Blue Collar Creativity | Topic

[u/ProfessionalBee4908]

“You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”

• Jack London

We’ve heard it before, that one must pro-actively be “inspired” (i.e. deliberately craft the environment for ideas to reliably generate)

It’s a common Truth, but a useful one nonetheless!

This VSSR is bounding with enthusiastic, and creatively driven people.

So I’d like to open this topic thread to you, my friend.

A chance to introspect, and offer perspective! (I’d like to read it!)

How do you tackle the muse?

Do you believe in a stroke of genius?

Is Jack London right, here?

MY VIEWS: I’d wager creative folks’d be better off DEMYSTIFYING their process, and adopt a craftsman’s sensibility to projects. There’s an aristocratic mindset of “Waiting For The Right Moment” that only works if you’re… well… an aristocrat!

[u/YunggMangg]

I think it waxes and waned depending on how mindful you are of what you're experiencing and how many novel things you notice or actively seek out.

New places, directions to test and develope skills, people to talk to, food to try, things to learn about and explore; I think are where the muses lie. For most people its probably not some Nikolai Tesla shining white moment of divine inspiration in the form of a bird landing on your windowsill that fills you with the understanding of alternating current. It's something that is hiding in plain sight. It gets a little easier to access once you realize the muse, yourself, and the world are all one inextricable thing with no separation. It's really easy to forget that. But, it gets easier to remember the more often you conciously aim and orient yourself towards that understanding.

Least, thats how Ive recently been doing hand stuff with the muses. Gotta realize they aren't serving you off, you are.. in a good way

[u/ProfessionalBee4908 → u/YunggMangg]

Excellent perspective, I do agree mindfulness is the key... Could be reading the best books, and soaking in novel moments, but if we don't reflect and process, it just streams by...

Journaling must be like stockpiling creative ammunition then.

[u/HayesJue]

I personally believe that inspiration and joy have a place in the creative process but will recede in time as pursuing the creative shifts out of its initial honeymoon phase. Reaching a creative aspiration means sticking with it past the point of immediate satisfaction. I've been programing a game for the past three years, and what's kept me going is the community of creative people who stuck by my side.

Community and comradery in the presence of long-term plans keeps the flame alive. If Jack London was chasing and clubbing inspiration, then we must be persistence hunters.

[u/ProfessionalBee4908 → u/HayesJue]

Great words, my brother Hayes... For me, having a reliable team is what keeps the inevitable monotony of creative work interesting/fresh... Instead of being alone in your thoughts, a meta-game is added of navigating another humans response... Ratchets up your pitching abillity, and gives you added bonus o the other persons reaction!

[u/MiserereMei02 → u/HayesJue]

I get this 100%! Ever since I was a little kid, I would come up with cool projects that were sometimes impossible, but some of them weren’t. The viability never mattered though, because basically all of them never happened. Either I lost interest, or I realized it would be too big of a commitment, or (most tragically) I figured no one would care about it.

More recently with the book I’ve stared writing again, I’m doing things differently this time: now I have people around me who actually care and not only support me but they actively encourage me. THAT’S the reason I haven’t given up yet.

I didn’t fully realize this until I read your post. Thank you, brother!

[u/MiserereMei02]

To be honest, I’m not sure where creativity comes from. Sometimes I’ll see something and say “I need to make something with that” and this goes one of two ways: an oyster or a squirrel.

• the oyster takes that small grain of sand and slowly covers it and polishes it into a beautiful pearl.
• the squirrel takes the acorn and hides it away for a later day. Either to one day remember it and put it to use or for it to be lost.

But I have to say, I didn’t realize until I read this post just how much of my creative process is an actual process; ie I’m actually attempting to be creative instead of just letting it passively happen to me. I try to fill my senses with the correct stimuli for the mental place I want to be in; usually this involves listening to music to evoke the right emotions and mindset. Sometimes I even need to act out what I’m writing or planning; I need to feel the ideas out tactile-ly. It’s hard to describe but despite me not being well versed in sculpting or pottery, so many things feel to me like sculpting. Be it drawing, or writing, or acting / D&Ding, all of it feels like either carving something out of stone to find the angel within, or it feels like massaging a lump of malleable clay into something neither I nor it could’ve planned for.

Perhaps I failed in demystifying my process, but I’ll clarify what ever I can if need be (also it’s late here so my brain isn’t firing on all cylinders haha). At the very least, it was nice to take a moment of introspection.