#on creativity

[brunettebabbydoll]

Catch your ideas in the void. Capture every single idea and write it down on the train, on a walk, in bed, or in the shower. If you wake up with an idea, turn on a lamp and record it. Every idea is crucial, each and every idea has the power to be something so incredibly grand. Ginsberg said, “first thought, best thought”. We shouldn’t ignore our initial thoughts, we shouldn’t lose them. Every fleeting creative thought is one worth remembering

[ivaspinoza]

Thoughts on creating as someone who doesn't paint anymore

I could say the process of creating usually starts from an observation or a feeling from reality (mine or not), so we have mainly characters or human situations that provoke a reaction – which moves me. It could also be a need to protest against something I find unbereable or the need to hold an immense and especial moment captive; the former in fiction, the latter mostly for poetry.

But when I start to write, I also shift into this commitment, passion, or duty to the words and to the text itself. This is never manifested before, only through the writing; the literature, the langue becomes bigger and demanding. The portrayal should be self-sufficient, the intelligence of the reader and their particular perspective, respected. Even honoured, I would say, by giving them something true and raw, where they can explore, think, and feel by themselves (if that makes sense).

When I write, I see myself in the same place I used to be in my old atelier: surrounded by alchemical glass jars and suspicious mediums, be the lovely stink of turpentine, while I hold three or four brushes in one hand. Spots of self-made oil paint everywhere (even on my cigarette). Detached from time and space. Swimming through layers, layers, layers. Carefully adding a sparkle (a small word), by the corner, delighting in the contour, in the process of weaving the meaning, and connecting them. Painting aggressively, or really fast, just to step back and wait until I know it was time to go for the delicate, intricate work.

It was a portal that I would open, back in those nights, to meet the Ineffable. The expression was not mine, I was only a vessel willing to go through the pain and joys of labour. Giving light, giving life, what a humbling task! The craft is pleasure, even through possible moments of discomfort – you can't live without it. Writing is like that for me.

After spending almost ten years in a full block, I just hope that in the same way writing came back, one day, painting also will; and my my arms will be open, I promise.

[fuckingwhateverdude]

on writing poems, fall 2022

[morningnoodles]

as a young reader and general consumer of media, i used to wonder why and how people can create angsty works but now that i've dabbled on them myself, i get it now

[ashtrayfloors]

1. I make my faith in my hands. A writer can declare faith in nothing but must bear faith in her hands. Hands are the inventors of language. We make words for what we must do. Our words are made of hands. 2. The pen isn’t separate from the hand but like all instruments it is an extension of the hand. Pen becomes hand. 3. Written letters, manuscripts, are drawn like threads from the manus, are connected to the manus. Manus as puppeteer—bowing the n in supplication, lifting then lowering the leg of the h as it breaks into a run, opening the mouth of the v to its white teeth, making a cup of the u then drinking from it. 4. We press our hands into the page until the page becomes our body. We are an ouroboros—writing ourselves onto ourselves.

—Natalie Diaz, from "The Hand has Twenty-Seven Bones" (Tin House)

[continuous-spec]

This morning, I woke up thinking about a fanfic I read probably a decade ago. Throughout the years, I thought back to it here and there. It was a soul-crushing, beautiful short story. And it's stayed with me, obviously. I never commented or left a kudo. Unfortunately, I can not find it for the life of me to leave a comment now.

My point is that even if your fiction, story, or creative endeavor isn't getting attention, that does not mean it's not worth telling or sharing. Someone is reading and absolutely loving it. I promise.

[coliepng]

art ≠ marketing

create for the thrill of it

[ethanwylan]

missing people who were dead before i was born.

i am surrounded by dead people. artists of all kinds. their word engulf me gently, a warm blanket in the depth of winter. i feel the inside of their minds through every delicate word sung on worn recording. i feel the familiar sting when i realize yet again that there is no more of them. that these songs, these melodies are all we have to remember them by.

a wound reopened.

[whimsy-wallfish]

jokes on me !

text for screenreaders below cut -

dashed expectations

— 11.26.23

a frivolous expectation of mine -

ill smoke and

a poem will come to mind

the automatic flowstate 

will make me feel intelligent again,

im sure

so i smoke and

of course i dont do much -

i stare at 

the blank page 

- inept.

[elektramouthed]

 It is obvious that abstract systems of exploitation and domination are human creations, brought into being and refined through the diversion or co-optation of creativity. The only forms of creativity that authority can deal with, or wished to deal with, are those which the spectacle can recuperate. But what people do officially is nothing compared with what they do in secret. People usually associate creativity with works of art, but what are works of art alongside the creative energy displayed by everyone a thousand times a day: seething unsatisfied desires, daydreams in search of a foothold in reality, feelings at once confused and luminously clear, ideas and gestures presaging nameless upheavals. All this energy, of course, is relegated to anonymity and deprived of adequate means of expression, imprisoned by survival and obliged to find outlets by sacrificing its qualitative richness and conforming to the spectacle's categories. Think of Cheval's palace, the Watts Towers, Fourier's inspired system, or the pictorial universe of Douanier Rousseau. Even more to the point, consider the incredible diversity of anyone's dreams ─ landscapes the brilliance of whose colors qualitatively surpass the finest canvases of a Van Gogh. Every individual is constantly building an ideal world within themselves, even as their external motions bend to the requirements of soulless routine.

Raoul Vaneigem, from Revolution of Everyday Life (tr. Donald Nicholson-Smith)

[depizan]

I would probably find it easier to get back to writing (and drawing, for that matter) if I spent time thinking about and talking about my characters and stories. Stories do not spring from one's forehead like Athena.

[angelnumbers]

elizabeth gilbert, big magic

[morningnoodles]

i can't find it right now but i saw a post a few moons ago that was basically like, "the biggest thing you can do to improve your art is to make whatever you're interested in right now" and listen. LISTEN.

i get it. truly i get it. before this year, i rarely draw boys. least of all older men. i was one of those kids who drew girls and fairies and princesses and just stuck with that for most of my artist journey.

and then- april 2023.

amidst one of the longest creative block i've had in my adult years, i got really into lotr and the hobbit. i constantly had (and still have!) this need to draw the characters, especially bagginshield. and so obviously i followed that need.

i mean, if your brain that's been on block for more than a year suddenly goes, "omg i want to draw them i want to draw them i want to draw them", there is no other correct response but "okay let's draw them!" and the results were absolutely horrendous. over time i do see some improvement. just looking at the art i thought good enough to post back in april and my recent ones, i can see i've improved plenty in quite a short time. i even finally worked out a process in my digital art that i feel happy with!

but to me that was never the point.

i don't think i will ever share the sketches i did on those first few weeks and months. still, i look at pages upon pages of completely messy blobby sketches with great fondness, not because of how much i improved since then but because i remember how much fun i had doing them.

so yes, make art that you love and you'll very likely see improvements. but also making what you love is reason enough to make them.

[andillwriteyouatragedy]

you are not a content generator. you are not a machine. you are not responsible for others. you are you. you are a creator. you are an artist. you must make what you want to make, for yourself, in your own time. anything else is stealing from yourself to feed others tbh. and sharing art is about the act of sharing your bounty. it is about being so full you start filling others. it is about having so much beauty and abundance that you must share it. it is not about starving yourself. i promise you this

[bread-lowph]

Matthew Griffin, Lithub [source]

[0dotexe]

So I started a mini project months ago but had to take a hiatus because of burnout and a lack of ideas, only for my brain to come up with something to pull me out of the funk and work on it again.

Why is making art so hard sometimes I stg.