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I've unfortunately had a lot of practice with forced non-creativity, with the past three years an example of that. It's always an interesting experience, and after a while, I become almost convinced that I'm not really a creative person anymore and have gone suddenly "normal." It's not as upsetting as it sounds; being non-creative is more blah than anything actively unpleasant. It's like the old conundrum of treating depression: Many depressed people don't perceive that they're depressed, and the depression snuffs all motive to work against the depression. When I'm non-creative, I don't perceive that I'm not creative either. It's not like I feel the lack of creativity; life just becomes a lot more literal.
Of course, there are glimmers that there is something beyond the tidy bounds of the life without imagination. During my first year of school, I was rabidly writing poetry in lieu of longer pieces, memorizing them during scraps of time I could steal and writing them down later. During my internship, my mentor assigned me to write a model essay for one of the freshpeople's compositions, and an hour into it, there I was, pouring my heart out on the keys with tears on my face. (I was writing about my Uncle Wodie and his illness and death when I was a teenager.) There was that old familiar sense of submersion beneath the bare details of life.
I do wonder, though, during my bouts of forced non-creativity, if the muses will ever come back. I once accidentally trained myself to become creatively inspired by the smell of the rubber mats at ice rinks (that isn't as random as it sounds, I promise) and so tend not to believe that "creativity" and "inspiration" are these entirely nebulous, non-physical entities that bestow and withhold their blessings without any say from the writer--although it can sure feel like that sometimes.
Well, I got my answer on the question of muses. The day I handed in the last of my school assignments, I awoke in the night and proceeded to lie sleepless for the next hour thinking about the prequel to AMC. And today, I enjoyed a very non-productive morning where each sentence I wrote for my articles was punctuated by a two-minute daydream about the sequel to AMC. So it seems the muses are back in all their annoying, pointy-eared glory.
I am going to be tough on myself this summer. I have been tough on myself for the past three years in a way that is entirely contrary to my character; this will be contrary to my character too but is very much needed. I am prioritizing my creativity this summer. It's very easy for me to put the needs of others above my own, but I'm not going to do it this time. I'm going to write and paint and send out the stories for publication that I've been saying I was going to send out for publication for years now. I've made good progress on my goal, only a few days into it. I've rejoined Critters and submitted my short story "Hazard" to the critique queue. I've restarted my work editing the Help Haiti ebooks (no, I really have not forgotten that project), which will also serve to reacquaint me with the small details of the Felakverse so that I can--wonder of wonders--go back to writing some Silmfic. I have ideas out the wazoo for original fiction stories too: several short stories and two novels. This doesn't even begin to touch on the illuminations--medieval and modern--that are in need of completion.
It's a relief, to be sure. I've been noticing that the dysthymic swings have been getting deeper and longer lately. I don't know that it's correlated with the forced non-creativity (it could equally be the perpetual state of exhaustion I've been in since about February, or something else entirely), but I've been feeling pretty good these last few days. It does make me wonder.
Of course, there are glimmers that there is something beyond the tidy bounds of the life without imagination. During my first year of school, I was rabidly writing poetry in lieu of longer pieces, memorizing them during scraps of time I could steal and writing them down later. During my internship, my mentor assigned me to write a model essay for one of the freshpeople's compositions, and an hour into it, there I was, pouring my heart out on the keys with tears on my face. (I was writing about my Uncle Wodie and his illness and death when I was a teenager.) There was that old familiar sense of submersion beneath the bare details of life.
I do wonder, though, during my bouts of forced non-creativity, if the muses will ever come back. I once accidentally trained myself to become creatively inspired by the smell of the rubber mats at ice rinks (that isn't as random as it sounds, I promise) and so tend not to believe that "creativity" and "inspiration" are these entirely nebulous, non-physical entities that bestow and withhold their blessings without any say from the writer--although it can sure feel like that sometimes.
Well, I got my answer on the question of muses. The day I handed in the last of my school assignments, I awoke in the night and proceeded to lie sleepless for the next hour thinking about the prequel to AMC. And today, I enjoyed a very non-productive morning where each sentence I wrote for my articles was punctuated by a two-minute daydream about the sequel to AMC. So it seems the muses are back in all their annoying, pointy-eared glory.
I am going to be tough on myself this summer. I have been tough on myself for the past three years in a way that is entirely contrary to my character; this will be contrary to my character too but is very much needed. I am prioritizing my creativity this summer. It's very easy for me to put the needs of others above my own, but I'm not going to do it this time. I'm going to write and paint and send out the stories for publication that I've been saying I was going to send out for publication for years now. I've made good progress on my goal, only a few days into it. I've rejoined Critters and submitted my short story "Hazard" to the critique queue. I've restarted my work editing the Help Haiti ebooks (no, I really have not forgotten that project), which will also serve to reacquaint me with the small details of the Felakverse so that I can--wonder of wonders--go back to writing some Silmfic. I have ideas out the wazoo for original fiction stories too: several short stories and two novels. This doesn't even begin to touch on the illuminations--medieval and modern--that are in need of completion.
It's a relief, to be sure. I've been noticing that the dysthymic swings have been getting deeper and longer lately. I don't know that it's correlated with the forced non-creativity (it could equally be the perpetual state of exhaustion I've been in since about February, or something else entirely), but I've been feeling pretty good these last few days. It does make me wonder.
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