creativity

You Are The Art

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

We wish our creative works to reach people. We want to shake the thrones of tyrants and overturn oppression. We want to make people laugh, to soothe their cares in the world with fun. We want to sneak behind boredom and stab it in the back to free people’s imaginations.

Yet, will we ever do this?

Will our works reach others? Will they touch them in the ways we hope? Will we inspire others like we were once inspired?

You can never be sure of this. Your work may not be recieved in the way you expected. Time to spread your creations may not be at hand. Your latest creation may have flaws that keep it from reaching others, flaws you don’t know until it’s completed.

We may not change the world with one book or song. We may not change it in a hundred. It can be frustrating, these unkowns, these failures, these unsureties.

If you have these frustrations, be assured you’re not alone. Your friends and fellows share them. People you pass in the streets have novels they fear won’t be loved and art they hate.

But still, what can you do? WIll your work change the world?

Perhaps, but consider what you do change for sure – yourself.

As you create something, you change. You learn new skills and hone ones that exist. You think thoughts you never had before. You study and dream and practice. Each work you create changes the world – by changing yourself.

The person that starts writing a book is not the same person who completes it. If you are aware of it, that new you becomes a better person – wiser, more skilled, and more aware.

This new person you’ve become can change the world. They have better understanding, make better decisions, are more adept at their creativity. You are your own creative work, and you become more by pursuing your dreams and creations.

This new person may fail at one creative work, yet they have grown. Their next story, or piece of art, or book may shake the world. They may realize how to promote old work with new insights. The future you has more and more chances to change the world – because they grow with each creation.

May your books be read, your songs be sung, your art appreciated. May you change the world for the better, but always appreciate how everything you create helps you become an even better person.

And, consider that as you evolve in your writing or drawing, how stealthily and subtly it happens. Your sentences and verses push you forward to become something more. The tyrants, both men and ideas, won’t see you evolving or growing. They won’t know how you might evolve.

Until, perhaps, it is too late for them.

Steven Savage

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

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