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writethisfanfic2010-09-11 02:39 pm
littlebutfierce) wrote in writethisfanfic2010-09-11 02:39 pm
Entry tags:
Creative dry spells: how do you weather them?
It's exciting to see this community growing! Hello to all the new folks--I look forward to seeing what new thoughts & conversations & connections come up in posts here.
Recently I've read a couple of Julia Cameron books. She makes me wince a lot, though 750 Words, based on her idea of morning pages, is still the main reason I started writing fic.
Despite my frustration with her, one of the things I've found useful is the way she talks about creative dry spells. Maybe you have had a period of time where you're overflowing with ideas & are finding it relatively easy to get them down into words & polish them up enough to be sent out into the world as finished fics. I felt this way earlier this year, but now I feel like I've slowed down. My initial reaction is to worry: what if that was it, those were all the stories I had it in me to tell, I'll never be able to finish anything again? (& possibly worse: maybe I won't care that I won't be able to finish things...)
Cameron's take on this, though, is that when you're using a lot of creative energy, you need to take time to replenish it or you'll burn out. We can't pull those all-nighters, staying up writing thousands of words, for months on end: it just won't work. Ups & downs in creativity are to be expected; they're normal, if scary:
During creative droughts, we need to be kind to ourselves, think of the slowdown as a normal & indeed necessary part of creative cycles, & keep faith that we'll move into a new phase soon. This could mean taking more time to focus on other things (daily tasks like ensuring you get enough sleep or are eating sufficiently or doing the laundry, or maybe creative ventures in another form: art, music, etc.).
The key, she argues, is to keep writing (or doing whatever your creative activity is): those morning pages/750 words or what have you, because then your brain & your creative mind learns that you can write no matter what your mood. You stay in the habit, & when the phase in your own cycle of creativity shifts & you're full of ideas & energy again, you'll be in better shape to get those ideas down.
Sometimes her wording is a little cheesy for me, but here:
Things I am doing right now to try to move through this phase:
What creative season are you in right now? If you're in or approaching creative drought, what kinds of things might be helping you out of it? (&... does anyone want to commiserate with me? *whimper*)
Recently I've read a couple of Julia Cameron books. She makes me wince a lot, though 750 Words, based on her idea of morning pages, is still the main reason I started writing fic.
Despite my frustration with her, one of the things I've found useful is the way she talks about creative dry spells. Maybe you have had a period of time where you're overflowing with ideas & are finding it relatively easy to get them down into words & polish them up enough to be sent out into the world as finished fics. I felt this way earlier this year, but now I feel like I've slowed down. My initial reaction is to worry: what if that was it, those were all the stories I had it in me to tell, I'll never be able to finish anything again? (& possibly worse: maybe I won't care that I won't be able to finish things...)
Cameron's take on this, though, is that when you're using a lot of creative energy, you need to take time to replenish it or you'll burn out. We can't pull those all-nighters, staying up writing thousands of words, for months on end: it just won't work. Ups & downs in creativity are to be expected; they're normal, if scary:
Because the seasons of creativity are so varied, they can be frightening. In spring we can doubt our budding ideas will come to anything. In summer we can worry about our ability to keep up. In fall we may fear that we will not harvest our ideas successfully, that we will bruise them as we try to bring them home. In winter we may fear that we will never work again, and use the long, quiet times to beat ourselves up over the creativity that seems gone, not merely dormant.
(from "Seasonality" in The Sound of Paper)
During creative droughts, we need to be kind to ourselves, think of the slowdown as a normal & indeed necessary part of creative cycles, & keep faith that we'll move into a new phase soon. This could mean taking more time to focus on other things (daily tasks like ensuring you get enough sleep or are eating sufficiently or doing the laundry, or maybe creative ventures in another form: art, music, etc.).
The key, she argues, is to keep writing (or doing whatever your creative activity is): those morning pages/750 words or what have you, because then your brain & your creative mind learns that you can write no matter what your mood. You stay in the habit, & when the phase in your own cycle of creativity shifts & you're full of ideas & energy again, you'll be in better shape to get those ideas down.
Sometimes her wording is a little cheesy for me, but here:
In times of creative drought, the only solution is to keep putting one foot in front of the other, to keep on slogging creatively, to keep moving toward a distant horizon. We are like people crossing a vast desert. Water lies ahead and not behind. It lies in our future and not in our present. We must move towards it when every foot-fall seems a mockery. And why must we keep on moving?
We must keep moving because all droughts end. The parched earth is slaked by rain, and the parched creative spirit is slaked, too, when the long months of forced work give way suddenly to the verdant flowering of inspiration.
...We want our art to flow as easily as a mountain stream, and we remember with bitterness the days when it did flow and we were ungrateful--unconscious, really, why we should be grateful. The days will come again when our art will flow freely and when we will be seized and carried away by inspiration. We help those days to come more easily if we keep the faith and keep working, however slowly and tentatively, through our periods of drought.
(from "Keep Moving" in The Sound of Paper)
Things I am doing right now to try to move through this phase:
- Doing 750 Words, whether just as a brain dump of what's happened in my world that day or as a way to keep writing (painful, painful) fic
- Reading fic to keep me excited (EDIT: And trying to comment too, heh.)
- Re/consuming source material for the same reason (it's also good to refamilarize myself w/canon!)
- Writing posts here because I'm really happy to have a place where we can hopefully have these sorts of conversations!
What creative season are you in right now? If you're in or approaching creative drought, what kinds of things might be helping you out of it? (&... does anyone want to commiserate with me? *whimper*)
no subject
(I seem to only write shorter fic--the idea of a big bang terrifies me--so no help from me personally, alas. ;)
I'll try to post to the comm sometime in the next couple of days to get more suggestions on how this all could work, etc.