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Rekindling the Fire
14 years ago
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."
-William Shakespeare I’ve you’ve been following/watching me, you likely know that I’m in a creative rut that I haven’t been able to shake for some time, and it actually has me rather worried. I can still think tactically and strategically, as well as mechanically, but creatively I’m having a great deal of difficulty. I haven’t even had many random ideas pop into my head, which is most unusual for me. Usually my mind, when idle, will often go on tangents from which some of my best ideas come from. I’m not sure if it’s from stress, poor diet, mediocre sleep (thought that’s been prevalent for years), or heck, maybe I’ve even developed a mild case of depression. I just don’t know.
Does anyone have any ideas on how I might try to get that creative spark back, to get that motivation to work creatively once more? I greatly enjoy writing, and several of you have enjoyed reading what I’ve come up with and written. But recently it just feels like there’s nothing there, an annoying “tried to think and nothing happened” routine. Characters and the stories they live is something I’m passionate about, but it just seems as though the passion is gone, and that scares me; it’s like a part of myself is gone and I’m not sure how to get it back, and I fear if I don’t, I might lose it entirely.
Again, do any of you have any suggestions on how to get back motivation, passion, and creative spark? I guess it’s not so much that it’s not there anymore, but that there’s a glass wall between me and it, and I don’t know how to go through, or even how that glass wall got there. I can feel my creativity there, as it were, but I just can’t quite grasp it. I open up Microsoft Word, and have the feel of what I want to write, with even a plot skeleton, but in the end I end up staring at a blank page, unable to even get the first word down. And even worse I have a request and gift piece I’m supposed to be working on, a short story for pitching to fantasy magazines, an article pitch for Dragon Magazine (Wizards of the Coast), and a campaign for a comic story. I haven’t made progress on any of these ranging from weeks to months. So not only am I letting myself down, I’m letting others down, which really eats at me.
I know I’m not the only one to have felt like this, and I know none of you have a magic quick fix. However, I really don’t know what else to do, so I thought I’d reach out to an artistic and creative community in the hopes that you may have suggestions, advice, or words of wisdom that you can share that can help me. Anything could help, and your time and thought would be much appreciated. Thank you.
P.S. After 21 days in the hospital, my dad is finally improving. According to the doctors, he no longer has the H1N1 virus and we no longer have to wear masks. They’re slowly weaning him off the oxygen and everything else he was on, and he’s starting to look a bit more like his old self. Don’t know how much longer he’ll be in the hospital, as it could still be a while, but he is definitively recovering.
Does anyone have any ideas on how I might try to get that creative spark back, to get that motivation to work creatively once more? I greatly enjoy writing, and several of you have enjoyed reading what I’ve come up with and written. But recently it just feels like there’s nothing there, an annoying “tried to think and nothing happened” routine. Characters and the stories they live is something I’m passionate about, but it just seems as though the passion is gone, and that scares me; it’s like a part of myself is gone and I’m not sure how to get it back, and I fear if I don’t, I might lose it entirely.
Again, do any of you have any suggestions on how to get back motivation, passion, and creative spark? I guess it’s not so much that it’s not there anymore, but that there’s a glass wall between me and it, and I don’t know how to go through, or even how that glass wall got there. I can feel my creativity there, as it were, but I just can’t quite grasp it. I open up Microsoft Word, and have the feel of what I want to write, with even a plot skeleton, but in the end I end up staring at a blank page, unable to even get the first word down. And even worse I have a request and gift piece I’m supposed to be working on, a short story for pitching to fantasy magazines, an article pitch for Dragon Magazine (Wizards of the Coast), and a campaign for a comic story. I haven’t made progress on any of these ranging from weeks to months. So not only am I letting myself down, I’m letting others down, which really eats at me.
I know I’m not the only one to have felt like this, and I know none of you have a magic quick fix. However, I really don’t know what else to do, so I thought I’d reach out to an artistic and creative community in the hopes that you may have suggestions, advice, or words of wisdom that you can share that can help me. Anything could help, and your time and thought would be much appreciated. Thank you.
P.S. After 21 days in the hospital, my dad is finally improving. According to the doctors, he no longer has the H1N1 virus and we no longer have to wear masks. They’re slowly weaning him off the oxygen and everything else he was on, and he’s starting to look a bit more like his old self. Don’t know how much longer he’ll be in the hospital, as it could still be a while, but he is definitively recovering.
Hope I've done something to help you.
Still, now that you mention it, maybe I can try getting back to painting my Imperial Guard miniatures that I have assembled in the basement. That'll at least keep me from pacing the house and regularly hitting the refresh button on my internet browser to see if something new has been posted.
And it doesn't even have to be something you have done before, I ended by depression when I picked up my first harmonica. I still cant play worth shit, but it gave me something to focus my energy on. And its nice to expand your definition of yourself, I wouldnt call myself a musically talented person. But just to play for the sake of playing saved me.
Even worse, drawing anything organic is so much harder than everything else. Seeing the underlying muscles and skeletel structure of something is just something my mind has so much difficulty seeing. It also doesn't help that I have mild perfectionist tendencies and hold myself to standards at times too high for me to achieve with the level of skill I possess. The other problem is that my mind is always envisioning what I want it to look like in the end, and is unable to see all the steps needed to get to that point, which leaves me staring at a plank canvas not having the faintest idea of where to start (which is the problem I'm currently having with my writing as well).
Personally, I'm thinking just getting more social interaction in my life could do wonders for me, but I'm not entirely sure how to go about doing that. I'm a relatively solitary individual, and for me breaking the ice can be quite difficult. Every time I vent or express myself here through journals, even if no one ever replies, always does seem to help to some extent. It's just so hard for me to really begin, establish, and maintain meaningful social connections. It's almost like I inadvertaintly keep everyone at arms length, like I'm stoic without actually meaning to be. I feel like I'm emotionally distant from everything, which might be a contributing factor to my lack of passion for anything personal. It's like I've become emotionally distant from myself.
Anyway, thanks for listening to me go on.
As to art, The only thing I enjoy drawing is animals, full realism, (I can't cartoon worth crap :P) what I do is. Forget that it is an animal, think of it as a bunch of lines instead, (This only works if you are using a reference, or looking at a picture) And instead of drawing a fox lets say, Draw a bunch of individual distinct lines that eventually will come to resemble a fox. This "strategy" helped me a lot, as it cleared my mind of what it thinks a "fox" should look like. So the only advice I have left is dont be ashamed or afraid to experiment in visual arts it matters not the destinations as the journey is where knowledge is gained.
And what has me worried is that it feels like my creativity has been on "pause" for the better part of four months. For me, that's a long time.
Anyway, know me or not, the fact that you took the time to read, think, and respond is much appreciated.