They say that the healthy man wants a million things, the unhealthy man wants only one. The thing I want most in the world right now is creative finesse, by which I mean finesse with my own creative process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve slept about 3 hours at the time of this writing. That\u2019s not a lot of sleep. I woke up with a dream of my teeth falling out. Some people get that dream a lot. I think it\u2019s only the second time I remember having this dream. And it felt satisfying, in a way. I was glad to be rid of my oppressive fuckin\u2019 teeth, crowding my skull, taking up space, getting in the way of everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had 3 coffees and a Red Bull yesterday. Not a great sign. Stimulants are a sign I\u2019m trying to prop myself up. When things are going great, sometimes the idea itself is the stimulant. Sometimes I\u2019ve leapt out of bed to pursue an idea that wouldn\u2019t let me rest until it was done. I haven\u2019t felt that way in a while. My ideas haven\u2019t let me rest, but it feels like they\u2019re taunting me, testing me, mocking me. But is it really the ideas? Or is it my ego? It\u2019s probably my ego. The cliche that likely applies here is that it\u2019s my demand for control that\u2019s keeping me up. Is it so unreasonable though, to ask for a little control, over my own life? Ah, young man, but is it control over your own life you seek? Or power and influence and the adoration of others? Alright, fine, I\u2019ll admit to having desired all of those things. I\u2019ll probably desire them again, too. But in the meantime if I have to choose between the treasure and my sanity, I choose my sanity. And this is the part where I find that my sanity was the real treasure all along, right? Right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A while ago I wrote I Don\u2019t Wanna, which was about not wanting to publish anything\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I suppose this might be a counterpoint to that: But I Gotta. I gotta publish something. And here I pause to ask myself: do I REALLY gotta? Well, I gotta publish the way some people say they gotta breakup with their partner or quit their jobs. I gotta publish something because it\u2019s ruining my sleep. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t like being too dramatic but I feel like I haven\u2019t slept well for a year. And the primary thing in the way is this creative struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know there are diagnostic questions to ask. I help other people with this all the time. Why not just publish some simple stupid bullshit? Yes, I am going to, this is it. Could you try addressing this problem by reframing it entirely? Ie, is it really a publishing problem? Could you do something else that will give you the gift of sleep? Maybe, but I think it is exceedingly unlikely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was rereading a bit of Stephen Pressfield\u2019s War of Art and was struck by a story of how he had been feeling miserable for 10 days, not doing the dishes, until he pulled out his typewriter and wrote for 2 hours. He threw that output straight in the wastepaper basket and nevertheless his mood lifted. I want that for myself right now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I felt a version of it yesterday. I woke up at 7am, quite fresh, and I wrote for hours. At the time it seemed great, but as I continued throughout the day, it started to fragment. I don\u2019t particularly mind fragmented writing if it\u2019s resonant. (I have a whole separate thing to write about working with fragments.) But strangely, resonance for me is a fleeting, shimmering thing. What seems resonant for me one day can be totally dull the next, if I don\u2019t manage to capture the full essence of what was compelling about an idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gotta let the idea drive. Dave and Jerry are right about that. So what\u2019s the idea here? The idea is that I should be able to buy myself some time, some sanity, some rest, from going meta and writing about my creative process- which is a thing that, a few months ago, I didn\u2019t want to do. because it\u2019s particularly navel-gazey? I\u2019ve never particularly liked that expression. It just felt \u201ctoo soon\u201d at the time, it felt like I had \u201cmore important\u201d things to write about\u2026 no, I wouldn\u2019t stand by that claim. It\u2019s not that something is more or less important. I guess I just wanted to be careful not to spend too much time writing about writing. I do have loads of things I want to write about, and have attempted to write about, shabbily contained in a vast junkyard of misshapen eldritch horrors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I believe that it is important to respect the self-logic of one\u2019s creative process. And that\u2019s what I mean by creative finesse. The phrase \u201cself-logic\u201d comes from a translator\u2019s note that I\u2019ve been referencing for years\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sometimes I wake up and I want to do X. Sometimes I wake up and I want to do Y. Sometimes halfway through doing X or Y, I want to do Z. A part of me hears that and feels compelled to blurt out, \u201cI know that sounds chaotic, disordered, ill-disciplined!\u201d And you know what, I am indeed all of those things. And sometimes I do need discipline to rein things in. But I have also fallen into the trap of overthinking my work, such that I neglect to feel my work. And when my work has no feeling, it doesn\u2019t work. It\u2019s just a bunch of the wrong words, piled up like a major traffic accident clogging up a highway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I find it necessary to pause and ask myself what am I really doing here. In every sense- here in this document, here on my phone, here pacing my house at 6 in the morning, here in my creative journey, here in my substack. I have a vision for Voltaic Verses. I remind myself that I have a choice. I can abandon that dream. There is no shame or dishonor in that. I can return it to the roiling store of ideas, and perhaps revisit it when its time comes, years or decades from now. Perhaps then it will return in some completely different form, maybe not even as a work itself, but as the torment of some character in a work of fiction. I could do something else instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sit with it that possibility a while. I feel a No. I will be making a breakthrough here, sooner or later. I feel it in my body. The whole thing is like a kung fu movie kicking my ass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The point of this post is to describe things. Maybe the point of all of Voltaic Verses is to describe things, but I shouldn\u2019t go that far that quickly. The reason Voltaic is taking so long os that I am trying to do many different things with it all flag once. That\u2019s a complicated and difficult business. I have most certainly bitten off more than I can chew. But that too is part of the self-logic of my creative process. I don\u2019t like to work on problems that I don\u2019t feel challenged by. I probably ought to learn to pick slightly less overwhelming challenges, but it\u2019s tricky because anything seems equally possible when you\u2019re dreaming. But hopefully this is something my future self will figure out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What are all the things I\u2019m trying to do? I have a bunch of good prompts and titles I\u2019m sitting on, and I\u2019d like to do them justice. I\u2019d like to describe things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
