Why do some people become great artists or scientists, while the most creative thing others can do is watch the telly? I've been fascinated by this question for my whole life, and it's carried me though a career from running community art projects on the outer estates of one of Britain's poorest cities, to teaching university students how to write stories.

I believe talent is a product of hard work and good technique, and that with few exceptions all people are capable of great creativity. In my experience the factor that effects creativity more than any other is...fear. How we experience fear and how we cope with fear influence our creativity more than anything else.

The Signal began life as a series of daily notes on "creative fear", notes that quickly became short essays in the writing. At the time I was living in Dharamsala in India, home of the Dalai Lama and the world centre of Tibetan Buddhist learning. The essays started to encompass many Buddhist ideas. The idea of The Signal as a title and guiding concept came whilst I was writing. The Signal came from The Signal.

I will be publishing The Signal as a short guide to tuning out creative fear and tuning into creative intelligence. But not for some time. Until then I will be adding more material as individual posts. Please join as a patron to read the entire series, and to help support its creation.

Thank you!

Damien

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 - 30 Days of Fear
 - Quiet
 - Move
 - Sleep
 - Today I Lost
 - Eat, Drink and Be Merry
 - Listen
 - GUEST POST by James Elder
 - The Blocked Creative
 - THE SIGNAL

 - But what IS the signal?

- GUEST POST we succeed despite fear, not without it

- No, you don't have to be mad to be creative

- GUEST POST by Ren Warom

- The Root of all Fear

- No, realy Damo, what IS The Signal?

- GUEST POST by Sarah Imrisek

- The Empty Creator