Creativity
Wednesday, March 15th, 2006
Currently listening to The Who’s Baba O’Riley on my very minimal stereo system, ie multimedia speakers + iPod. Feel like writing a song but have no idea how, so I drew this picture instead.
I used to make stuff when I was young, before I had access to a computer. Lots of stuff involving felt-tip pens and cardboard. There was a boardgame at one point. Further back, I even remember writing murder mysteries and making miniature sets and figurines [aka dolls] to act them out (with my slightly weird neighbour).
It’s funny that even though I find myself writing all the time [ie here] I don’t seem to be able to just make stuff up like that anymore. But then I guess my interest in fiction has also declined, so it probably says something about my changing tastes. Fiction seems so tricky— as the author you have to care about it, even though it’s not real. How to avoid that crashing doubt when you think to yourself "Why should anyone give a shit about this imaginary guy in a situation I just made up?"
March 15th, 2006 at 7:40 am
I have those same feelings, and it is one reason why I am glad I have a blog. Sure, probably over 75% of what I write most people would not care at all about, but at least it keeps me writing. If there was no such thing as the Internet or blogging, I doubt I would keep a journal or anything and I would probably only a quarter as much as I write now.
I did successfully do NaNoWriMo two years ago, and I used my fantasy football league as a skeleton for the story. It was the only way I could keep making things up. I have never published, aka put online, what I wrote because I cannot help thinking that not only is it bad, but who would care.
I tried NaNoWriMo this year and without a skeleton I failed miserably. Life gets in the way too, but for the most part I have some moment of time to write, I just cannot continually make something up that I feel anyone would want to read. So I would say judging by both our statements that this is a very, very common feeling for most people.
March 15th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
Patricide - multi level murder-strategy board game !
I do seem to recall it was a bit tricky getting the rules sorted out
March 15th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
Scott - did you ever have your novel printed and bound eg cafe press style? If not I really think you should… It’s great having a block of pages to call your own, even if no one ever opens it ;)
March 15th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
Simon - yes the rules were very complicated, and the overall design a little fuzzy. I always meant to refine it (and change the theme from patricide to something the whole family can enjoy, like regicide) … Managed to lose the damn board at some point too, so there’s not much evidence of it remaining :(
What is truly bizarre to comtemplate is that the entire thing was made without the aid of a computer! No photoshop, no illustrator, no printing even. Even the cards were hand-written… ! [Actually, now I think of it the rules were printed out using a dot-matrix printer, but apart from that it was all done by hand.]