You need to respect your own creativity in order for other people to respect it too.

A friend of mine was moaning to me that she’d tried to paint a picture that morning. She got everything ready, and just as she got the brush wet, her phone rang. She put her brush down, answered the phone and suddenly an hour and a half was lost and gone forever.

In that time spent wittering about nothing (her words) she lost the inspiration that had prompted her to paint the picture in the first place, and she also lost the time she’d put aside in which to do it.

She ended the day unhappy with herself because she’d not expressed her creativity, and unhappy with the friend who phoned – who, to be fair to her, had no idea of what she’d destroyed due to her quite innocent phone call.

The thing is that people have to be trained to respect your creativity and your time.

What do you say when someone rings and asks you what you’re doing? Do you say, ‘Nothing much - well, er, I’m just doodling with a bit of watercolor here…’ or do you say, ‘I’m working.’???

People aren’t going to take it seriously if you don’t take it seriously. If someone asks you what you're doing - the answer is simple - you're working. Just because you haven’t left the house to work is no reason for people to disrespect you and/or your work. And you don't have to explain your work to anyone.

It's essential to you. You need to express your creativity or you'll go bonkers. If you’re bonkers you're no use to anyone. So you must protect your creativity and your time.

So if they say, ‘I’m not interrupting anything am I?’ it’s up to you to say, ‘Well, actually, you are interrupting something. You’re interrupting my work.’

Until you’ve got used to the idea that the expression of your creativity is essential for your well-being, you might find it difficult to be so straightforward about it. Do you have absolutely HAVE to answer the phone at all? Can you let it go to answer machine?

If you feel obliged to answer it – after you’ve given them a few minutes of your precious time to make sure they don’t really, really need you right then - get creative: arrange (in sign language if necessary, or write a note, or have this prearranged), for a family member to yell for you, or to ring the doorbell as if you have to go, or even ring your own cell phone so you can end the call - or say you’ve got to let the dog in – he’s shut outside in a blizzard.

Crikey - who needs to talk about nothing when there’s the call of creativity to be answered?

Maybe you could only answer the phone for say an hour between 8 and 9pm – people will soon learn that if they want to speak to you it can be at that time and no other. Or you can actually tell them that if they want to ring for a chat then the best time is that time.

In this day and age of email which can be written and read at times convenient to both sender and receiver, I can't see the excuse for people who telephone just whenever THEY feel like it. This is other people deciding to waste your time when they choose. Don’t let it happen.

Creativity is not a self-indulgence. It’s a necessity. You need to protect yourself and your creativity for own sake, and for their sake, too.