Episode 121: Emotions and Choice in the Creative Process with Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, PhD

What either allows or prevents us from taking action on our creative ideas and bringing them into being? According to our guest Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, PhD, emotions and choice play a major role, including our fears about being judged, as well as both our sense of creative anxiety and identity. How we manage these emotions ultimately guides our creative freedom and efficacy. 

For our Creativity Pro-Tip, if you have more ideas than you can pursue at any given moment, we encourage you to practice what Zorana calls “idea stockpiling,” which involves finding a way to record our ideas, whether in a notebook or voice memos, or even in a physical drawer, so we can return to them later. We also encourage you to notice and utilize your feelings and emotions in service of your creativity, rather than fighting them. For example, energetic moods are great for creative ideation and brainstorming, whereas more subdued moods are better for critical thinking and revision. 

Credits: The Syncreate podcast is created and hosted by Melinda Rothouse, and produced at Record ATX studios with in collaboration Michael Osborne and 14th Street Studios in Austin, Texas. Syncreate logo design by Dreux Carpenter.

If you enjoy this episode and want to learn more about the creative process in a variety of contexts, you might also like our conversations in Episode 62: The Neuroscience of Creativity with Dr. Indre Viskontas, Episode 117: Creativity, Anxiety, and Authenticity with Amanda Beck, PhD, and Episode 119: Jazz Lessons with Musician Mathematician Lawrence Udeigwe, PhD. 

At Syncreate, we're here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture, and you’re not sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, also called Syncreate, walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your creative goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools, and coaching to help you bring your work to the world. You can find more information on our website, where you can also find all of our podcast episodes. Find and connect with us on social media and YouTube under Syncreate. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review! We’d love to hear your feedback as well, so drop us a line at info@syncreate.org. 

Episode-specific hyperlinks: 

Zorana’s Website & Book: The Creativity Choice

Zorana’s Newsletter on Substack

Zorana Ivcevic Pringle on LinkedIn

Show / permanent hyperlinks: 

The Syncreate Podcast

Syncreate Website

Syncreate Instagram

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Syncreate YouTube

Melinda Rothouse Website

Austin Writing Coach

Melinda Joy Music Website

Transcript

Melinda: Welcome to Syncreate, a show for creative seekers. We explore the deep human stories of creativity, psychology and spirituality. We believe everyone has the capacity to create. Our goal is to demystify the process and expand the boundaries of what it means to be creative. What holds us back? Why do we get stuck and how can we fully embrace our creativity? 

We talk with visionaries and change makers and everyday creatives, working in a wide range of fields and media - from the arts to science, technology and business. We aim to illuminate the creative process, from imagination to innovation and everything in between. I'm Melinda Rothouse and I help individuals and organizations bring their dreams and visions to life. 

At Syncreate, we’re here to support your creative endeavors. If you have an idea for a project or a new venture, and you're not quite sure how to get it off the ground, find us at syncreate.org. Our book, also called Syncreate, is available in both print and audio format. It walks you through the stages of the creative process so you can take action on your goals. We also offer resources, creative process tools, and coaching to help you bring your work to the world. 

My guest today is Zorana Ivcevic Pringle, PhD. She's a senior research scientist at the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. Zorana studies, writes and speaks about the creative process - from having an idea to making it happen, from the first decision to engage in the creative process to its culmination in creative performance and products. Good morning and welcome, Zorana. I'm so happy to have you on the show today. 

Zorana: Thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure. 

Melinda: Yes, absolutely. So, I was excited when you reached out to me because we are both working in the field of creativity studies, and I think we have a really kind of similar goal and approach to the study of creativity and creative process. Which is ultimately wanting to demystify some of the ideas that people have about creativity. Like, either you're born with it or you're not, or it strikes like a lightning bolt. And really help people move from their creative ideas to completion, and bringing something out into the world. 

So, I know you study - you have a book which we can see there, right behind you, The Creativity Choice, and I want to definitely hear more about that. And that you also study the connection between creativity and emotions. So, before we get to the book itself, I'm always curious to hear like, the story behind the researcher or behind the, you know, the public face. And I'm curious how you came to the study of creativity and the specific topics within creativity. What in your life led you to become curious about creativity in this way? 

