Balancing Act: motivation, creativity and creative work in the lived experience of writers and musicans

This article seeks to improve our understanding of creative work in the cultural and creative industries, i.e. those industries which have been prioritised by governments as exploiting the commercial potential of creative work in the form of goods, services and contracts. Current conceptualisations of creative work in the cultural and creative industries have been influenced by experimental studies into creativity, which highlight the autonomy and intrinsic satisfaction of engaging in a creative task. On the other hand empirical studies have shown that these supposedly autonomous creative processes are subjected to exploitation and infiltrated with neoliberal market logics. While both those perspectives are important, a better understanding is potentially to be gained from research exploring the lived experience of artists engaging in creative work, in its various forms and at various stages of their careers.