Creative Distraction

As a creative, I struggle with the question: What kind of creative am I?

Am I at writer? Am I a drawer? Am I a sculptor? Can I be all of these and have a day job, and have a family, and enjoy stuff that are none of these?

This week I’ve been working a lot on my newest novel project. I hit a bit of a wall in writing, not writers block, more like I should be writing better than this. After feeling frustrated for a little bit I decided to switch my focus and return to another type of art: terrain design.

Terrain Design

Land structure built out of foam

For those not familiar with terrain design, think of it like building a model scenery for games like Dungeons & Dragons. I think of it as a cross between sculpting, crafting, construction and electronics. The above island is built using insulation foam, expanding foam (that stuff you use to fill cracks in your basement), a foam manequin head, drywall plaster, saw dust (for the grass), sand (from a fish tank) and paint. Lots of paint.

I love building terrain. Every time you sit down, you are building a new world, telling a new story through a scene. I also love photography and Photoshop and love smashing all this together to create. Here’s the end result of mixing terrain building with Photoshop and photography.

Photoshop composition of the terrain, a storm in Scotland and some color shifting to make it all blend.

Fire or Well?

The problem I have is focus. When I am focused on something, it tends to be the only thing I focus on. So for writing, I am consumed with writing and everything else is just a distraction. While writing, I don’t really draw or build terrain, I just write.

When doing terrain, you guested it. I only build. I don’t write.

And what I hear when I switch between my creative endevours:

“Maybe you just need to give yourself time to recharge. You need to refill your creative well.”

That’s not how creativity works for me. Creativity is not a well. It is a fire. Creative distractions make my overall creativity stronger like throwing dry leaves on a fire. The fire doesn’t run out, it just needs some more leaves and sometimes, fresh wood.

Sometimes I get so caught up watching the leaves light bright and so burn hot that I just keep throwing leaves on the fire. If you’re a camp fire person you know, this doesn’t last. All this is a long winded way to say: I’m working on finding balance in my own creative process and I hope you are doing the same.

Using creative distractions like terrain building helped me get unstuck in my writing. I didn’t go back and make the story better, I continued on and will return to strengthen the beginning after I’m done the whole thing. If you’re feeling stuck, try a creative distraction and see how that goes for you.

Don’t mind the heavy breathing…I didn’t think I was THAT out of shape :)

Did, Again

Black earth,
scorched from
defiler magics
or poisonous technology,
surrounds me
as I stand in the summoning circle.

She sleeps
in the mountain side
waiting for a whisper
pleading:
Awake.

Opening the book
releases inky clouds
soaking through the blue sky
drinking up the sunlight
blowing gloom over the mountain.

Will she be a fresh start?

After I wake her
will she wake us
and stop us from doing
the things we shouldn’t do?

Can I tell them to stop?

If I scream
will they listen
and see me
and accept me?

Are we so enamored
with magic and technology
that we need giants and gods
to realign us to what matters?

My eyes drift the pages
tracing over the words
to wake her.

Opening my mouth
the sounds drift out of me
carried on a breeze
to the sleeping lady
in the mountain side.

Stones tumble off her face
as cracking rifts rumble through my feet.

Maybe we’re not too far
and maybe we just need to wake up
and maybe we will hear
when we see an ancient terror
like the lady of the mountain.

We’ll wake up
and make better decisions
this time with the
magics and technology
and learn that something greater than us
is always sleeping, always waiting
to be awoken
by what we do.

I’m sure somewhere
in this book
there’s a way
to put her back to sleep.

I’ll find it
when we need it.

Thank you to Kathryn Apel for hosting #poetryfriday this week. Make sure to check out her blog. Have a great week and I’ll talk to you all soon!