Zorana: My origin story has - and you mentioned emotions - has different emotions behind it, and I can remember a time when I was young. I remember this particular instance in first grade that made me feel not creative. That I would not have used that word (if it was part of my vocabulary at the time) to necessarily describe myself. And I remember a particular emotional experience. It was an art class, and I loved to draw. I spent much of my time drawing at home and it was never a problem. But the teacher asked us to draw something, whatever we wanted, and as soon as she said that, I froze, as if I had no ideas. As if I had no ideas. 

And I remember distinctly looking everywhere around me and I wanted to do what teacher would want me to do, and therefore wanting to do what everybody else was doing. And I remember exactly what happened. That everybody was drawing. It was one of those holiday (national holiday - Independence Day like holiday situations), and everybody was drawing the town center with a Venetian Fort in town and flags flying, and I ended up doing the same thing. I probably had done a good job of what it was, but I had noticed as the teacher put all of the drawings on the board that everybody but one student did the same thing. 

And the student who did something different was my best friend, and I was fascinated by the fact that she didn't do the same thing as everybody else. And I am not sure that I knew that what she did was daring to be creative, but I wanted whatever it was that she had. And I remember all of those feelings of being impressed and inspired by what she did, and of those feelings of pressure and what are other people going to say? And do I want to take that risk that was going through my mind? 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: And then fast forward some 15 or so years later as I was in college and studying psychology and looking for a thesis topic, I started reading very broadly, and I knew that I wanted to study interesting people. Of course, when you are a scientist, you cannot study interesting people because that is not a technical term. (Laughter) 

Melinda: Right. 

Zorana: So, you have to define what you mean by interesting people. And I started reading very broadly and came across a statement by a researcher in the first big wave of creativity studies in the 1960s, Frank Barron, who said that creative individuals are in the same time more sane and more insane than the general population. (Laughter) 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: And again, I did not know what that exactly meant at the time, but that definitely fit my personal definition of what interesting meant. And I wanted to study that. I had a sense that there is something different about how people are put together who are doing something creative, and I wanted to understand that. 

Melinda: Yes. And I love that story that you shared because I think so many people can relate to it. I certainly can. It brings back memories of being in art class in elementary school and similar. This kind of performance anxiety around like, what am I going to draw and what will people think of it? And so many people get some kind of message from a young age that either, “Oh, you're so creative…” or, “Well, maybe you should go in a different direction.” Right? 

And a lot of people feel stifled with their creativity because of some kind of feedback they got from perhaps a well-meaning teacher or parent or something like that. Right? So there's so many, as you say, emotions that are tied up with creativity. And those emotions that we experience (particularly from a young age) can really shape our trajectory, whether we consider ourselves creative or not. 

Zorana: I think that that is a great observation. It is not necessarily what we are experiencing that has that effect, but what we are doing with those experiences. 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: So we have done studies. And I was very curious about what goes on in people's heads as they are considering their ideas. As they are considering whether they're even going to do anything with them. And we have found three big kinds of thoughts that come through your mind. And one big one is anticipating negative social consequences. 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: They are very emotional in nature. Are other people who are relevant in my environment going to be angered? Are they going to think that I am stepping on toes? Are they going to consider this that I came up with to be silly? And that is a big consideration. Another one is more inward oriented. Am I experiencing an unmanageable degree of self-consciousness or anxiety in this situation, where I have ideas and have to start doing or sharing them in some way? And then a third consideration is a sense of being creative. Engaging in the creative process as being personally important. As being something that is part of who you are. 

And this description of what goes on in our minds is not to say that if you have these concerns of how others are going to react or what is your personal discomfort or anxiety that you're experiencing, that those become insurmountable obstacles. It is that these feelings are very common. They are part of the creative process. They are not an indication that you are not capable of engaging with ideas and developing them. They are a signal that you have to manage these emotions. 

Melinda: Yes.

Zorana: And that's where the idea of what you do with your emotions is coming into play.  

Melinda: Definitely. Definitely. So, related to your book, The Creativity Choice, you know, again, this idea that there are certain choices that we make along the way in our creative process, and those can affect whether and how we bring something forward into the world. So, tell us more about your research around these decision making processes within creativity. 

Zorana: So, if we think of creativity as doing something with ideas that we have, I take that approach to the creative process because I have observed that there are lots of people who have ideas, and there are fewer people who do something with those ideas. 

Melinda: Indeed. (Laughter) Right. 

