How do you create?

[Alkia]

This is a really cool thread :0!!

I'm mainly a visual artist, and when I do make something other than 2d drawing art my process is totally different.

For art art, I kinda have two "modes":
- Art for fun; this is stuff I enjoy working on, mostly standalone character illustrations or scenes. Here, I just draw whatever I want whenever I want, and it varies how and when I get it done; I have an ongoing list of ideas, and when an idea pops into my head I write it down there. Those ideas usually come after I've been inspired by something I've read/watched/seen/heard, but sometimes they just vaporize out of nowhere into my head too. I then do something on that list whenever; some ideas get drawn right after I write them down, others have been on there for years  :'D. As for the actual length it takes me for each piece, sometimes I get them done in one sitting, other times it takes a couple goes (usually the stuff I enjoy drawing doesn't take much time, so it gets finished in one go). Oh yeah, and "whenever I feel like it" is basically whenever I'm not doing schoolwork, socializing or sleeping or eating, reading, or drawing other things (it's pretty low on the list, heh).

- Art for practice/goals; my goal right now is to have art become my career, to make money off of it, and that's partly a conceivable goal because I can see myself enjoying art as work. I know it's probably better to have inspiration for your art, but I can totally imagine forcing myself to work on X piece of art for X many hours a day and viewing it as work that needs to get done. I can imagine myself just looking at it as "welp, that's how I'm gonna get food on the table, and I'd rather do this thing where I enjoy the process and the end product for money than any other thing I can think of".
I don't know if that sounds like a kind of boring/depressing look at creativity, and it's probably easier said than done and I've never, y'know, actually tried sustaining myself from my art (the only set art I do is trying to work an hour a day on my comic), but that's how I see it. Working on X thing for X many hours to get it done, and if I enjoy it and learn something along the way that's great!!


As for those other creative things I do, which is poetry and music, inspiration for those hits so rarely that when I do get an idea I scramble to create it as quickly as possible  . Maybe that's also because I don't practice those intentionally as much

[tzelly]

Great idea! I will share for both my art and writing processes.

My creative process is sporadic, it highly depends on so many factors. I like to expose myself to work I find inspirational to get myself into the creating mood. Darksouls and Bloodborn games are a great source of that for me if I wish to create some dark horror creatures or gods, the details in the games and all the hidden lore really makes me want to up my game. If I need something more whimsical or dreamy, I'll watch a ghibli film.

Such things are also subject to my current emotional state, as others have pointed out, depression is the difficult to work with as it saps all motivation and energy. Some music I found helps me when I also need a shift in mood. When I'm feeling especially down I like to play one of my fave bands Diary of Dreams to wallow in the mood, maybe sketch some to get it out, and when I am done being sad I move to more upbeat music. Maybe from RIOT.

I also have tried to keep a small journal to write done ideas for a game I'm working on. Also keeping a regular journal and/or sketchbook will help with ideas by just flipping through past pages.

I'm also a bit scattered today so sorry if this is confusing or all over the place

[moredhel]

- Then there's inspiration. I don't like very much to feel "inspired" to be honest. It's like getting possessed by an idea

Good to read I am not the only maniac here. But I do enjoy the feeling itself. Not so much its Impact on the rest of my life.

[Róisín]

Yeah, the idea that grabs you by the brain and says: “Write me. Now.” is a very tough thing to deal with. I have had a song or poem ambush me like that while I am on the bus or in the middle of doing something else. What I am doing seems irrelevant to what comes - in the middle of a committee meeting, loading gear into a truck in the desert, or mucking out the poultry shed are all situations in which I have been lightning-bolted by a song or poem. Difficult.

[Keep Looking]

Right now I write poetry mostly just to, like, deal with stuff in my life? Sometimes it takes a few days - I'll start a poem, and then write a fragment, and then come back to it. But then some days I come home - usually from church, because church makes me feel awful - and it's like I'm glued to my chair and I just have to write *something* because I'm so tired and I'm so just choking on everything.

