anti-creative myths – Speculative fiction and art from Thea Dee

Anti-Creative Myth #4: What happens after I finish?

Sometimes we’re doing just fine… until we sense we’re nearing the finish line.

Eager to begin writing, I sit down and start to daydream about the story. I write for a while. I stop.

The next day I do it again.

This goes on until the story is nearing the big climax at the end. I’ve worked out all the plot snags, and know exactly how it’s going to end. And then…

I slow down.
I drag my feet.
Suddenly I don’t want to write anymore.

I don’t have writer’s block.
I don’t have anything else more important pulling me away.
I’m not tired of the story.

I just don’t want it to end.

Fear, by any other name…

…is just as insidious.

(no wonder the arch-villain of star wars is named darth sidious. Ha!)

Although the reluctance to finish a project — and it sometimes shows up as a reluctance to begin — can parade behind many masks, at its heart it is fear. Don’t believe me? Check it:

“I don’t want to finish because…

…I don’t know what I’ll do next” (fear of running out of ideas)
…then I’ll have to face the next steps to publication” (fear of critique or rejection)
…it might not measure up to what i’d hoped it would be” (fear of failure)
…I’menjoying the process so much” (fear of loss of enjoyment)
…I don’t know if I can do as well on the next project” (fear of not being able to repeat success)

What’s your reasons for not finishing? (comment below!)

Tackling rational fears

Some fears are based in the reality of past experience.

Maybe you’ve had some harsh critiques.
Maybe you’re not a very good artist (or writer, or filmmaker, or…) Yet.
Maybe you’ve gone through dry spells without any ideas.

But i’d like to share a greater reality than the old news of the past:

The future holds endless potential for positive outcomes!

If your problem is that you’re not very skilled, then think of it this way: your current project is one step closer to mastery of your craft! Every time you practice your skills, you get better. And if you need 100 sketches under your belt before you can master human proportions, then you best get sketching (rather than dragging your feet)! If it’s true that most writers have 2000 pages of junk in their heads before they start writing well, then start typing, buster!

If the trouble has been negative reactions of others around you, get a better support group! Find other creatives who are both at your level of skill and beyond, and you’ll likely find kinder critiques. Then again, maybe nobody thinks you’re any good — you’ll just have to decide whether you believe them or your heart. But if you decide to believe your own creative passion, then don’t ever let the negative reactions of others stop you again. You made the decision to pursue it, so the time for entertaining doubts is over!

Regardless of the past problems, the future is always unwritten and waiting for your positive attitude to shape it into something beautiful.

It comes back to the natural cycle of the seed — sow a good seed, get a good harvest. What you put into life comes back to you. A negative expectation will shape the future into something ugly. A positive one will bring positive results. Sometimes there’s a delay (have you ever actually tried watching and waiting for a seed to sprout and grow? Have you ever planted a fruit tree from a seed? Sometimes it takes patience!), but if you have good seed in good soil and you keep feeding and watering it with good stuff, you’ll eventually get good fruit. It’s just the way the universe works!

Dealing with irrational fears

Once you realize a fear is irrational (not based on anything that has ever really happened to you, completely unfounded), then I have a two-word solution:

Toss it.

You gonna finish that?

If there’s a project you’ve started that you haven’t finished, take a look at your reasons. If there are legitimate reasons that require action to resolve (for example, you need some reference photos to finish a sketch or you need some research to finish a story), then go forth and take action! Make a list of what needs to be done to finish, and then tackle it one item at a time.

And if you discover that your reluctance to finish is based in fear (real or imagined), I recommend a hearty dose of optimism

(if you need any of that, I’ve got plenty to share)

And then a generous topical application of “just do it!” cream.

(repeat as needed)

Anti-Creative Myth #3: Why start now?

