2219: Picking at the Scab of Creativity

That’s a horrible metaphor, I know, but the more I think about it, the more that it seems to make a certain amount of sense.

I’ve been picking at said scab for the last few days, as I said I was going to. I haven’t been spending all day on it or anything, but an hour here and an hour there has meant that a story I’ve been wanting to finish since my teenage years is finally making some progress further beyond the point where it typically stalls any time I attempt to form it into some sort of… well, format.

I’m taking a different approach to what I usually do, and it feels like it’s working. Those who have read my various month-long sort of NaNoWriMo projects and other creative pieces will know that I have something of a tendency to write in a fairly spontaneous manner — in other words, I don’t really plan anything out in advance, and this usually serves me well but occasionally sees me writing myself into a bit of a dead end I’m not sure how to escape from. In contrast, then, said scab-picking has involved not just continuing on with what I’ve already written — which is a substantial number of words that I’m actually quite pleased with so far — but instead planning out a synopsis, chapter by chapter, of what’s coming next.

Doing this has helped me get over the biggest creative block I’ve had with this work — a creative block that has lasted a good 15 years or so at last count. The trouble with this story is that I know how it begins and I know roughly how it ends, but I’ve never quite figured out what happens in the middle of it or the specifics of the ending. Now I’m planning each chapter out in general terms rather than trying to write meaningful scenes as I get to them, I feel like I’m developing a much stronger sense of the work’s complete structure, and those middle bits are starting to fall into place naturally. It’s that old thing where a huge job looks daunting if you look at the whole thing, but if you take it a single task at a time it suddenly seems a lot more manageable.

So picking a scab then — why? Well, because I’ve been picking at it for the last few days, and each time I do so, I feel my creativity loosen up a bit. It’s surely — hopefully — only a matter of time before that scab comes off completely and creativity comes gushing forth from a newly reopened wound, splattering the walls and desk with… you know what? Maybe I didn’t think this metaphor through as much as I thought I had.

Anyway. Disgusting mental imagery aside, I’m pleased with my progress, even though it’s relatively minor in the grand scheme of what I need to do to finish the damn thing. It is progress, though, and while I’m still not feeling great about bumming around at home all day rather than having a proper job, it is at least helping me to feel like I’m achieving something, however miniscule that something might be. And that’s pretty important.

Let’s hope I can keep that motivation going, a bit at a time.