Sometimes, though, art and poetry is just about the construction, not the emotion. I know that when I was regularly writing poems for the SSSS pages, it was less how I write poems now and more how I paint - I'd have my inspiration and I'd play with the feelings and aesthetic of the page alongside the construction of the poem - rhythm, rhyme, line length etc. Like how when I'm painting I'll think about how to mix up the colours right and try and decide on the right way to paint this section or that section, and just how I'm going to go about the whole thing and how it's gonna look good - painting isn't so much about feelings for me?

Also with poetry I like to think about how it'd sound spoken - the way I write is very, uh, speak-able, whether it's rhyming or free verse. I should do slam poetry sometime.

[ohnosir]

Wow, this topic is super interesting and I love reading the replies! It's so cool to read how y'all develop your art, and really cool to see how others develop arts that are totally different from anything I can do, like poetry, music or fabric work
Art-wise, even though I've hardcore tried to learn human figures from my comic, I'm mostly inspired originally by scientific research (as someone who's done lots of paleoart and is super into creature design). I was always opposed to the other students at my art school, bc my art is all about putting things together in a logical manner, rather than any "fine" art. But aside from paleo/creature design, I love how colours work together. But as a - apparently naturally born - printmaker, I am horrible at "blending" like painters do, I am all about layering colours to find new ones. This is why the only "painting" I'm capable of is watercolours lol (also why I reject copics in favour of prisma markers ngl)
As far as writing....it's 100% character driven. My characters tell me their story, whether it's short or long form. Maybe it's crazy, but I do really envision them as separate entities, and they have their own demands. It's kinda tiring when I have to reject some of those demands in favour of a neat plot though, but hey, they were born into my world.

[tehta]

Wow, cool thread. It has made me think about how different (and more annoying) writing is for me from any other creative hobby...

I am not a skilled visual artist. I know the basics of how to use some types of paints, plain sewing and woodworking, some embroidery... The only thing I have actual training in is flameworking/glassblowing. But unless I am making something utilitarian, like a shelf (in which case I just... make it?) most of the time I look at these crafty activities as play. I will just sit down, maybe with some vague idea, and do whatever feels right. Somehow, I am mostly motivated by colour. I love the interplay of colours. I care about the end product much less than about the process, because the process tends to be a joyous flow experience for me. (This is the only way to do glassblowing, btw, because of how often your best pieces break just as you're finishing them...)

But writing is my blessing and my curse. It's very much about the end product; I am a selfish writer, in that what usually motivates me is my wish that a specific story exist so I can read it. (I do reread about 90% of my own stuff from time to time, and most of it does scratch the itch I had when I wrote it quite well.) I have done a few fic exchanges, and the ones where I really couldn't get on with the prompt were very hard for me.

The writing process is, ugh, let's say emotionally fraught in a way I really, really dislike. It goes through endless loops of:
1. Have idea, think it is amazingly awesome, jot down the basics while feeling pleased with self.
2. Come back to edit what I wrote during my flash of inspiration. Get depressed at how poorly my prose flows.
3. While editing, realize that my inspired ideas were actually very stupid. Some of the worst I ever had. And that, if I share this piece with anyone who liked my older works, they will finally realize that I have a stupid brain.
4. Have an identity crisis.
5. ...slowly think of a way to maybe fix the awfulness. Wait, that's actually brilliant! Let's go back to 1.

I go through this loop many, many times until I am happy with a piece. Although I think 'resigned' is a better word than 'happy' here. At the point where I stop I am usually like, "okay this seems to do the job but I am so familiar with it that the words no longer make any sense". So I set things aside to get cold before I do more editing.