Zorana: So, I'm interested in understanding that gap. And if we start with an initial idea and we assume that this idea is creative or has creative potential, that has certain implications. Creativity is something that is in the same time original in a particular way, and also has the potential of being effective in a domain of work. That being effective might mean being useful or solving a problem. If you are an engineer, creating something/some engineering solution, and it can be getting a reaction from an audience if you are an artist, for instance. 

So, it can take different forms. But if you are aiming for something that has an element of originality in it, it means that there isn't a blueprint or a step-by-step instruction of how you get from an idea to a performance or a product of some sort. And if there is no step-by-step instructions, you cannot make a detailed plan of each step along the way. 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: And you have to (a little bit to a certain extent) make it up as you go. And that means there is an element of uncertainty in it. Now we have to be willing to work through that uncertainty. 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: I came across a quote from Georgia O'Keeffe where she said that she was terrified of everything she has ever done in her life, but it did not prevent her from doing it. 

Melinda: Yes. Amazing. And in our book we talk about creativity as kind of this journey through the wilderness, right? There is no map. And as you're saying, you know, if we're creating something that is new and different, we have to take that journey and there's no map that can guide us, but we still have to keep moving forward. 

Zorana: Yeah. And I love the analogy of wilderness. Maybe you have a compass, you have that idea that is guiding you, or you have a vision of something that happens towards the end. How you get exactly there is going to differ on what you encounter along the road. You are going to take a different road if you encounter a particular obstacle in your road. There is a large boa - 

Melinda:(Laughter) Right. 

Zorana: - and you are not going to get in its way. And they are obstacles in the way of our creative work. They are perhaps false starts. You get to point where the approach that you have taken is not working, or that there is a wall you are facing now. You have to scale that wall and get over it or go around it, or get beneath it, but there will be a different approach that is necessary. 

Melinda: (Laughter) Yes. Yes. Yes. So, how do you… how does your research help people navigate those decisions in their life, in their work? 

Zorana: I look at it on different levels. So, as we discussed already, there is a substantial component of dealing with the emotional experience in the creative process. There isn't a bad emotion or a good emotion. “If only you feel this, you are going to be more creative.” Your chances are experiencing just about every kind of feeling during the creative process. 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: As you are facing that blank screen, there might be some uncertainty and anxiety involved in it, but also often mixed with excitement of something that is a potential or a new challenge in front of you. There might be times of frustration. There are going to be times of tension. And we have to work through all of those. 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: So, I asked what equips us to manage it, to go through and persist through that process. And one big way is having the ability to manage and regulate emotions. And we have done research where we looked at people who have this ability, who have developed the skills of managing emotions and compare them to those who are less developed of those abilities. And when we see individuals who have the creative potential (so the potential is there - those who end up developing it and being recognized by those around them as, “Yeah - that person is doing something creative.”) 

We see that that ability to manage emotions is enabling you to maintain the interest in what you are doing and to persist in the face of obstacles. And there are going to be obstacles in creative work. 

Melinda: Always. 

Zorana: So, it is helping you do that and in turn, that persistence and maintaining the interest makes you more creative. So, it's not that managing emotions is going to give us more ideas. It's not about the ideas. It's about how do we go from having them to doing something? 

Melinda: Yes. And another aspect of your research that I found interesting is that different kinds of emotions can affect our creativity in different ways. For example, more positive emotions such as excitement and anticipation versus, you know, kind of sadness or frustration. So, how do those different types of emotions affect the creative process? 

Zorana: So, emotion scientists consider emotions as information. 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: And that does not… sometimes people have, “Hey - what are you saying? Emotions are information. You are stripping that energy from emotions, that power over us.” If you consider it in such cold terms, that is not to deny the energy power of emotions. It is to say there's this additional component to them that can help us really understand them better and deal with them better. And the view of emotions as information is saying that different feelings (if we identify them in this granular and very specific way) are going to hint that something important about them. 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: So, if what we are experiencing is frustration, we know that what that emotion is telling us is that we have reached a particular block or end of the road, or end of a particular approach. That information then has a hint of how we deal with it best. And the best way of dealing with it is explore a different approach. 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: And the different feelings are also associated with different kinds of thinking. And what does that mean, that they are associated with different kinds of thinking? Feelings are coloring or directing or thinking in different ways, and different feelings are making us more successful at different kinds of thinking. To make that concrete, when we are experiencing positive and energized emotions (such as being happy), we are very good at being playful, at throwing out wild ideas and thinking in broad ways, and that is important for a particular stage of creativity. When we are thinking of something new.

