How do you create?

[Jitter]

The description of uninspired writing (creating) as suffering from constipation is a very apt metaphor! I don't get much of it with the fanfic writing, because I just don't write when I don't feel like it. But sometimes stuff for work purposes... it's draining when you have to push out something, construct a report or whatever word by word when the inspiration just isn't there but it has to get done.

I am terribly bad at planning. Even report writing tends more towards "just start writing and it will shape itself". This works for me personally, but I fear it makes me terrible in giving guidance to others. But apparently I make up for it by approachability because my team members like working with me.

YoinkTober is good for me, because I think it's good to learn to do quick things and just let them go. I have posted several I'm not very happy with, and that is absolutely healthful for me to learn to do. I am learning to accept less than perfect from myself (I have no problem with that when it's anyone else's work!) and the supportive environment we have here is a huge help.

Like mentioned above, I hadn't done anything "artistically" (as opposed to for work) creative for many many years before joining this fandom. This is something I am overwhelmingly grateful for! It's given me so much, and especially with the difficult times we are having, it has played a significant role in my mental well-being.

[tehta]

Jitter, I guess one big difference between us is that, while at this moment I feel like writing almost every day, I find it much harder to feel like writing to a specific prompt. If I waited until I felt inspired I would have left more than half the days empty! As it is, I did a bunch of those 'double prompts'...

I am still wondering whether it's obvious which of my prompt fillers were 'whee inspired' and which were 'slog slog slog must do my duty'. (I guess being dutiful is a much bigger problem for me than perfection, at this point.) Maybe I should turn this around on you and ask you to point me to, say, four of your pieces so I can guess which ones you are / are not happy with. Although I suppose it could be a bit weird if I get it all wrong.

I would be interested in doing this for others, too, along either the perfect/imperfect or inspired/uninspired axis. This whole act of creation is all weird magical stuff.

[Róisín]

There is a difference between the poem that is born complete and the one that you need to construct phrase by phrase like building something. And of course the one can quite suddenly decide to become the other……..

[tehta]

Róisín, do you mean a difference in eventual quality, or in the experience of the creative process?

[Róisín]

Can be both. I recently wrote something which had been requested from me for a formal occasion, and was working away on building the phrases suitable for such a poem when inspiration suddenly hit and the work came out much better than I had expected.

[Jitter]

I sometimes or quite often actually find poetry more a craft than an art I mean my own poetry, which consists of the runos in Kalevala meter on the one hand, and of haikus on the other. Especially the Kalevala meter, even if I am inspired it's still more or less a process of putting building blocks together.

I used to do very many haikus (at least one every page), that are on the Disqus comments under the pages in 2019. Maybe I should try and collect those, as they are saved nowhere. Some of them I'm quite proud of, it's not easy to use e.g. "abomination" in a haiku!

[tehta]

One thing I am thinking about now is that, for me, inspiration can be present or absent on many levels, from "knowing what I mean to convey" (in terms of plot, mood, meaning, build-up/pay-off...) to "picking the right phrasing". Sometimes both arrive at once, phew. Sometimes I know what I want to say but my language is not cooperating at all. And sometimes I find it easy to write sentences or even paragraphs that feel good, but the overall piece feels pointless and incoherent... (That's when the usual writerly advice of "killing your darlings" comes in handy.)

For a longer piece, the different levels of inspiration can wink in and out of existence at random, so I have to get over little bumps of various types.

(There were only a couple of Yoinktober pieces where I didn't have an overall idea -- when I didn't have one, I generally didn't write at all -- but a lot of them have failed to convey what I wanted. Communication is hard, mrr.

[crowbarrd]

About the 'writing constipation' I mentioned in my last post: I've been lacking of story writing inspiration for quite some time now, last I remembered writing something I felt wasn't bad and long enough to be considered a short story was about 3 years ago :'(

I'm trying to rewrite that story to get back into the groove of writing, but even then it's been a bit of an on-and-off project. Writing now seems more a slog than it was last year, for some reason? Which is making me a little sad since it feels like I'm losing my ability to write as well as I could've 3 years ago. There's some ideas I'd like to write into a story but even then with that in mind it's so hard to put into words I guess I'll keep pushing forward and maybe it would work out !

[Róisín]

Jitter, anent poetry being at least as much craft as art: most poetry-using cultures, especially those that use poetry for magic or historical recording or praise-poems, have a set of established or ritual phrases and descriptions which are combined to make poetry and songs in the formal modes of such things. Think religious liturgy and traditional folk ballads, quite apart from magic.

There are however many examples across a range of cultures and languages where inspiration has infused the formal structure with beauty and power. Think the Tain or the Song of Amergin for the Celtic culture, Shakespeare’s sonnets for the Anglo one. Many others.

[tehta]

About the 'writing constipation' I mentioned in my last post: I've been lacking of story writing inspiration for quite some time now, last I remembered writing something I felt wasn't bad and long enough to be considered a short story was about 3 years ago :'(

I'm trying to rewrite that story to get back into the groove of writing, but even then it's been a bit of an on-and-off project. Writing now seems more a slog than it was last year, for some reason? Which is making me a little sad since it feels like I'm losing my ability to write as well as I could've 3 years ago. There's some ideas I'd like to write into a story but even then with that in mind it's so hard to put into words I guess I'll keep pushing forward and maybe it would work out !

This might not be very encouraging, but, as my AO3 account shows, I wrote nothing between 2018 and 2021. Well, actually, I did write a small drabble in between, but it was a very constipated drabble... And then, in July this year, I got some sort of ssss diarrhea. And this is how it has gone for me throughout my life: patches where I lost the ability or maybe desire to write, followed by fertile patches. And I didn't have to change fandoms each time, or seek new inspiration: I have a story I finished eight years after starting it.

I have no idea how to force the fertile times to start, however. (I think there is something there about feeling a need for a specific story to exist, and the feeling that nobody will write it right but me?)

[moredhel]

This might not be very encouraging, but, as my AO3 account shows, I wrote nothing between 2018 and 2021. Well, actually, I did write a small drabble in between, but it was a very constipated drabble... And then, in July this year, I got some sort of ssss diarrhea.

Something similar happened to me. I did not touch a brush, pencil or charcoal for years (to be honest decades) but since I found this forum I am drawing much more.

[tehta]

It's been very weird for me! I have never written so much so fast; I am approaching 50k words posted on AO3. (If I post the Yoinktober pieces I like, I will surpass it.)
I even feel some shame over flooding the fandom with my outpourings.

I have also started trying to make art again, but not-ssss themed. I have not done art since high school.

[moredhel]

I have also started trying to make art again,

Good. More art makes the world more beautiful.

but not-ssss themed.

I do nearly no ssss themed stuff. This comic has such a unique look I am sure I can not do something like this and everything else feels just wrong.

[tehta]

So, my fanfic-related creativity seems to have dried up. My last few attempts to write have ended in failure, or rather, struggle. Which might be well be the same as failure? One thing I did recently is edit some of my posted stories (now that I've forgotten them a bit, it's easier for me to do a self-beta) and I really do feel like the pieces where I got stuck, and fought through the block, are worse than the ones that flowed out of my keyboard without any significant issues.

[Róisín]

A useful technique for when the creativity spring dries up is to set the work aside and turn your attention to writing something totally different. For instance, when the inspiration abandons a poem or story on which I am working, it can help to go away and work on a factual article. Last time that happened to me an hour of work on an article about seed saving and propagation brought the flow of poetry right back, and let me finish a piece of paying work.