Oh, also, generally speaking, I am a plotter/planner, and tend to have a pretty clear idea of the general shape of a story before I even start. (This includes checking in with all the characters to make sure they are OK with what I am planning to make them do,) By the end, I like for stories to have a sense of... I don't know how to describe it, connection and balance? So different elements I might use (themes, locations, phrases) reoccur in various ways, and that there isn't e.g. some random POV somewhere that I only use once and never again? Also, I need for all plot threads to be tied off neatly. (I have no idea whether any of this is actually making the story better for readers. It just bugs me, like an itchy seam.)

Last month I did an experiment of trying to write a multi-chapter fic with no planning, and it started off great (so freeing, almost a flow experience) but by the end the 'agony' aspects of writing hit me very hard. I still find the story pretty unbalanced, and have many regrets. So I think it's back to planning for me!

[ohnosir]

Wow, you have a lot of cool skills, especially glassblowing! My roommate for a bit in college did that too, it seems like some insane wizardry to me though. Have you posted any of your pieces here on the forum? Glassblowing or your otherwise "crafty" stuff.
And damn how dare you steal my writing technique :p These feels hit right where it hurts. I'm interested to see the end product!

[Jitter]

I have only started to do "artistic" type creative stuff when in this fandom, so in the last couple of years. I mean that I work as an environmental consultant and I do feel my work is often (not by any means always!) creative too. Finding solutions to problems and building tools or writing reports flexes the creative muscles for me. The processes are similar too, when I'm inspired. Difference is of course that work things need to get done whether I'm inspired or not.

When I get into some idea properly, I can be slightly obsessed. Just recently I saw a prompt from tehta for a runo poem / spell for Onni to perform in one of her fics (it's M rated so I'm not linking it here but it's on the AO3 for the interested). I have been writing some runos for my own fics and separately so I already have the gist of it. So, after the prompt, potential verses just started flooding my mind. Not in actually obsessive way that I couldn't think of anything else (which is good, as the subject matter was a bit dubious) but so that when I had a free moment, they kept forming and disappearing. I had gotten inspired.  Often this makes it hard to go to sleep at night, when the story / the planting plan for my garden / the presentation for an important client just keeps going round and round.

There is a big difference between story / poetry inspiration and work creativity however. With the stories it often feels like the inspiration is external to me, as if the story flows from somewhere else into my mind. I obviously know it's originating from my own mind, but oftentimes it surely doesn't feel like that. When writing work stuff, the process is much more clearly in my control, even though the actual arriving to a solution is still quite messy. But it feels like I'm digging in my own archives for things to add, while for the stories it sometimes feels like hearing echoes from a repository somewhere else. As if the writing is an attempt to capture an existing story in an acceptable way?

Does this make any sense? I know I'm not the only one with this experience, but I don't know how well I'm able to put it into words. I read a fascinating article some years ago about some research done on how artists (it was probably authors, if I recall correctly) perceive their inspiration. Many felt similarly to me that it is external, some had very definite experience of the direction from which it comes to them too! Or how it moves near them and they need to catch it, or it will be lost forever. It's no surprise to me that the Muses are viewed as personal entities!

[tehta]

I experience inspiration similarly, in the sense that it comes from outside my conscious mind, but differently, in that I still think it's coming from some part of myself.

I think one reason for this is that I definitely do experience something similar in my work (which is software development / applied AI). When faces with a thorny algorithmic/math problem, I will think and think about it, brainstorm on paper, despair... and then one day the solution will just BE THERE. It'll just pour into my consciousness from some other place. Often, it will feel very simple and obvious. And I somehow can't quite believe in a software muse, so my internal metaphor is that there is a compartment of my mind that works on such problems while the conscious parts are, I don't know, staring at trees, or arguing about kitchen chores, or reading fanfic.

Scenes will often arrive in my mind in just the same way, pretty complete (although not written in clear prose, sigh). I keep many files of random scenelets that just popped into my mind. When I plan a new story, it's usually built around a selection of them.

Oh, and I will try to post some pics of my glass stuff somewhere some time. And my writing is very easy to find (same name on AO3, loads of self-promo in this forum...)