When we are exploring. But if we view creativity as not just coming up with ideas but also developing and doing something with them/helping them reach their potential, well, then we also need to choose which ideas of all those we came up with in those energized states are the best or have the most potential. And then we have to analyze their pros and cons. Well, in those positive, energized moods, all of them are going to look good. 

Melinda: Yeah. Right. (Laughter) 

Zorana: So, we really need more subdued and less positive moods that help us with critical thinking to make those choices. 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: And all of those ways of feeling and their connections to ways of thinking are going to help us go through the whole creative process. 

Melinda: Yes. Yeah. And I love this way of thinking about emotions as they're information, because that's certainly the function of emotions overall. To let us know when something is important and how we might deal with it. But, you know, with what you're saying, you know, I know so many people (and myself included), at different times in my life that have experienced, again, this almost kind of paralyzing performance anxiety and yet, feel driven to pursue their creativity, to get up on stage despite that. And that can be a huge internal battle. 

You know, I have a musical collaborator that deals with that. And when I was young, you know, I felt this tremendous desire to sing but I was very shy, and getting up in front of people was very, very difficult for me. And yet, there was something that still drove me to do it. And so, there’s kind of this internal emotional struggle that is often going on. And so, what is the key difference? Like, between someone who feels that performance anxiety and decides not to go forward, versus that person who pushes through it? 

Zorana: So, this overwhelming emotional experience can overwhelm us. 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: That means it takes over our ability to make decisions and to act. To take sort of a step back, we have mentioned a little bit about feedback we might get from people. And a colleague of mine, Ron Beghetto, has done research on an effect that he called creative mortification. 

Melinda: (Laughter) Yes. 

Zorana: And it's such a powerful… it's visceral when you even hear it. It's a phenomenon that getting harsh, critical feedback, especially at an early age, can have an effect of even a single experience of not wanting to engage with something for a very long time, even for the rest of your life. 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: And think of a teacher who harshly criticizes your work in a classroom. You're drawing, you're singing, you’re attempting at a new design or a new idea. And what he has found is that this effect is particularly strong in younger people who have not yet developed a way of dealing with challenging emotions. So, when we come back to now, somebody who is an adult, if you have not developed ways to handle and to manage challenging feelings, you might end up not being able to cope in those circumstances where something is unpleasant or creates attention or a stressful situation. 

The good news is that these skills of managing the challenging feelings can be developed, and do not have to be developed only in childhood. We can develop them as adults and we can get better at it. Sometimes, I find that people see the emotional side of creativity as an either/or proposition. Either you have the confidence or you have doubt. And the truth is that in most circumstances, these coexist. That confidence is not absolute, and that confidence and doubt are both present to a certain extent. And that does not mean that not having 100% of confidence is going to prevent you. It just means that you have to balance it. 

Melinda: Yes. Yes. Definitely. And I think find different strategies. And that might be different for each person. Like, how they kind of manage that anxiety or whatever, you know. 

Zorana: And it's really important how we are interpreting our experience. 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: There was a research study in which people were about to make an entrepreneurial pitch. So, they are going to pitch in a contest where they could win an amount of funding that is significant towards furthering their idea and making it into reality, and this kind of public speaking with high stakes behind it is close to universal anxiety inducing. 

Melinda: Of course. (Laughter) 

Zorana: As close as it comes to universal.

Melinda: Yeah. 

Zorana: So, people were prone to experience anxiety. And studying what happens just half an hour before you go on stage, we have found that it makes a big difference if you are interpreting your anxiety as, “I am anxious because I am not sure I am prepared enough…” That is going to be very different from, “I am anxious because I really and truly care about how I'm going to do on the stage.” Interpreting it as caring, as this, is important, and therefore a certain level of anxiety is understandable. Makes you better able to perform better. 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: So, how you are viewing your situation and what you are telling yourself is going to make a difference. 

Melinda: Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. And in terms of, you know, my experience with performing, it's like, you know, if you see this anxiety or these butterflies or whatever as, “Okay - this is like, giving me the energy to go on stage and do what I need to do…”, it’s more productive for me than like, “Oh no. I can't do it.” Yeah. 

Zorana: Yeah. And we even know that if you are completely calm before getting on stage, it’s not going to be productive. 

Melinda: Yeah. It can be very flat then. Yeah. 

