Creativity

Dear Wal,

Creativity is a fickle thing. It can drive you to do great or terrible things and write or draw something awesome in the process, or it can drive you completely insane either because you have this amazing idea and you just can't quite seem to get it down or you just can't think of anything, like every imaginative bone in your body has been removed. Creativity can't be directed without sheer talent or years of practice honing one's imaginative muscles. I'm the years of practice type. I started writing when I was eight and there's no sign of an end in sight unless I have some crisis or real life wedges it's way between me and my creativity.
I've written countless pages, some of which are available here, and most I've kept close to my heart and no one has ever read them but me. That's another thing with my creativity, it's very selfish. It doesn't like to share.


Training
Nanowrimo is the ultimate challenge, the ultimate enterprise in writing as I see it, and it's what really got me hooked on writing. You see, I had this pesky character that wouldn't leave me alone. He just kept driving me crazy until I finally wrote him down, and even though it wasn't during nano when I finally put him to rest, nano was a huge part of that process. I learned to just beat it out, no matter what it took. I go to war during November, and I'm out for blood and I will win, no matter what it takes. Of course, I don't always reach 50,000, but I like to think I've won if I've just finished the story. Anyway, nano is a great way to just force yourself and get into the habit of writing. Once you start writing almost every day, it's not likely you're going to stop. Habits of any kind die hard.

Letting it Be
Sometimes you just have to let your creativity lead you where it will. Fighting it and flailing around in a completely different direction from where it wants to go usually doesn't get you anywhere. You may not even realize it, but the reason you might be failing utterly at that one story is that even though you want to write one story, your creativity wants you to write a completely different one. I've experienced this many times. There are places everywhere in my writing notebooks where I've just given up and started writing something else and completely rocked it, while leaving that unfinished story with a random intrusion in the middle of everything. It's easier on the computer, I can just leave off one file and start another if I need to spiral off on something.

I have a confession to make. I totally lost interest in script frenzy. It wasn't Jason's story or anything like that, because I have it planned down to every detail and it's really very amusing and good, it was just that it was too easy. It wasn't enough of a challenge, compared to nano anyway. So I had an Elliot relapse. I've been trying to write him in his own story for months, but nothing seemed to work, and then something just clicked and I wrote 15 pages in two days.
Yeah. I don't know, don't ask. It was insane and I think it's probably one of the best things I've ever written. Thing is, I've gotten bogged down in the plot again. It's always around 10,000 words. It's very sad. Anyway, moving on.

Taming the Inner Editor
I know it's good to revise. I know it's good to spell things right. But sometimes you just have to let it go and write for all your worth. I can't stand throwing spelling to the wind, but I'm perfectly happy to just ignore concentrating on grammar rules and let my gut and my instincts dictate how my sentences are structured. Obvious mistakes I'll fix as I go along, though. It's when I start being OCD about how my writing looks and feels and how well my plot flows that I know I need to stop and do something else for a while.

It's sad..we really have no control over our creativity at all. Other than just forcing yourself to write, there really isn't anything you can do to dictate when and what you write unless you're just plain genius, which most of us aren't.

/endrant