Sometimes it feels like there’s all the time in the world… and then 20 years go by…

There’s always tomorrow.
Today I’d rather … Read a book … Watch TV … Go for a walk.
There’s no room on my desk for sketching, and I don’t feel like cleaning it right now.
I need to do more research before I start writing.
I’m too busy; I’ll have more time next week.
“Someday!”

The little demons who generate excuses not to start today never give up.
They never tire.
They never run out of ideas.
They never die.

Those alternately strident and whispering voices that insist there’s no need to start now, or that you can’t start now “because”…

And if you give them a place in your brain once, they’ll invite all their friends and take up permanent residence. It’s called “inertia”, and effectively it means that whatever you’re doing now you’ll tend to keep doing. If you’re in a habit of exercising your creativity, doing your art or music or writing, then that’s what you’ll naturally continue to do. But if you’ve made it a habit to listen to these voices of procrastination, then you will tend to continue.

It’s time for a creative exorcism! And it’s easier than you think.

The answer that silences them all

If you’re reading this blog, then you’ve probably already decided that you want to pursue your creative passion. You already know that’s what you’re designed to do, it’s what you desire, it’s what you’re destined for. There’s no question about whether you should be doing this, now you’re just trying to do it day-to-day and reach your creative goals.

Assuming this is true, then the answer to every procrastinatory excuse is simple:

There’s no time like the present!
I will never have another “today”.
I will live today so that tomorrow I will have no regrets.

Time is precious. It is the one thing that you can never, ever get back once it is gone. It is a river that flows in one direction, and its water can never be retrieved once it goes downstream. Lost. Gone forever.

How will you spend today? Next week you could have a stack of drawings to show for your efforts, or you could have nothing. At the end of the year, you could have a novel written, or you could still be telling your friends “Someday”.

As Picard says, “engage!”

A thousand excuses may come and ten thousand may clamor for your attention, but there really isn’t anything that can stop you once you decide that you’re going to do it.

It’s an act of your will.
A decision.

And once you decide, do not hesitate and do not delay.

Just do it!
And then just keep doing it!

Once you’re on a creative roll, you’ll do exactly that: keep rolling along. Then you’ll have inertia working for you. You’ll be in a habit of sketching every day or writing every night, and that’s a beautiful thing.

The challenge

I challenge you!

>throws down the proverbial gauntlet<

For 30 days, do your creative thing every day. Break the inertia of procrastination and establish a habit of creative production. Silence those voices, and every time you hear them again, tell them to shut up. You don’t have time to waste.

And don’t forget to enter a comment and share what you’ve done!

Anti-Creative Myth #2: “I don’t have enough time.”

Creative work often seems to demand large chunks of time… so what can you do if you only have short ones?

This is a big one.
I face off with this one daily.
It goes like this:

You’re at a break in your day and you think, “What should I do next?”

Immediately, images or ideas flash through your mind (if you haven’t suppressed them to oblivion already so many times that they’ve given up). You start to daydream about that project: the drawing, the story, the song. You briefly consider sitting down to sketch, write or strum.

And then you think, “Nah, I can’t do that. There isn’t enough time to make any real progress. No doubt that I’d just get rolling and something would interrupt me: the phone would ring, my parents would want me to do chores, it would be time to go to work…” whatever.

Or maybe you’re staring at a 10-minute window, and you figure you can’t really do anything with 10 minutes.

Yes and no

Yes, it’s true that creativity benefits from large blocks of time. Anything over 2 hours is absolutely lovely.

However, there are still things you can do with smaller chunks of time to achieve your artistic goals.

You can get other tasks done so you are free later to create
You can teach your creative muscles to work in smaller units of time

But beware! The first one can be a hidden trap! If all you do with your free time is other things, then you may fall into the trap of not using the larger blocks for creating.

