Creative Angusih

The Rule: Creativity is always fun.

You sit down at your chair with a pen, paintbrush, or laptop before you. You already have a passionate start on your project. An energy that burnt inside has propelled you thus far, yet there still remains many blank holes in your story, journal, blog, painting or song. With the vast blankness ahead of you, you become eager to fill in the blank, thus the burning that once fueled the quality of your project's genesis is now giving you energy to hasten ahead and fail to develop what you already have started; thus, compromising the quality of the remainder of the piece.

Last night I faced this demon head on. I was (and still am in many ways) tired of developing and getting to know my characters. I say to myself, "I love them enough to move forward with the story." Yet as I move onto something new, I feel my characters calling back to me in sadness saying, "Know me more."

I realize, I thrive off of exploring new terrain and when I feel that I have exhausted all nooks and crannies of an imaginative portion (or the entire project itself) I want to move on to something entirely new, and that creates an anxious boredom. I squirm in my seat, my heart beats rapidly as if I had too much caffeine minus the euphoria, nervous adrenaline rushes to my chest and I frantically flip ahead several pages on my journal to write new thoughts or plot points, all the while I am not showing my character, whom I am developing, the proper attention and care.

I was in humdrum anguish, yet as I flipped back to what I was originally doing, I engaged in a more profound creative act, the act of creation under non-inspiration.

There is an island and it represents an artist's project or a task within the project. The artists has explored the white sandy beaches, the swaying grassy knoll, the colorful corral reef and even sampled many of the wild pineapples and coconuts. The artist grows bored with the island and decides to swim to another one, but something is calling him back. There is uncharted land. The artist goes back with a sigh of drudgery and explores the sand, the knoll, the reef and the fruit but then he sees something he hasn't seen before. It's a cave hidden by dead palm tree leaves. He pulls the dried up vegetation away and a rush of cool air blows from the cave onto his dry face. Sounds of adventure echo through the darkness below. BINGO! The artist has discovered through the exhausted search there is a pocket of newness. The artist has found his energy and is more knowledgeable of the island so when he takes his audience on the journey through the island, he can point out all of the island's true wonders.