Twelve hundred posts. I never could have imagined that when I began this experiment in January 2004.
Certainly I could not have imagined 169,000 hits, and 3200 comments. Blogging stretches the imagination in many dimensions.
While I was mostly absent these past few months, you kept Watermark alive with your comments on the Introductions post, and I thank you for it. Just before I took my unanticipated break, I began to post about those comments, and I'm going to begin that again.
At first, I thought I would do it all in one post -- but there are sixty-six comments now, so I'm going to break this up into a few each week. This way, none of us will feel overwhelmed. In the meantime, I've removed the stickiness of that post so it will no longer be on top, but you can still read -- and contribute -- by clicking INTRODUCE YOURSELF on the sidebar.
So, to begin at the beginning -- I invited you all to introduce yourselves, and answer a few questions about how you view creativity:
John B. from Blog Meridian considers his blog ("a humble blog") an indulgence, but his teaching an exercise in creativity. For inspiration, he would send you to Walden (also see The Blog of Henry David Thoreau, currently on hiatus but with lots of archives) or to this painting (click here for a full resolution image):
I would love to see this painting in real life -- even just online I can look at it for a very long time.
belledame222 of Fetch me my axe shares several thoughts that are consistent with my experience:
I think the focus and discipline of seeing a project through from start to end is what's hard, for me.
Anxiety about life circumstances undermines it; second-guessing myself; too much isolation.
Best support comes from, not so much "great work!" or critique, although that's welcome, too, usually, but rather more, what we used to call in improv "yes, and..."
Cheryl, of Journey of Cross and Quill, suggests: Make procrastination work for you :)
Heh. She does it with deadlines -- which implies, to me, that she's not really a hard-core procrastinator.
Mary Scriver, from Prairie Mary, says:
Every morning when I crack my eyes open it feels as though I have to create the world again and sometimes (esp. when it's very cold) it's pretty hard work. Other times the world springs into being with no effort at all...
...I'm not sure I like the division between creative and non-creative. I've spent a lot of time wrestling with people who insist that "creative" is special to the point of being kind of precious and twee and confined to only pretty and nice things...
The advice is "the hell with the others -- follow that thread no matter where it goes." I mean, don't hurt people and other sentient beings, but don't have too much care for boundaries either.
John Baker, from John Baker's Blog, a novelist, offers some crucial insights:
What supports or undermines my creativity are everyday vicissitudes. The real necessity is the quiet space in which concentration can take place without too much interruption; and what undermines the creative process is the helter-skelter of daily life, illness, gambling, any kind of drug including alcohol.
The advice must always be to plough your own furrow. Whatever you are creating has got to come out of your own depths. You have to be able to reach inside yourself and find that unique thing that only you can give. So don't listen too much to others. No one can teach you anything other than technique.
DrMeglet, of drmeglet's livejournal, says s/he lurks, but seldom comments. I hope more of you lurkers out there will pop your heads up (especially when you leave such nice compliments.) DrMeglet says:
-What supports -- or undermines -- your creativity?
Undermines: pain, crankiness at the world, frustrations at the limitations of the medium to never match what is in my head or what I see that I want to capture.
Supports: All the fun books I read, craftzine.com/blog, and the various blogs I read, making me think "I can do that"...Advice: Giving in to your creativity is never a waste of time, it is essential to your health, your soul, your world. Inspiration: The way the sky mixes with the light and the trees, in all times of day and year. Here's an attempt to capture that.
BTW, DrMeglet likes Monty Python. And Erin Bow. Excellent taste.
So there's the first few. Please don't stop here -- these excerpts don't begin to give you the flavor of the conversation. Go to the post.
More later!
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