Some artists have a “creative mania.” They work day in and day out, like motors that feed on air. To outsiders, their path to artistry is simple—in the same sense as the simplest way to break into a bank is to pull out the battering ram. Just work tirelessly. Hammer it out. And it may even seem to happen spontaneously, involuntarily.
For me, though, it would take not only passion to reach this state (and…drugs?), but a lot of stifling work.
My ambitions are muted. I look at the ideas in my head and go, “Huh, wouldn’t that be cool.” Usually what drives me to write or draw is not an urge to share an important perspective or change anybody’s minds, but to play. I tinker with words. I have little fun thoughts that pass through my brain. I don’t have many problems condensing long projects into comparatively short ones, squeezing a long-game ambition into something that strikes me as more practical. So it seems to me that I have humble goals and dreams as an artist, and that I’m even naturally practical when it comes to creativity—however oxymoronic that sounds.
But…then I zoom out. That’s when I’m struck by how impractical I’ve been in terms of creativity. I haven’t produced as many things as I would like. An ideal me might have a galaxy of things that are at least fleshed-out enough to feel like full dioramas. Likewise, the creative fire I’ve had in me seems far too muted.
What are the ideal conditions for an artist? Relaxed? Deadliney? Anything as long as you have money as security? Well, recently I came out of some brief financial difficulty. A minor weight was lifted, and suddenly I felt more able to concentrate on my writing. Amazing! I proceeded to not exactly feel like writing that much. I would write a few hundred okay words, be satisfied, and feel anxious to move on to some next thing, or just lie around.
Is that healthy? Maybe! But if I look back on these days, I am bound to see the half-formed, abandoned projects that could have been really something—or could have been, at least, amazing toys.
I think the truth isn’t that I’m unambitious. It’s that my ambitions are broader than they are deep. I’m not setting out to write the next big fantasy epic. (Why would you expect that from the author of a thing called CATGIRL SYSTEM???) I just want to write Stuff. But I want to write many different kinds of Stuff. Sure, I’ll give up on music, but I’ll still want to draw and improve on that at least a little bit. I’ll want to make games and struggle through playtesting. I’ll want to figure out how to model and animate with Blender and slam-dunk that off my bucket list.
My trouble is that I look back on the past few years of steady writing of hundreds of words and think, “You know, I didn’t do enough because I didn’t also create a game.” My trouble is that I’ll look back and think, “Oh, those years sucked. I wasn’t constantly losing sleep and good health just to crank out my art faster. That’s the only way to successfully create…right?!”
Man, it’s just the old artist’s problem again. I come up with a fun idea and five more spring up. I struggle to even maintain focus on a research habit, because if I study one path, again, five more doors open. I was studying Latin, and then I stopped Latin. Now I have family reasons to study German, but who knows how long I’ll study German? Who even knows?!
If a “creative mania” means a fire to create, then I absolutely don’t have that. And yet my mind is constantly on story! In my random disjointed research, I’m constantly alighting on things about narrative that make me curious for 0.5 seconds. I could have many long and serious chats about very inane fictional subjects. Maybe I should count my lucky stars that I’ve never somehow become a full-time author, because I seem more ardent about analyzing other stories than building and fine-tuning my own.
And yet I don’t think I’ll ever stop creating. It’s just…y’know…I’ll simultaneously never stop complaining about it.
Writing Progress
As you know (unless you don’t know), I use these blog posts partly to keep myself accountable for writing progress on my novel series Catgirl System (which will NOT change the world but should be fun regardless).
This month, I’ve been taking a break on uploading new chapters to the story. I’ve instead been writing in the shadows, hoping that easing the stress of day-of updating will amount to kinda-sorta-a-break. I’m also currently reviewing Book 1 and making final edits and typo corrections so that I can publish it online like I just keep meaning to do. And there are several other Catgirl things I want to accomplish this month…
Okay, something I do wish I had a stronger fire for is working on this story. It comes and goes. But maybe that’s natural. My logical side wants to finish the story ASAP and to estimate the number of days it will take, at this rate, to finish writing all four books. Other parts of me are scared or intimidated, or impatient in the opposite, dispirited way (“you mean it’ll take ninety more days MINIMUM?! Why bother?!”).
My strategies to keep myself moving are to narrow my focus and do a couple little fun things with my gracious reading audience in the meantime. For the latter: a popularity poll is about to finish up, and I want to make a silly, planless, painless short to fill in the hiatus-gap. For the former: I don’t tell myself to chip away at six Catgirl-related things, I tunnel-vision on one at a time (and right now, it’s that ebook, baby). Later, I’ll compile Book 3 and draw its cover and what-not and other stuff…but again, that’s later.
Right now, I’m 41 chapters ahead. The pace slowed mildly when I realized that one chapter didn’t have much going on besides standing and chatting, and extended it to have some zany action. Now all the characters need to head out, go have another action-packed big boogie adventure, and hit the denouement.
Thanks for reading, and Patrons, thank you for Patreonning!
For more Simpsons lore, check out my post on Ned, Homer, and their secret inner life (note: this description is only technically accurate). That or my musings on how difficult it can be to grade papers. Wait, hold on…THERE’S my recap of The Cowboy Way starring Woody Harrelson and Kiefer Sutherland!