Our Creative Community

Accountability.

Discipline.

Two words that aren’t typically associated with creativity.

Out of a desire to increase their creative output in songwriting and writing and to share in the experiences of others who were desiring the same thing, Mandy Thompson, Tammy Hodge, and Russ Hutto put their heads together to think of way to provide a space for that to happen online within their creative blog communities.

In early 09, a blog was launched with the goal of providing an opportunity for creative types to share their struggles and successes with disciplined creative output. Our Creative Community is an online space that serves its members by using content from its members to relate to, inspire, encourage, and challenge its members.

Using straightforward guest posting and resource gathering and sharing, along with comment driven link sharing, Our Creative Community, creates a safe place for like-minded creatives to share about their creative journey. Wow. That’s a whole lot of “creates” in that sentence!

Joining Our Creative Community is easy. Just share your creative field and your goal.

Goal Sharing

We use stickk.com to track our goals individually. There are some who make intense commitments such as writing a chapter a week or a song a week. There are others who make casual commitments like read a book per month or drink less soft drinks. ALL commitments are welcome. The majority of commitments are centered around creative ouput, but we also encourage our members to commit to health/fitness goals.

Community

Not only do we share our individual commitments, but we cheer one another on through commenting on individual blog posts from members that chronicle their individual journeys, the good, the bad, and the ugly. We’re ALL ABOUT sharing struggles. All of us, even the ones of of us who, to some, appear to be burning it up when it comes to our output are facing struggles in one form or another. We all need to share those.

It’s a beautiful thing to see the comments of encouragement rally around someone who’s had a bad week and just hasn’t had time or motivation to even think about being creative.

Blog Networking

Our Creative Community is also all about networking. We promote our members’ guests post and relevant individual blog posts through twitter and on the blog. We are open to just about any and every guest post from our members! Usually, on the weekends, we do a showcase post that includes links back to individual member blogs and our blogroll includes every member who joins.

The Worship Community + Our Creative Community

We’d love to extend an invitation to those members of The Worship Community who are interested in accelerating and increasing their creative output (songwriting, photography, writing, etc.) to join Our Creative Community. There’s no obligation to be die hard in your commitments, we only ask that you share your struggles and successes!

What Our Creative Community Members are saying:

OurCC provides a caring forum for a diverse crowd drawn together by the common desire to create and become better creators. — David Goodwin (Sydney, NSW, AUS)

The thing that has impressed me most about ourcc is everyone’s honesty. Whether it be in the goals they are achieving, their lack of inspiration, sharing their struggles…all those things i appreciate so much! It’s real. It’s a place where real people have come together to share the real bits of life that typically are not out for all to see. Yet…we have found a safe place to just…be…be real, and know that it’s ok. —Tammy Hodge (Central Point, OR, US)

The collection of other artists has been invaluable in both sparking my creative process,and keeping me accountable in posting new songs. — Janaki DeChand (Portland, OR, US)

I find having a group of creative types to be most stimulating in my creative process. To belong, to share, to critique, to inspire. I lose motivation without it – Whether it’s from belonging to a band, working with other artists, or the challenge of our goals in Ourcc. — Mandy Thompson (Boston, MA, US)

I was not creative and was not interested in creating, but with the volume of talent on this site I have grown in creativity and in closeness with our Creator. — Toby Keathley (Kaiserslautern, Germany)

For me, by sharing my goals and commitments with others there is a level of accountability that I haven’t experienced previously. Now, even if I don’t make my year end goal, I’ll still have written more songs this year, then in the previous 31 years of my life combined. —Russ Hutto (Valdosta, GA, US)

Tweet This Post

Related posts:

1. Developing A Songwriting Community Through Your Church, Part Three
2. Developing A Songwriting Community Through Your Church, Concluded (pt. 4)
3. Russ Hutto Joins Team as Creative Director, HPP Publishing
4. Developing A Songwriting Community Through Your Church, part one
5. WorshipChicks.com: A Community for Women in Worship Ministry