I feel like I have some idea of how many people in the creative field must experience their work. There's something very mentally straining in trying to be creative on demand. As a first year graduate student, I am supposed to jump right into research and get my feet wet. In other words, I am expected to have a first year project. Generally, this isn't too much of a problem as advisors constantly have pet projects that they need someone to work on.
However, I was blessed with a very flexible advisor who is happy to let me approach problems that I find personally engaging. That means when I first met with him and asked about a first year project, he lobbed it back into my court and asked what I wanted to do. Thus, I've been asked to be creative on demand.
The thing is, you can't really be creative if you're stressed out. I'm someone who loves to have my entire schedule all planned out and obvious. But you can't plan how to come up with something as big as "what do I want to research?" So it has been a struggle.
But I think if I take some of the pressure off, I might be able to harness that intuitive thinking and come up with a cool first year project.
