Brainbending Thinkage: on creativity, joy fizz and holes

Why are you here. I have nothing to offer you.

No.

Seriously.

Look back on all that I have published. Notice the scarcity of posts? Yeah, I’m not swamped with living some grandiose lifestyle with the occasional sprinkling of self-indulgent blog posts or goofy sketches.

I only really know how to think.

And this isn’t a good thing. Read my stuff. Oh such kooky fun, look at how I poke fun at myself. Oh I must be so in control of my sense of self. Bleh.

Critical thinking is a valuable asset to have along with the ability to articulate opinions and ideas. But being totally self-aware is the joke prize that comes with it and proceeds to stick onto your soul slowly choking the creativity out of you.

I get jealous and petty when I see success stories. There is a troll in my mind that hops up every time I consume a good, creative thing. When I first read Nation by Terry Pratchett the surface of my thoughts were bubbling with joyous rainbows and giggly joy fizz. But the troll within exuded disappointed nose-breath and angrily whispered, “This is the book you were supposed to write.”

The trouble is that I am still in alpha. Just barely. There might be talent squished in there somewhere. At the moment I am forming an idea for the trailer for what I want the eventual product of my life to be. I have ideas and I know how to tell people about them but that’s all they are… potential.

Advertised potential. Something to look forward to. Yet unfulfilled.

And I spend most of my time in a creative slump because I lack the skills to realise my thoughts and ideas. And yes I’ve seen this and you should too. I know I just need to power through and quell my inner chimp.

But I am easily swayed. I’m a whore for the delightful origin stories of successful creators, thoughtfully diluted and reworked to make them sound like they are unique and unattainable. I read about them like they’re my How To guide and end up inevitably disappointed. Those successful writers with their novels, TV shows and blogs going on about how they just did it because they wanted to have fun and ne-eeeever expected to become this successful and make a living out of it.

I’m an ass.

Those people worked to get where they are. There is an A to Z in all this but the problem is that I get stuck at Point G, meander around until I fumble backwards into Point D, proceed to panic and start flailing my way to prematurely end up at Point U.

It’s painful to not yet have the skills to realise a creative idea. I did this comic and wish I was better at realising the idea that was in my mind. Yes, ideas are ultimately cheap but they’re mainly what I have right now. I have some skill in writing and can sort of draw (I really am trying to get better at drawing) but the taste of the possibility of success in creative endeavours results in every “not as good as it could be” creating a deeper hole that I later crawl into when in a creative slump.

It’s really just an endless cycle.

That middle ground between A and Z with its lack of instruction is infuriating. But the reason that it’s like that is because the journey relies on you making your own bloody map. You can’t borrow someone else’s and survive in the long-run. You get better by becoming better. No walkthroughs!

I just need to get better! Keep at it! Keep drawing and writing and reading and researching and creating. And with every poorly realised idea I just need to let the deep hole get bigger and bigger…

*watches Bob Ross for five hours*

I mean not that I’m angry. Who could I be angry at? Myself? That won’t solve anything. I could split myself into my idealistic self and my unskilled exterior and hate the latter? No, that will result in poor mental health.

It’s just a thing that needs to be sorted and a thing that I don’t sort because it isn’t sorted. I want the destination, I worry about the journey and keep stumbling.

In conclusion, this is just a rant. Chug along Sophie.

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