Creativity Is A Lot Like Pooping…

Okay, so, I know you’re probably thinking “What the crap?” (ha!) but I’m going to break it down for you so you can get the straight poop. I’m sure to disgust pretty much everyone who reads this, but you know what? Since I was a little kid, I always made up very…. odd analogies to help friends understand certain situations, and though they were weird as heck, they made sense. So, here goes, and welcome to my analogy of how creativity is a lot like poop.

How Creativity Is A Lot Like Pooping

The Taco Night Poop

Everyyyybody knows the Taco Night Poop. You know, the one where you’re talking to someone, and mid-sentence, you feel all of your innards drop like an out-of-control elevator. You feel heat rush up your body, and you know, you know. YOU MUST GO NOW. You thrust your drink into your date’s hands, and you run, on your tiptoes, to the bathroom, your butt cheeks clenched so tightly you could probably use them to pry the bottle cap off a beer.

The problem with the Taco Night Poop of creativity is that there is just too much of it to handle, it’s out of your control, and in the end, it’s awful, it’s all over the place, and you are ashamed of yourself.

The “I Need More Fiber” Poop

This is the one you’ve been working on for days. You know it needs to happen, but you just can’t quite… get… it… out. You try everything you can; drinking lots of water, exercise, warm baths. But it’s just not ready yet. You actually start to get worried, as the days pass, because you wonder if your pooper is broken or something. You actually start wondering if there’s like… a poop-digging spoon or something you can quietly buy on Amazon and have overnighted to you, but you have an overactive imagination, and you know that you’ll never be able to eat chocolate ice cream again, and that’s totally not an option.

The creativity version of this poop is when you’ve got an idea, but you don’t know exactly how to express that idea. You grab on tight, you strain, you hem and haw, and then finally, this rock-hard idea comes to the fore, and boy, is it impressive. It’s so impressive you call your significant other into the room to glory in its awesomeness before you flush it send it to your agent.

The Non-Poop

This is where you think you should take a poop or feel the need to poop, but your body doesn’t actually need to take a poop. This is sometimes a side-effect of certain medications, and it’s as irritating as all get-out.

When you’re a creative person, you’ll run into this kind of thing quite often. You feel the need to create, but…. nothing’s coming out, and no matter what you do, you can’t seem to produce one tiny plip of creativity. You really need to be careful about this one, because it can turn into the Taco Night Poop of Horror if you’re not careful. The only excuse for Taco Night Poop shame is TACOS, folks.

The Regular Poop

This is the pièce de résistance of the poop aficionado. If you’re reallllllly lucky, you have a nice, normal pooping schedule. You get to the office, you drink your first cup of coffee, and then, hey, it’s time to blow up the employee bathroom. Oh, don’t look at me like I’m a bad person for saying it. Any intelligent person knows that if they walk in the employee bathroom between 9:00 and 10:00 am, they’re chancing the overall strength, health, and general sanity of their olfactory tissue.

And this is great when your creative poop is regular. You’ll sit down in front of whatever medium you use to express your creativity, and your ideas will come easily, plopping down onto the page or easel or keyboard with very little effort. Prolific authors like Agatha Christie, Stephen King, and Isaac Asimov are a nice example of folks who have the joy of creative pooping regularity.

And Then There’s Me

My creativity is like mixing the Taco Night Poop with the “I Need More Fiber” Poop. There is no real rhyme or reason to it, and when it comes, it’s like I’m trying to blow out a clogged hose with a jet of water. The first part shoots out like a cannon ball, and then all this messy liquid stuff blasts out behind it that I’ve gotta clean up. My type of writing relies, obviously, heavily on the editorial process, but…. I’m glad that I at least get a good nugget out once in a while.