(What would my past self want to know? Sometimes people say things like \u201coh I wouldn\u2019t say anything to my past self\u201d which is charming. But I remember my young self. He was always eager to hear from older versions of himself, and he would certainly have questions for me. And I\u2019d have questions for him too.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Describe things. I want to be helpful to people but I also don\u2019t. I suppose right now I want to be helpful to myself. I can\u2019t help other people if I\u2019m in the state that I\u2019m currently in- disoriented, overwhelmed, exhausted. I\u2019m looking for clarity. I\u2019m looking for resonance. What is clear? What resonates? Sometimes I love hearing feedback from people, sometimes I don\u2019t wanna hear it- because I\u2019m trying to respect the self-logic of my creative process. The most important thing about creativity, if I know anything at all, is that you have to find the joy in it. Even if you\u2019re feeling like absolute shit. I\u2019m not in a great place right now while I write this, but it is far from the worst place I\u2019ve been emotionally, psychologically. There is some joy in knowing that, even if it\u2019s not exactly the most ecstatic of joys. There is comfort in the knowledge that I\u2019ve been through worse and that I have within me the tools, the skills, the spirit required to survive. I\u2019ve survived this far and I intend to survive for quite a bit longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can talk about the specifics of my creative process. It usually starts with a thought, or a feeling, or a question. There\u2019s something I want to work through, or make sense of. Sometimes the question is clear, distinct- especially when it arises in conversation with someone. Sometimes it\u2019s murky, which is more challenging- here often I\u2019ve come to think that it\u2019s best to talk it out, to find a \u201cpeople-shaped\u201d framing of the idea. Sometimes I have a concept, or a frame, a point of view, a suspicion, a belief, and I have to sit with it for a long time for it to reveal why it\u2019s compelling to me. I do believe in navigating by interestingness, which involves asking a lot of questions. Why this? What\u2019s compelling about this? Often that\u2019s helpful, but sometimes it\u2019s not. Sometimes I just have to blindly experiment with throwing out words in an associative way to see what sticks. I mainly rely on experience here- I have a moderately long history of working with words and ideas, and when it\u2019s going well, I don\u2019t have to consciously intervene. I almost just sit back and let my fingers do the work. I only need to witness it. More recently I\u2019ve also sometimes done this with speech, recording videos of myself talking through a problem or a challenge. It can be a whole body experience, similar in spirit to what is described in Gendlin\u2019s Focusing. I feel through the words and their associated meanings. Sometimes if I\u2019m stuck and self-aware enough to notice that I need help, I might reference some material. I do have a vast library of material in my memory of all the things that have ever moved me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of what I\u2019ve described here is the early stage of my creative process, the genesis. It can be anarchic, free-form, improvisational. Whatever comes up, anything goes. Sometimes I have specific references I want to use. With my substack, I have a collection of images that I\u2019ve stored that I\u2019d like to use as header images, because they fit the vibe of what I\u2019m going for. Sometimes I have ideas for posts that reference existing media. I have a draft titled \u201cluck-maxxing\u201d that opens with Daft Punk\u2019s Get Lucky. Another is titled \u201cGet your motor runnin\u2019\u201d, based on Steppenwolf\u2019s Born To Be Wild. I have a whole playlist of songs that I think I might plausibly reference. Then there\u2019s movies and games. It\u2019s a lot of material, I could spend days just walking through them, touching everything, going off on tangential explorations. All of that tends to feel somewhat silly, but as I write this I know in my heart that that\u2019s where the actual work is done. By the time I put words on a page, I\u2019m already drawing from years of exploration. People have remarked at my ability to synthesize seemingly disparate things. My wife pointed out with amusement that in an old post about fashion, I wrote about the Pope, the Queen, Singapore Airlines stewardesses, Aishwarya Rai. That\u2019s how I like to roll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A tricky thing to navigate is that sometimes what seems like a good idea, doesn\u2019t have a lot of resonance past the premise, at least not in at the moment. If it\u2019s not working, I know I ought to shelve it and try something else. But I\u2019m not as good as I\u2019d like to be at shelving ideas. I seem to prefer to work with all of my drafts and notes in a big pile in my psychological workspace. I\u2019m not sure if deleting things would bring much relief\u2013 but I do know that I have a flinching aversion to deleting things, because I did a big purge many years ago and I still regret it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I know that one of the things I want to do is write about culture. I want to write histories. I\u2019m tired of writing about the same old things. I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll be interested in them again someday, but a big theme of my current relearning, rediscovery\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
They say that the healthy man wants a million things, the unhealthy man wants only one. The thing I want most in the world right now is creative finesse, by which I mean finesse with my own creative process. I\u2019ve slept about 3 hours at the time of this writing.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-word-vomit"],"yoast_head":"\n