Creatively Complicated

Ep 19: The Shelf Life of a Creative Idea

November 29, 2019 04:00 - 29 minutes - 23.6 MB

If only sourcing good ideas were as simple as walking down to the Amazing Ideas Emporium and loading up a basket of suitably fulfilling, challenging, and hopefully money-making creative visions. But it’s not. So how do we “get” ideas? And how long do they stay fresh? Should we push through with an idea just because it was strong for a moment OR learn to let them go if the energy behind it fades? Quotes: “Messiness is an inherent part of creativity.” -Summer “Acknowledging the mes...

Ep 18: Life Interrupting Art

November 22, 2019 04:00 - 31 minutes - 25.1 MB

Do life changes help or hurt the creative process? We have decided to create some geographical disruptions to help us investigate this quandary. Well, not really, but let's pretend that we are doing this for science anyway. Steph will be in Germany for at least the first 3 months of 2020 AND Summer is visiting Japan for 2 weeks around then as well! Hooray for swapping regions madness! Don’t worry, our first season of Creatively Complicated will continue through 13 December but this week w...

Ep 17: The Creative "Why"

November 15, 2019 04:00 - 33 minutes - 26.6 MB

Why do we create? Often, our motivation is money, entertainment or guilt because we feel like we “should" be doing something. Despite a long list of topics to discuss in our last episode on creative feedback, we both thought the episode felt unnatural and directionless. You might not have picked up on that because Summer saved us with her editing prowess by creating a narrative arch before we published the episode. Stephanie, known globally for her occasional bouts of brilliance, quickly r...

Ep 16: Do we ever really want creative feedback?

November 08, 2019 04:00 - 31 minutes - 24.9 MB

Love it or hate it, feedback is an inevitable component of the creative process when you choose to release your work into the wild. This week, Steph and Summer get meta with their thoughts on the whys, whens, and hows of receiving and giving creative feedback. We ultimately discover that there seems to be a value tier when it comes to feedback and, big sorry to friends and family, but as it turns out, you guys are at the bottom of the pile. Cheers! If you're feeling inspired to offer f...

Ep 15: Is being creative in many areas a bad thing?

November 01, 2019 04:00 - 34 minutes - 27.9 MB

Do you find yourself creatively diverse? Have you accumulated many creative passion projects over the years only to have people call them your “little projects?” Well, this is the episode for you then because Summer and I have had about as much as we can take of the monocreative expectation in current day society. Links: -Creativity School with Grace Chon, episode 40, with D’Ana Joi Spencer https://www.creativityschoolpodcast.com/blog/2019/10/08/dana-joi -Regen Racing Podcast: htt...

Ep 14: Life Cycle of Creative Projects

October 25, 2019 04:00 - 42 minutes - 34 MB

Does your creative process change depending what project you are working on? To “research” this we three podgoddesses drove down the creative highway with the top down, the music up and the wind in our hair. Wait, three? Yup, we are joined this week by the most methodical, articulate and humorous person we podknow, Expat Cast Podcast Host Nicole Palazzo. Going meta was our goal so we chatted about when to start, pivot and stop creative projects. Surprisingly Summer and Nicole had an interest...

Ep 13: Balance & Consistency in Creative Workflows

October 18, 2019 04:00 - 28 minutes - 23 MB

Has one tweak to your workflow ever made the world of a difference in your creative process? This is exactly where Summer and Steph are standing in timeblockingland. Festering was not working so we added a pinch of numbifying (quantifying) yeast to our creative workflow and brewed to our heart’s content. This ultimately hatched some pretty awesome new timeblocking plans and the creative foam floatith over (too much?). Our creativity is all the better for it so hurrah to numbifying and mixing...

Ep 12: Do you need discipline in your creative life?

October 11, 2019 04:00 - 45 minutes - 36.6 MB

It appears that we have been in a creative incubation period for the past 11 episodes. This episode could very well mark a shift in our creative turmoil,especially for Summer. Yup, we are thrilled to bring you our first creative breakthrough since starting this podcast. Summer had a massive creative productivity moment of truth recently that we can’t wait to tell you about. It involves a splash of time management, a pinch of paprika and a large cup of hyperawareness. This recipe metaphor is ...

Ep 11: “Is your day job serving you?”

October 04, 2019 04:00 - 34 minutes - 27.5 MB

We admit our privileged perspective on the wacky things we are seeing in the job market, 100%. But in a soap box moment it feels like those of us that can say NO to this kind of work all the time bullshit should do so to force employers to stop asking people to do it. (stepping off the soapbox) But in reality, we both want jobs that provide a basic income but don’t zap our creative energy for our heart projects. Yes, many of you call them passion projects, I know that, but passion feels too ...

Ep 10: “It’s a thing that passes by like a car”

September 20, 2019 04:00 - 38 minutes - 31 MB

I just went back in time and counted: Summer and I shared over 20 Whats App voice messages after listening to the Bittersweet Life Podcast episode on creativity. We had already started Creatively Complicated and hadn’t thought much about guests because, well, that’s kind of like two people on a first date talking about kid names. Even so, I think we both knew that if and when we did start interviewing people, Katy and Tiffany would be at the top of the wish list. So here we are, in guesting ...