You see, at that point you’ve got a habit of choosing other things. And when the 2 hours are available, your procrastinatory habit is likely to kick in and you’ll decide to watch a movie or clean your room. Especially if other anti-creative thought processes are running free in your brain. Basically, the more you succumb to the temptation to not create, the easier it is to continue doing so. (Coming soon: Anti-creative myth #3: why start now? The trouble with inertia)

Do the math

Okay, so I really don’t like math. But sometimes numbers can be so convincing. Consider this:

If you procrastinate for a week on, for instance, writing your story, then 7 days have gone by without any progress. This may seem like no big deal. But if you do it long enough, you find a month or a year has slipped away, and the story is unwritten.

On the other hand, if you write for 10 minutes a day, you may finish a page in a week. Or if you’re fast, you might have 5 pages (after all, once you start writing, it often happens that you keep writing for longer than you thought you would). And if you kept it up all year, you’d have anywhere from 52 pages to 260 pages (52*5) at the end of the year.

A whole lot better than nothing. Zip. Zero.

Imagine that!

Assignment: train your brain

Practice being creative (in the creative art of your choice) in short increments.

10 minutes.
15 minutes.
20 minutes.

Try different times. Start with the short ones. Get creative about it: find ways to do it while waiting in line at the store, while on a drive (as long as you’re not driving!), any time you have even a 2-minute window.

Don’t quit!

It may not be easy at first. You may only create utter garbage that you never show anyone.

But I can guarantee that if you keep at it, what you create (even with these tiny bits of time) will improve. And after a while, you’ll find it just as easy to create something wonderful in 10 minutes as it is to do it in 2 hours.

The something wonderful might be smaller or shorter than the 2-hour version, but it will be wonderful nonetheless. That’s why well-known artists do all those cool little sketches at cons — they’re so well-practiced that they can dash off something cool in just a minute or two.

Send me a link to something wonderful you created in a short time!

(By the way, I wrote this entry in several of those short units of time… I started by only writing the title in 15 seconds because I had the idea but had to do something else first… Then I came back and wrote about half… And then I came back and finished it… I’ll probably come back and review/edit it the same way before posting it… Living proof that it can be done!)

Anti-Creative Myth #1: “The reality never measures up to the dream.”

Disappointment can be a powerful deterrent, and fear of disappointment is just as bad

Sometimes our own experience is the worst enemy of our art. It’s not a great secret or mystery: a couple of bad experiences and most humans will steer clear of whatever they didn’t like.

Disappointment.
Failure.
Criticism.

How many times have you procrastinated on a long-dreamed-of creative project (a story, a painting, whatever) because you just knew that it wouldn’t live up to the glowing apparition treasured in your imagination’s eye? How many times have you started an enthusiastic description of your dream idea, only to find you don’t have the right words to stop those puzzled or doubtful looks that, like an arrow, pierce your fragile inspiration beyond repair?

And so you conclude that the idea wouldn’t fly anyway, even if you tried.

Perhaps your entire life has been one long, intermittent, exercise in such procrastination. No? Maybe that’s just me.

But no more! That time of my life is over! I’ve crossed the line from wanna be to I am.

Along the way, I smashed this lifelong anti-creative wall. All to pieces.

Believe

Nobody in this world can create what you see in your imagination like you would.

You are unique.

Even if you find others doing something similar, or find five books on the shelf with the same storyline, it doesn’t matter. No two people will write the exact same story the exact same way. Creative writing classes prove it: you can give 20 people the same assignment, and you’ll get 20 totally different things. And if you enjoy what you create, then I can guarantee that there’s someone else out there in the world who will enjoy it, too.

Regardless of your experience, if your dream idea is vivid and captivating and beautiful, then it is worthy of pursuit. It doesn’t matter if everyone you know mocks your idea any time you mention it. They don’t have to believe in your dream. Not a single person in this world needs to believe in it before it is created — except you.

And you mustn’t entertain a single doubt.
Not even one.

When doubts come calling, tell them nobody’s home! If you’ve already opened the door to them and they’re eating chips on your couch out of your own bowl, then it’s time to kick ’em out.

Just say no to doubt.
You gotta believe.
If you don’t, no one else will.