Zorana: You're going to come flat. You are not going to care enough. Yeah. So, there's an optimal level of activation and a certain level of activation. Medium level not overwhelming, is going to be most effective. And getting you that energy boost as you go and perform. 

Melinda: Yes. Yes. So, I'm curious also as a creativity researcher, how do you see the creativity in your own work in the academic and research work? What does the creative process look like for you? 

Zorana: Creative process looks slightly differently depending on what we are doing. So, in my case of doing research and writing, the big motivation is where I am seeing gaps, where I'm seeing something missing, and I am very motivated by where I see something frustrating when I am reading work of other people, and seeing that something is missing. Is it a reliable laboratory finding that I don't think translates fully into everyday situations? Is it that a particular way of defining a process could not be helpful? I notice those points of, “This is frustrating to me. I wonder if…” and then it goes into looking at the problem from different ways, from different angles. 

Melinda: Yeah. I love that sort of frustration to curiosity. 

Zorana: Yes. Frustration can be very productive if you do not just say, “I am frustrated, I want to feel better.” 

Melinda: Yeah. (Laughter) 

Zorana: Often I find that people have the idea of managing emotions or regulating emotions. Having one goal, feeling better, feeling more positive, feeling happier. But there are other times when you certainly know you want to be happier more than being unhappy in life. 

Melinda: Right. (Laughter) 

Zorana: Certainly, there are unpleasant in the moment feelings that can be very productive for particular goals. Frustration is one of them. That frustration. If you say, “What is it telling me? It is telling me that how something was done reached the limit of that method or that way of knowing.” Now I am having new questions, and it opens that curiosity and the way of exploring. So, to give you a specific example, I am very interested in the emotional side of creativity and I have noticed and experienced this frustration in how research was done for many years. For really 35 years. And the fundamental question in the research was, which emotions are helpful for creativity and which emotions are detrimental? 

And if we ask the question in this way, well, we get a particular way… we are approaching it in a particular answer. And how people were approaching it is by bringing into the laboratory, people who are out in the general population. Maybe they were students, maybe they were people from the community who were not selected to be creative in a particular way. And then because in order to answer a question of causality, what emotion causes what way of thinking? It wasn't sufficient to study naturally occurring emotions, but scientists would create a particular mood in their study participants. 

And if you do it that way, those feelings that you create in the laboratory have a certain artificial side to them. They do not have the needs and the personal importance of natural experience. And then you need to give a particular kind of creativity task to see what these participants are going to do. And because these are created, feelings are very short lasting. Those tasks could only be very short lasting too. So, it will be coming up with different uses for everyday objects. How can you use the brick in new and interesting ways, or a tin can, or a knife? 

And if we set up our experiment in that way, we get a very reliable answer that positive and energized moods, feeling happy, is good for creative thinking. But that was very frustrating to me. Not because I doubted the results, but because those moods were artificial and the creative task was a very thin slice of what real life creativity entails. So, if we communicate our finding as positive, happy moods are good for creativity, we are going to mislead people. 

Melinda: Yeah. And we're going to create a lot of ideas about how creativity works in the world that aren't necessarily accurate. 

Zorana: Exactly. And we are going to discourage people who say, “Well, I am not feeling positive or I'm not feeling happy. Therefore, right now I cannot do anything creative.” You can do lots of creative things. You can do lots of tasks in the creative process, just not this particular one necessarily in this moment. 

Melinda: Right. 

Zorana: And I think that we as researchers have the responsibility of how we communicate our research so that we don't create misconceptions. 

Melinda: Yes. And I think that's so important because one of my kind of personal goals is to, you know, take this research that's happening in an academic context and bring it out into the world, and apply it in ways that are meaningful, you know, to everyday people doing their work in the world. And so, that then brings up a question of, well, how do you study creativity in a more natural environment? Right. 

Zorana: And I very much share your desire to communicate and translate creativity research to people who are doing it. So, if we take this laboratory research, the real translation is not happy moods, health, creativity. It is being happy and energized helps quick bursts of idea generation. That brainstorming that takes just a few minutes. But we have to tell people that second part. In a few minutes, it's going to wear off. 

And we also have to tell them that once you start going beyond just those quick bursts of ideas, different kinds of moods are going to be helpful there. So, how do we study? We are very fortunate to live at a time where we have methods that we can study the whole creative process. We have apps that we can notify people at random times and ask them, “Hey. At this moment, what are you experiencing? What are you working on? What kinds of tasks and what kinds of feelings?” (If we are interested in this question). 