Ep 9: Podcasting Is Like Falling In Love

August 30, 2019 04:20 - 26 minutes - 21 MB

Authenticity and honesty are traits that I am reading about more and more as a new(er) trend in social media effectiveness. Podcasting was actually built on these traits and this is why we (Summer and I) knew that 6 years podcasting veteran Jessica Kupferman would be a fantastic guest for this new creative vulnerability interview series: she is 100% her. And who that her is is inspiring, funny and community oriented. In fact, Summer and I are both parts of her She Podcasts community. Thi...

Ep 8: Process & Product, part 2

August 16, 2019 04:00 - 20 minutes - 16.8 MB

In August we are spelunking through our creative input and output in a two part episode. In the previous episode, episode 7 we stumbled around in a dark creative cave, trying to figure out how to turn our creative flashlights on (creative flow), finding what what spotlight was best (quality), and which tunnel to follow (audience feedback). We started with the question: How do you know if you are moving forward and what does that even mean? And went wherever our creative pitch forks took us....

Ep 7: Creative Process & Product, part 1 of 2

August 02, 2019 04:00 - 34 minutes - 27.5 MB

In August we are spelunking through our creative input and output in a two part episode. This episode is where we are stumbling around in a dark creative cave, trying to figure out how to turn on our creative flashlights (creative flow), find out what spotlight is best (quality), and which tunnel to follow (audience feedback). Was that analogy a step too far (pun intended)? Maybe. But it feels like a lot of this creative talking out of things is such a new skill. Personally, I (Steph) hav...

Ep 6: Creative Consistency

July 19, 2019 04:00 - 40 minutes - 32.3 MB

Many people say that working on your creative project every day is the only way to achieve success but is it realistic for us to write every day, create podcasting content every day, etc? In this episode we grapple with this consistency conundrum in our creative process. To be honest, I (Steph) have been working on my podcasts nearly every day for over two years.This consistency was initially fueled largely by a strong desire to have conversations about geeky, niche topics BUT was rejected...

Ep 5: Boxing in Creativity

July 05, 2019 04:00 - 34 minutes - 27.8 MB

Swedish cheese, Chinese fiction, and letting go dance a pretty mean tango in this episode. Yes, most tangos are done with only two people but this two-person tango idea you just had is exactly the kind of boxing in that we are addressing in this conversation. A flashback to the book “Shanghai Baby” starts off our rant about the tolerance people have of boxing in creativity and creative people. On the positive side of this box, Summer got a wave of letting go of a project relief after seein...

Ep 4: Travel and Brain Frenzy

June 21, 2019 16:00 - 47 minutes - 38.5 MB

In this episode Summer and Steph are both on European soil. Summer is at home in Nuremberg, Germany and Steph is traveling in Lake Como, Italy. This travel sparks a discussion about how when we travel a significant distance AND to a different enough culture, our brains can disconnect and let go. This release can (at least for these two expats) create space for creativity to flow through us and even create a brain frenzy of ideas. Creative terminology/ideas to emerge from this episode: ...

Ep 2: The Mundane Window

June 07, 2019 15:03 - 27 minutes - 22.2 MB

Welcome to the Creatively Complicated podcast, where we dive into the messiness of our creativity. Summer and Stephanie are two Americans living abroad in two different countries: Germany and China. We met via podcasting so it made sense for us to start a podcast to talk through our creative ponderings. This podcast is about as far as one can go from an advice podcast, it is more of a process through the deep, murky waters of our own creative struggles. In this episode we take a step bac...

Ep 3: Creative Ideal Angst

June 07, 2019 10:29 - 41 minutes - 33.5 MB

Welcome to the Creatively Complicated podcast, where we dive into the messiness of our creativity. Summer and Stephanie are two Americans living abroad in two different countries: Germany and China. In this episode we get very creatively meta. Rabbit holes take us down a technology and terminology time warp. Then a quote from Ira Glass of This American Life podcast sheds light on what makes the beginning of a creative project difficult. Spoiler: it is the gap between what your taste wants...

Ep 1: What Are We Doing?

May 29, 2019 09:14 - 32 minutes - 26.1 MB

Welcome to the Creatively Complicated podcast, where we dive into the messiness of our creativity. Summer and Stephanie are two Americans living abroad in two different countries: Germany and China. We met via podcasting so it made sense for us to start a podcast to talk through our creative ponderings. This podcast is about as far as one can go from an advice podcast, it is more of a process through the deep, murky waters of our own creative struggles. In this episode, we do a 100% brai...

Ep 0: We Like Chips & Other Random Facts

May 28, 2019 16:00 - 18 minutes - 14.8 MB

As if we don’t share enough about our ICL (in creative life) non-ICL lives, here is an entire episode to fill in the gaps about who we are and what we do with our time outside of podcasting and wrestling with our creative existence. What we are reading right now: -Normal People by Sally Rooney , https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41057294-normal-people -Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari, Eric Klinenberg, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23453112-modern-romance CONTACT US: Crea...