Diary of a Mad Editor

Creativity Coaches — Have you heard of this? I’ll admit I had never heard of such a thing. Then, yesterday I’m reading some lame column in a local arts newspaper and read in the author’s bio that she was “studying under creativity coach, Eric Maisel.” First thing I did was look-up “creativity coaching” on Google. What I found were numerous “creativity coaches.” Some claimed to be modern-day muses others were licensed therapists specializing in “creative types.” Some specialized in a particular kind of artist.

According to aforementioned creativity guru, Eric Maisel defines a creativity coach as

“one person offering soup-to-nuts help to another person who is trying to live a successful creative life. The creative client may have career concerns, creative blocks, psychological issues, relationship issues, or existential and spiritual crises, and may face a gamut of challenges that come from wanting and needing to create. A creativity coach expects all of this and is ready for all of this.

“An effective creativity coach is aware of the big picture: human nature, personality structure, the psychological makeup of creative individuals, the problems inherent in the work creative individuals attempt, the shape of the different intellectual and art marketplaces, and so on. When a client comes in, the coach joins with the new client, as one human being to another and one creative person to another, listens to what the client is saying, and makes observations and suggestions.

“Creative clients may doubt that they have talent, may dislike the creative work they’ve attempted so far, may be confused about what creative projects they ought to be attempting, may be thoroughly down on the world for its lack of interest in their efforts, and so on. All of this the creativity coach expects and is prepared to address.”

It makes my head spin. Is this what we’ve arrived at? Have we become such a hand-wringing, angst-ridden society that even our artists need therapy to help them do their jobs?

A lot of you guys who read this blog are yourselves writers or artists of one stripe or another. Do you really need to be coached to do whatever it is you do? Are you so inept, insecure, and (yes, I’ll say it once more for the peanut gallery) brain-dead fucking retarded that you need some no-talent wannabe hanger-on to stand in as your personal cheerleader? If you do, all I can say is OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!

Sounds like there’s money in creativity coaching though. Maybe I should give it a try: Let’s see . . . artist who can’t paint. Not a painter. Actor who can’t act . . . there’s always reality TV. Writer who can’t write. Become an accountant. What the fuck do I care. Write or don’t write, but stop whining about it like somebody’s bitch little sister. Creativity coaching my ass.