The Body of Work: How Vertical Time Deepens Our Creative Life

We often think of a “body of work” as a collection of finished creative products—paintings, plays, books, films. But what if we expanded that definition? What if your entire life was part of your artistic expression—your conversations, your travels, your heartbreaks, your family lineages, even the layout of your home?

In this episode of The Creative Present, Joshua Townshend invites you to view your creative life through the lens of vertical time—where depth, presence, and meaning live—rather than the traditional, linear left-to-right path. He shares how this shift in perspective can transform not just your current project, but the way you see your entire creative journey.

Your Body of Work: It’s More Than You Think

In the arts, we refer to a “body of work”—a lifetime of paintings, albums, stories. But for writers, actors, filmmakers, and digital creatives, that term often doesn’t feel fully claimed.

Let’s change that.

Your body of work includes:

  • The roles you’ve played, written, or directed

  • The space you’ve created in your home

  • The way you showed up in relationships

  • The vacations you’ve taken and how you experienced them

  • The projects that never made it to completion (but still taught you everything)

When you widen your lens, you’ll see the deep, recurring themes running through it all. It’s not just your creative output. It’s your creative life.

The Hidden Roots of Your Creativity

Ask yourself:

  • Why is this project calling to me now?

  • What unresolved question or longing is it tied to?

  • Could it be part of a deeper root system—personal, collective, even ancestral?

Maybe it’s not just your idea. Maybe it’s your mother’s unfulfilled dream. Your grandfather’s fear. Your cultural heritage whispering through your dialogue.

When we look deeply, we see that a project may be the flowering tip of something that’s been growing underground for years—or generations.

Vertical Time vs. Horizontal Time

Most of us live on the horizontal timeline:
Left to right.
Start to finish.
Birth to death.
Outline to final draft.

But creativity doesn’t work like that. Not really.

Horizontal time is:

  • Linear

  • Measured

  • Goal-oriented

  • Often rushed

Vertical time is:

  • Present-moment awareness

  • Deep listening

  • Immersion

  • Timeless and transformative

When you’re watching an incredible film or at a live concert that moves you to tears—you’re not checking your watch. You’re in vertical time. You’re here, in full presence. And that’s where real art lives.

💡 Creating in vertical time means going deep, not just forward.

The Cost of Going Deep

To move five blocks horizontally? Easy.
Take a walk, hop in a car, push a bike.

To move five blocks up (or down)?
That’s expensive. That’s engineering. That’s machinery.
You’re working against gravity.

So when you choose to go deep into your craft, your process, your truth—you are doing something rare and remarkable. Something few people will ever attempt.

And it’s not just about being “done.”
It’s about being in it. Fully.

Your Life Is Your Body of Work

Take a moment today to scan your life:

  • What themes keep showing up?

  • What kinds of characters do you keep writing?

  • What roles do you play in your relationships?

  • What are you still trying to express or resolve?

Now connect the dots.
This is your true body of work.

The more conscious you become of these threads, the more powerful your art becomes—not just as a product, but as a process of revelation.

Final Invitation

Go out and look at the totality of what you’ve lived and created—not just the scripts or the performances, but the full spectrum of your experiences.

Trace the roots. See the connections.
Honor the work you’ve already done—visible and invisible.

And let it inform your next step, your next project, your next vertical dive.

Then come back.
And let me know:

How’s your body of work unfolding?