaging in other unrelated activities in order to allow the unconscious mind to work on it in the background. Like a slow-cooker, incubation simmers together all the inputs from the “preparation” stage for an indeterminate amount of time, leading to the rise of some creative new solution: the “illumination” stage or “eureka” moment.
For instance, let’s say you see an Internet video about a wolf living at a wild animal sanctuary. The next day, you read a fiction novel before bed, and a wolf appears before the protagonist. A week later, you have a dream about wolves. Then, on the forested drive home from work, you spot a pair of eyes gleaming from the side of the road. Eventually, you start to notice the recurring theme, and you wonder what that’s all about. Then suddenly, something magical happens: you receive some insight about staying loyal to your “pack” or something else a wolf might symbolize; or maybe you find inspiration for a new creative project about wolves.
In the spiritual community, some might call these repeat occurrences a “sign from the divine” or an “omen” or a “synchronicity.” In the scientific community, they might call it confirmation bias. Whether you are of a more spiritual or scientific leaning is irrelevant; the point is that these seemingly intentional repetitions stick out to our brains, which are wired for noticing and interpreting patterns. If you choose to be open and curious enough, you will hear the universe speaking to you in this way.
The kind of insight and inspiration worthy of goosebumps doesn’t often come when we are working diligently or when our conscious mind is very active and focused. The nature of the incubation phase is to be unfocused, to wander and daydream, to be living unconsciously so as to allow the unconscious mind a chance to peek above the surface. When you received those disparate pings about wolves, you were not working at your desk, but mindlessly scrolling social media, winding down with a book before bed, asleep and dreaming, or driving home on auto-pilot.
The Capitalist ‘Laziness’ Narrative
None of these activities are inherently productive. And that goes against the capitalist narrative that anything that isn’t directly related to chasing dollars or status is, at best, a waste of time, or at worst, a selfish indulgence. But that mindset usually only leads to self-effacement and burnout. Take it from someone who has been there, too: it isn’t a healthy or sustainable way to live. And the truth is, doing things that aren’t inherently productive or actively creative is still part of the creative process.
Let’s say you don’t feel like working on your wolf project. Maybe you’re feeling sick or uninspired or just not in the mood (ultimately, it doesn’t matter why, and you don’t have to offer excuses). So you bum around watching TV for a bit. That’s still part of the creative process. That TV show is giving your brain some substance to gnash on, which may or maybe not be relevant at a later time.
Everything you do and experience and see and feel each day goes into your nervous system and your memory bank. From there, the inputs are processed by your unconscious algorithm, the thing responsible for dreaming up the outputs. In other words, it’s all fodder for producing something else.
Activities for Incubation
So, in a culture that tends to overvalue productivity and action, how can you be more intentional about de-shaming your need for incubation time? What kinds of activities do you think might help you rest and incubate?
Here are ten simple ideas to help you catch ideas:
- Watch a TV show or read a book in the same genre as your project or dealing with similar themes.
- Go on a walk and connect with nature. Walking is a form of bilateral stimulation that calms the nervous system and improves communication across different parts of the brain.
- Do some gentle, flowing, or rhythmic movement, like tai chi, yoga, or qi gong. Sometimes I’ll do some light Muay Thai shadowboxing in the morning because the blood flow helps to get my brain in gear.
- Make a home-cooked dinner. Yes, that’s part of the creative process, too! You have to eat to live, and you have to live to make art! Take a nice, long, satisfying poop, too.
- Practice mindfulness. This ranges from breathwork and visualization to mindful eating and somatic experiencing.
- Create a Pinterest board or physical vision board depicting a character in your novel, an environment you’d like to capture in a song, or something unapologetically unrelated to your work.
- Color in a page of a coloring book and give it to a stranger.
- Plant something in a pot and talk to it as you water it and watch it grow over the next few weeks.
- Talk to your creative project. Ask for what you need, especially if it’s a week or two of space from thinking about it at all.
- Get a good night’s sleep. Wind down with some yoga and binaural beats, a cup of chamomile with ashwagandha, or cuddle time with your fur baby, and then go to bed early. (Bonus: In the morning, write down any dreams you can remember!)
Following the Flow
You won’t feel the same every single day. One day, you may feel super positive, and so the prospect of writing a heart-breaking scene might feel really out of alignment. Listen to that and don’t force it. Trust that you will feel what you must in order to write that heart-breaking scene on some other day, and be okay with today just not being that day.
Instead, focus on what is easily available to you today. Maybe you run with that super positive mood and find some other areas of your story to flesh out that do match that energy. Maybe you’re actually not feeling positive at all, and you’re having a sucky day. That, too, is part of the creative process. In that case, put the work aside and see which of your incubation activities might resource you the most right now.
You’re simply not meant to force yourself to do anything that doesn’t feel like flow. Give yourself permission to NOT work harder, and instead work smarter – and sometimes, that means not working at all. Feel around for where the flow is at this particular moment – because it will always change from day to day. That’s the joy of the creative process.
A Relationship With Joy
You know, sometimes, maybe it’s okay to allow yourself some peace. It’s really okay to not feel okay.
It’s also okay to allow yourself some joy.
Creativity is no more and no less than a relationship with your joy. Some people call it the inner child, the muse, the “genius” in the house. It’s the unique and fully individual light that comes from within, the spirit within. And sometimes that spirit doesn’t wanna go to the river!! …even though we had that artist date planned for today.
Ultimately, what’s the point of the Artist Date? It’s only to foster that relationship. This is a good reminder not to do things just because you feel like you should, or because someone told you to, or because our capitalist society overglorifies discipline, but rather to align your actions with what those things represented in the first place. If the goal of the Artist Date is to foster a relationship with your joy, well, your joy told you it doesn’t want to go. So listen to it. Ask that child what they do want to do instead:
“So tell me, Joy, how would you like to spend today? I’ll follow you wherever you lead, loved one.”