And then we can start making those connections throughout the creative process, not just in the first four minutes (laughter) of a burst of ideas, but now you have these ideas. What are you selecting? How can you critically think through now that you are developing ideas, building on them? What are those connections that are helpful? And we can start piecing together that puzzle of the whole process. 

Melinda: Yes. Yes. And as we know, creativity is not just a linear process. It's very cyclical. We go through many different iterations and stages, and different emotions are connected with them. So, yeah. So, I like - we're getting toward the end of our time. It's been such a pleasure - and I like to end each episode with a Creativity Pro Tip. So, something people can take from the conversation and hopefully use in their own creativity, in their own everyday lives. 

And so, I'm curious, maybe for people who have had a burst of ideas because we know that there is this gap between ideation and getting to a final product… and many creatives have so many creative ideas, they have maybe trouble choosing, like which one to pursue or “I can't pursue all of them at this one time. So, how do I focus?” So maybe for someone who's got a lot of ideas, but they're having trouble getting to completion, is there a particular strategy you might suggest? 

Zorana: I have two strategies. 

Melinda: Great! Two for one. 

Zorana: So, you are mentioning something that happens to a lot of people. Having more ideas that you can pursue, but you like those ideas, you are emotionally attached to those ideas, and it can feel that pursuing one is going to preclude all these others that you truly care about. And one strategy is something that researchers have called ‘idea stockpiling’. 

Melinda: Yes! 

Zorana: And I really like that term. You are not abandoning the ideas. You are choosing to pursue something at a particular time but you can create ways of preserving those other ideas, and different people have different strategies for it. There are people who have notebooks of ideas. They are people who use Notes app on their phones, because it's always available and it's always with you. They are people who have ideas that take material form because it could be an inspiring piece of fabric. 

Maybe you are a fabric artist, or you are doing something that is very tactile. Maybe you have a drawer of material ideas. And when you have them, it is possible and it often happens that has been documented in research, that you can go back to them at a different time, when there is a particular opportunity that matches something that you have come up with in a different time. So, that is one way to release that or lessen that tension of “But I want to pursue all of that.” 

Melinda: Yes. 

Zorana: And my other strategy is building on what we have discussed with emotions and creativity. I want to invite people to know what they are feeling, and consider those connections between thinking and feeling. To optimize what they are doing, to use the power of particular feelings. I'm just going to share a personal example because it can make it concrete. 

Melinda: Sure, please. Yes. 

Zorana: So, I am not a morning person (laughter) and I tend to be a little bit grumpy in the morning. And lots of people have particular times when they are most active and most energized. For me, that is not a morning. But in the morning, in the mornings, in that state of being subdued or a little bit grumpy, I have a superpower. I have a superpower of critical thinking. So, I use that to arrange my schedule whenever I can. 

We don't always have that ability, but sometimes we can arrange our schedule to choose what we are going to do at a particular time. And I try to arrange my schedule that in the morning, I read what I have written before with a critical eye. 

Melinda: I see. 

Zorana: Because we know that writing is not just about putting words on the page, it is about revising. 

Melinda: Absolutely. 

Zorana: It’s about editing. It's about developing. And in those critical thinking, supportive moods, I can do that the best and make it better. 

Melinda: Love that example. 

Zorana: And then at a different time, which for me personally happens in the later afternoon or in the evening, I can play with ideas. Put new thoughts. Think broadly and contribute to my creative process in that way. 

Melinda: Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Zorana. It's been such an informative conversation. And so, if people are interested in learning more about your work, your publications, your book and so on, what are the best ways for them to find you? 

Zorana: Well, the best ways to find me, it’s certainly to start with the book you mentioned, The Creativity Choice. You can find it where you find your books. And I also write a newsletter on Substack called The Creativity Decision. And you can find me there and you can say hi. 

Melinda: Okay. Perfect. Well, thank you again so much for being with us today. 

Zorana: Thank you for having me. 

Melinda: Find and connect with us on YouTube and social media under @syncreate. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave us a review. We're recording today at Record ATX Studios in Austin, with Zorana joining us from the East Coast. The podcast is produced in collaboration with Mike Osborne at 14th Street Studios. Thanks so much for being with us, and see you next time.