Creativity

The Creative Rebellion Of Finding Yourself

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Creativity is a powerful force that shapes worlds and shakes tyrants. Through it we connect ideas to find new possibilities. Through it we connect with others to understand them and share with them.

But more, creativity lets you connect with yourself.

A creative act teaches you about yourself. When you create, you find more about yourself, what inspires you, and how you work. Connections appear that you never expected, from parts of yourself you weren’t aware of. When you look at a creative work, you learn about the creator – more so when the creator is yourself.

A creative act teaches you what you can do. To write a book, compose a song, or finish a video game shows your power – to yourself. That finished work is a testimony to your capabilities, capabilities you might not have known. Who can take your power when you see it embodied?

A creative act teaches you what you can be. To create, to compose, to write, to code, to draw requires you to grow. The person that starts writing a comic is not the same person who finishes it. Every paragraph, chapter, or code module is a path to growth. Your finished song or cosplay is a testimony to becoming.

If someone tries to control you maliciously, creativity reminds you of what you can do.

If someone tries to make you their idea of you, creativity reminds you of who you are and what you can be.

If someone tries to rule you and others, creativity lets you grow – and perhaps “think around” that malicious limiter.

However, there is also an obligation to this power. If you can know yourself and grow yourself, share it with others. Don’t limit yourself or allow them to be limited. To share this “creative rebellion” is to help others, and to have allies in freedom and creativity.

To share this power also protects you from becoming a ruler, a controller, a tyrant. To care that others can grow and be themselves helps protect us all.

Steven Savage

Plots, Pants, And Flows

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Writers have heard this over and over again.

Some people are plotters, detailing out their stories before writing.

Some people are pantsers, charging ahead writing with little or no outline.

Some people are “plantsers” walking a line between both.

Though these are convenient ways to classify writers, they’re limited. These classifications are much like the classic and oft-mocked D&D alignment chart – interesting originally, but restrictive in the end. Are any of us one of the above all the time, in all of our writing?

As of late I’d struggled with my latest novel – I tend to more of a “plotter,” but it hadn’t quite worked for me. At the same time, pantsing or “plantsing” didn’t work for me either. I felt disconnected from my work, my writing lacked an intimacy.

This had rarely happened with my nonfiction work. Indeed, it seemed I could step into that work with ease for the most part. This wasn’t surprising, as I’ve done mostly nonfiction the last decade – a second novel being a challenge presented no surprise.

So as I meandered towards a solution, I decided to replot a troublesome chapter. This suddenly awakened my imagination, that intimate connection with one piece of my work to the exclusion of all else. Everything felt alive.

Then, I took a look at authors I knew with both challenges and lacks of challenges. Those who had trouble with their works had lost a connection with it, from not liking it to fearing audience reaction to not caring. Writers with few troubles felt an intimate connection to their work – it could be love of characters or joy in “mechanizing” a story, but it was intimate.

My rewrite of a single chapter felt more intimate. That told me what I’d been missing – I’d let so many things distract me from my work. Replotting a chapter reconnected me.

Looking at my past works I could see when works had been easy, I had a sense of intimacy and connection. I had made books on potentially boring subjects and had been absolutely enjoying it. I write many worldbooks and those involved a well-polished system, and it’s fun.

So let’s stop thinking about pants, plotting, and “plantsing.” Let’s ask what methods keep us connected to our works and intimate with our goals. Maybe one time we plot, maybe one time we “pants,” and another time we do something else.

If you’re not feeling connected to your work, then it’s time to switch up how you do things. Who knows, you might invent an new way to classify writers we can all misuse . . .

Steven Savage

Deadlines Are Tools

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

After an eventful few months, I was trying to keep up on all of my various projects. It was starting to get stressful – one book being published, the next worldbook in progress, and a novel in the works. How could this be stressful, I wondered? I had plans and outlines, and well-thought out deadlines, shouldn’t that make life easier?

Of course the more I examined, the more I realized a few things:

  1. I had my deadlines disrupted by assorted life events and those in the lives of friends and families.
  2. I had reassessed these deadlines during this time and adjusted them, but not given thought to my situation.
  3. Some of the projects with deadlines were ones that were new or experimental. An example would be my second novel – with one under my belt, I’m still perfecting my methods.

After having a discussion with some fellow writers, one suggested taking a break from some projects – just a few days. The more we discussed it, the more I came to a conclusion they were right, but also they’d revealed something else.

I’d used deadlines inappropriately.

I’d chosen deadlines to keep up on my projects, and to keep things under control. They were “realistic” in the way they were estimated using what knowledge I had – they were unrealistic for a trying time and with several experimental projects. This got me thinking about how we use deadlines inappropriately.

We often treat deadlines as unavoidable, sandrosanct, indeed required. Its probably the result of school, of previous industrial cultures, and of a busy time. But having deadlines we often jump to them without asking if they make sense or are even a good idea.

But what good is a deadline? A deadline is a tool- it should help you.

  • A deadline can help you allocate resources, deciding what to do in order to meet a deadline.
  • A deadline can help you coordinate, giving something to someone in time for them to take other action.
  • A deadline can result from trying to figure when you can get something done (and let’s you evaluate if you were right).
  • A deadline can help you prioritize.
  • A deadline can challenge yourself.

Deadlines are useful – but the thing is they’re just a tool. But its not a tool you have to use all the time. Maybe you, like me, are giving yourself deadlines you simply don’t need.

Maybe a project of yours doesnt need a deadline – perhaps its new so all you can do is your best.

Maybe a project of yours is play. It doesn’t matter when its done as long as there’s progress.

You get the idea.

So take a lesson from my experience. Evaluate your deadlines and see if they’re doing any good. There’s a good chance that you’re not using them for the right reasons or using them in a way that helps you.

It’s OK to give up on deadlines sometime, as I found.

Steven Savage