Reasons to Love: The Creative Process
When attempting to figure out what I was going to rant about, this week, I kept asking myself one question. What do I keep going back to and enjoy going back to it? I enjoy making things. Not just stories, though I do make up stories with a relentless enthusiasm that makes others boggle at me for a multitude of reasons.
As I have frequently told my loved ones, "It's been ten minutes. Of course I'm writing something."
But it's not just writing. I've been known to sit and doodle a picture or two from time to time. Or work on one of my works' cover art for the e-publishers. I can even noodle out a tune once in a while. Provided I can mess around with music loops to do it.
And, if you follow my shenanigans on Patreon [plug plug plug] then you know I'm also battling with Stencyl to create a game for my mother.
All of this being something I love: creating stuff.
Stories are only easy because I've been doing it for decades on end. I have loads more practice. Me and my rich fantasy life have fun together. I can, have, and will drift off into another reality when there's nothing else to do. That said, I still have my obstacles there.
Not exactly writer's block. More to the tune of persistent ideas that will not leave me alone when I probably should be doing something else. For example, the "brief little thing" that took over my head in 2022 that still hasn't come to an end. Or the most recent fanfic of a fanart because the idea wouldn't stop bugging me.
By the way, I'm now intermittently doodling a mental image from the middle of that tale because I find it excruciatingly funny. You'll see it in the fullness of time.
There's something weirdly invigorating about the process. Even with the frustration part of the process. Winning over a difficulty encountered in the process is a victory of the soul. Learning how to do a thing and having it work is something to cheer about.
And then there's the satisfaction of having the thing finally done that's the victory of its own.
It's something unique. Something that makes me come back to it again and again. It's not just making up a story. It's discovering it in the process of creating it. Between the initial idea and the end of the tale, there's a change that just happens to happen. It's hard to explain. At some point, the story takes its own path, the characters take their own direction, or the idea wanders off to a different conclusion.
The first step, to those of you new to creating - is to be brave enough to fail. That is, after all, how people learn things.
Go on. Make some mistakes. Share the results.
You might make something interesting.