How to Stay Creative (When your cat is annoying and your brain is soup)
I sat down to write a blog post based on a silly YouTube video I put out yesterday about my cat; he’s an annoying distraction that gets in the way while I’m working. (He’s lovely the rest of the time, but I digress). As I sat to write, having just eaten, had a drink, and cosied up by my radiator, I was hit with some of the worst brain fog I’ve had in a while. I find it so hard to sit and think, I start writing sentences without knowing how to finish them. It’s upsetting and frustrating. It means I frequently open a blank page, screen, or notepad, and have nothing to put down on that paper. Even if I have a defined idea, i.e. “I want to make a sticker sheet based on animal crossing”, I’ll spend two hours looking at pictures of Tom Nook on Pinterest and then have to do something else.
A mix of long Covid and POTS has taken away my creativity, as well as a lot of my mobility, and I want to work on getting it back. So here are some of the ways I find the ability to work despite distractions and illness.
Embrace Micro-Creations
Sometimes I can’t finish a full post, design, or product. But I can scribble an idea on a sticky note. Sketch one sticker design. Or record a 10-second voice note of an idea.
Trying to “finish” anything can feel impossible with brain fog. So I let myself start. I permit myself to create a single crumb, and if anything else comes of it, then even better.
Some of my best design ideas come from days I’m bed-bound: I have so much time to think of ideas and absolutely no energy to make them. Just making note of them and coming back when I feel capable has been so helpful.
Let the Distraction Be the Content
I didn’t plan for my cat to ruin my drawing time with his melodrama and insistence on being directly on my sketchbook. But here we are. He’s now the entire theme of a video and inspired this blog post.
As I write this, he’s flopped out on my desk chair. I wish I had a normal cat sometimes. But:
If life insists on being chaotic, I try to work with it. It becomes the narrative. I stop trying to silence it and start documenting it. For me, art is about exploring the world around us and interpreting it. The world around me just happens to have very sharp teeth and a love of sitting on paper.
Accept the Fog, Don’t Fight It
This one’s hard. Even right now, I’m really angry at my brain fog. I know that when I come back to edit this later, I’ll be grateful it’s gone. (EDIT: I am). When your brain won’t do what you want, there’s this urge to push harder. But for me, the only way out is softness.
I’ll take five. Lie down. Listen to lo-fi beats or ambient rain. Write one sentence and leave the rest for ‘Future Me’. Rest is part of the creative process when you live with a chronic illness.
I think of it as the door glitch in Skyrim. I have a very small plate at the moment, but I just keep running at the wall over and over and hurting myself. I need to take a step back, find a huge wooden tray, and try again when I’m properly equipped.
Repeat Yourself (On Purpose)
When I can’t think clearly, I go back to past work. I reuse themes, reshape older posts, or build on half-finished notes I wrote on better days. It gives my posts a sense of continuity, and it’s great for showing me how far I’ve come in my work. I can re-draw a picture months or even years later and see change.
One of my favourite examples of this is my first ever fan art, from when I was 7. I keep a sketch of Kirk and Spock from Star Trek in my sketchbook, right next to a drawing I did when I was 20. Seeing them side-by-side shows me how far I’ve come, and I’ve come further still since then.
Your creativity doesn’t have to be original every time. You can echo yourself and still add something valuable.
Lower the Bar. Then Lower It Again.
Making something is always better than making nothing. One sketch, one reel, one silly cat video. It doesn’t have to be profound, it just has to exist.
Sometimes my best “content” comes from the days when I gave up on being productive and shared something honest, like this post. I was originally going to write a post about lettering art, but I sat here staring at my screen for so long that I was getting angry with myself.
So, I challenged myself to create five ways I could be creative right now. And that finally inspired me and drove me to be able to write again.
Final Thoughts
Brain fog is a beast. So is a chronic illness. So is trying to stay focused while your cat makes biscuits on your lap and you’re trying to remember what you did 30 seconds ago. Currently, I’m sofa-bound and taking sick leave off of work. It’s stressful and worse when I feel like I can’t do anything with my day.
But even in that mess, there’s a kind of magic. Creativity isn’t always a lightning bolt. For me, it’s often like an ember. You have to protect it and blow and blow and blow on it until it finally catches alight again.
So if all you’ve done today is make a tiny thing, you’re still creating. Remember that if you only have 40% and give 40%, you’re still giving it your all.
You’re still doing the work.
If you read to the end here, thank you for joining me! I hope this was helpful to you, feel free to leave a comment, question, or just have a mooch around the rest of the site.
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Have a great day!