[Róisín]

Same here. Occasionally a poem will just drop into my mind fully formed, even if I am not trying to use imbas forasnai for something magical. I remember years ago reading a poem ‘The Goat Paths’ by James Stephens, in which he talks about the process of creating poetry from the viewpoint of a poet. The poem ends:
                                 ‘I would think until I found
                                  Something I can never find
                                   Something lying on the ground
                                   In the bottom of my mind’.

But mostly for me building a poem is more like building a piece of furniture.

[Jitter]

Bam! Róisín please proceed to the Celebrations thread!

[ohnosir]

Y'all poets amaze me...it's never been something I can quite grasp! But I very much feel the "external inspiration" you are referring to! Paleontological art I feel like is external to me, since it's all based on my study of all these observations other people did, I just kinda put my own spin on it...and well, like I said with my writing, the characters kinda write it lol. Other stuff I wanna talk about definitely makes it's way into it, but sometimes I feel like I'm being dragged along!

[crowbarrd]

This is such an awesome thread ?? It's incredibly interesting reading everyone's replies here !!

I used to be able to write pretty long poems and the occasional short story (emphasis on used to) and that felt really good, writing them felt like I was expressing my thoughts into something more tangible. I always find it hard to talk about my thoughts in a legible way, like in interviews and presentations, so writing them down really helps. For writing what I really want to do is express in my mind's eye what it's seeing and feeling.
(However, recently it's been really hard for me to write something I find good or interesting, it feels more of me forcing myself to write instead of the words just whooooosh coming out. It's like having a constipation lol)


As a visual artist, inspiration is a big part of my creative process: I would want to draw specific things, people, something based on a piece of writing or a lyric. I can make a list of things I want to draw and just proceed to draw them.
Drawing it out however, is hard to explain, as in Songbird's words, "It's like getting possessed by an idea". Most of my best pieces are created in that way, with a few or a single idea/s in mind. It's sort of like putting your pencil down and furiously scribbling until you've puked out all your thoughts on it. Which is probably also why I hardly manage to make any finished pieces of anything, since that rush would only last me about a day at most.


Repetition is, in a way, the core of how I create; I just keep doing it until I'm satisfied, which makes me rather obsessive sometimes (though I can also be on the other end of the spectrum where I simply give up!) So I might write down a sentence or a few words, draw a small scribble, and some underterminable time later come back to make an iteration of that same piece by building on it or keeping pieces of the original. I suppose it helps retain the spark of inspiration you get when possessed for that short while.

[tehta]

I have a bunch of messy thoughts on creation acquired in this fandom... Let's start with two.

One, I feel like this fandom has made me a faster writer, which is GREAT. I am referring specifically to the speed with which the inspired ideas get down on paper, and improving that is GREAT. I used to shake over every sentence, and considered 500 words / hour the pinnacle to aspire to. Now my first drafts jump out much faster, and require less hardcore editing than I would have expected. I mean, I still edit a lot, but not much more than I do for prose I wrote slowly. I edit and trim everything I write like crazy. (I think a part of my new speed is how forgiving this fandom feels to me. In my longterm fandom of the Silmarillion, I always felt like I had to justify an interpretation I made with footnotes, ha. It carried over into other writings, but now I am finally free!) 

Two, Yoinktober has made me think hard about the inspiration/discipline divide. As I have hinted on the Yoinktober thread, there are days when I feel zero inspiration, even after I figure out an idea. (For me, feeling inspired has an element of 'I can't wait to see how this turns out so I can read it and enjoy it and maybe share!" When I have an idea but no inspiration, it's more like "i can probably make this work, but I doubt I will enjoy reading it, so how can anyone else?") Maybe somewhat relevantly to what crowbarrd said, writing when not inspired is slower and comes with a bit of  a constipated feeling. I would love to figure out a way to tell whether this is obvious in the quality finished product! (Most of my longer works have 'inspired' bits linked by 'constipated' bits, and in many cases I can't see the difference on a re-read. But I am of course very biased.)