Commit

You don’t have to make a big deal about it (although that sometimes helps). But you do need to make a decision.

And stick with it.

“Maybe someday” doesn’t work.
“Definitely someday” is a step in the right direction.
“Absolutely today” is what makes it happen.

Baby steps really work

“What about Bob” was right. Baby steps help.

I’m a very visual person. Seeing reminders all over my house makes a huge difference for me. Make the decision that you’re going to do the project, and then paper the walls with sticky notes about it. Break it down into baby steps and do one at a time.

“Do sketches”
“Find the melody”
“Print out reference photos”
“Write a scene, any scene”

Trust your audience

When faced with the doom-and-gloom, despair-inducing thought that I could never create something as glorious as what’s in my mind, I must remember an essential truth of artistic endeavor:

The creative process doesn’t end when I complete my part. The audience provides the finishing touches.

Every person who reads a book creates a different movie in their heads — all from the same words. Each person who views a work of art brings their own interpretation and preferences to the viewing experience. A song rings true to others who are on the same wavelength, often reminding them of the past or capturing a present moment forever to be remembered with that song.

Never underestimate the imaginations of those who will see, hear or otherwise enjoy your art. They are your partners in the creative process. Their brains finish what you begin.

But how do I find my audience?

Come on! You’re reading this blog, aren’t you? So you already know one easy way to publish yourself.

I’ve seen people who rarely go beyond pencil sketches create successful web comics that never got “inked” or “colored” in the traditional comic book sense. And now they’re published in book form and in my local library! The craziest styles of art get published; there’s nothing too messy, too cutesy, too stylized, too angled, too dark or too uncomfortably real. And these days, even stuff that traditional publishers don’t believe in can gain a huge audience via the wonders of the world-wide web. Yay for dub-dub-dub!

So trust me! There’s a home for whatever you create. And there’s an audience out there who will appreciate what you do. Somewhere. (Just don’t think too much about that part yet. First focus on getting it done.)

Nike says: just do it

The ancient wisdom is still true: Anything is possible for those who believe.

So stop procrastinating. Don’t believe the lie. What you create may not measure up to what’s in your imagination at first. But if you keep trying, keep practicing, keep pushing the envelope and never give up: it will.

Anything is possible.
If you believe.
So, just do it.

And when you’ve done it, tell me about it. Show me. I wanna know!

Out of the Chrysalis, Into the Fire (A-CM index)

Don’t let these insidious myths block your creative success! (an index)

Have you ever noticed? When the hero finally decides that he’s going to pursue the quest, it is just the beginning. The beginning of the fight. The beginning of his struggle.

That’s how it has been for me.

>Come on, of course I’m the hero in my own life’s story. Aren’t you?<

Just because I made the decision to commit to my dreams, the doubts and fears didn’t stop bombarding my mind. In fact, they doubled up!

But, now that I’ve decided, I’ve committed, nothing can stop me. The doubts and fears hit me like mosquitoes throwing themselves on a bug zapper.

Dddzzzzzzztt!
There goes another one.
Mmm… Smells a little acrid.
Like roasted mosquito wings.

Ha!

You’ll find that the fight is just beginning when you take your leap of faith.

Sometimes the fight seems to intensify.
As if something in the universe doesn’t want you to succeed.

Ha!
Just remember the smell of mosquito wings.

The anti-creative myths

There is an unending series of thoughts that will resist your decision to follow your creative dreams. Don’t you believe them.

To help expose the lies, I’m starting a series on the “anti-creative myths” — those ideas that pop up and try to become our pet excuses for not creating what fires our imaginations.

This series is not in order of importance or frequency or anything other than “as I think of it”. Please join the conversation by commenting — what anti-creative thoughts tend to stop your creative efforts cold? How do you combat your worst anti-creative thoughts?

This post will serve as an index for the series. Enjoy! And may these myths fall ineffective before our collective defenses, exposed now as the lies they are!