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Mar
1
Create365: Create. Critique. Edit
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Sorry for the lack of posts. I’ve been sick for just over a week now. At first, I just lost my voice, and it went downhill from there.
I’ve been wanting to share this one for a while now, and this seemed like the right time for the back story. A couple of summers ago, some friends badgered me into enrolling in a pair of voiceover workshops (because I couldn’t just be an obnoxious voice chaser, apparently). I did actually learn quite a bit from both workshops, which I tried to incorporate into Dead Bunny’s videos, but what really stuck with me was this three-word mantra the instructor was obsessed with during the second workshop. I liked it so much that I put it on my monitor.
Because of where my desk is, they’re actually quite hard to read most of the time. But in the mornings (when I’m working on my projects), the sun manages to catch them, and they remind me why I’m willingly pulling my hair out.
Feb
23
Editing is part of the creative process
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This month, I’ve really struggled with my Create365 project. Sometimes, I just fell asleep before I did anything. Sometimes, I couldn’t find an inspiration.
Over the weekend, though, I ran into a new problem. I was thinking through some edits for a manuscript, lost track of time, and failed to get anything created. And I berated myself for it. I actually lectured myself for several minutes because I keep not being creative.
Then, I took a deep breath and realized how silly I sounded, not so much because I was talking to myself but because of what I was saying. The creative process has various phases to it. You stumble on an idea. You incubate the idea. You bring the idea to some sort of tangible medium. You then edit the tangible form of the idea until it’s “ready”. And then you share the ready, tangible form of the idea.
Yeah…editing is in there. It’s a part of the process. It’s extremely rare that your first attempt of an idea is going to be so perfect that you’re going to be willing to share it as is. You have to spend some time mending the holes, shining the surface, adding that final flourish.
So, while it’s very hard to share something that’s in the editing process for the project, I need to remember that not being able to share something because it’s being edited is no reason to be hard on myself.
Feb
4
The Creativity Block
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All right, so we already know I suffer from the occasional Creative Block, and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone, so how about a list of ways to help beat Creative Block?
First, there are always questions you can ask to help either jump start or refocus a project:
Then, you can build…on your work or someone else’s
If you keep a design notebook, a simple review of past notes can yield all sorts of work.
The possibilities are endless. You just have to leave yourself open to them.
Feb
1
The Point of Creating
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Last week, I missed a couple of days on my creativity project. The first time, nothing inspired me. I realized I hadn’t done anything creative, and started looking through my list of suggested projects, and nothing spoke to me. I looked at the OneWord prompt, and couldn’t find a story in the word. So I missed my very first day.
I missed my second day a couple of days later when I hit Day Four on a long, stress-inducing week. I came home, ate dinner, curled up in a ball, and forgot to move until the next morning. My second thought when I woke up was, “Did I forget again?”
Last year, I really struggled with getting anything out of me. True, I was rewriting a novel and editing another, but I was really dragging my feet on both. I tried various motivation programs, and nothing worked. So, when December 31 rolled around and I asked myself what really needed to change in the next year, I knew the real answer to that was being creative.
I spent the next week kicking off the Create365 Project, and wrote out a list of ways to be creative. Fields I wanted to practice and explore. Projects I’ve been meaning to work on, but keep putting off. Projects that have lived on a to-do list, forgotten. I combed through my to-do lists, my notes, and my journal, looking for ways I had said I wanted to be creative.
And then I tried to edit the list, to remove the items that weren’t “creative”. That led to a conversation with myself on what constitutes creating, a conversation I’ve since rehashed a couple of times with other artists.
Creativity is creating something. If you go look it up in a dictionary (I used dictionary.com), you will find that “creativity” is the state of being creative, and that “creative” is the likelihood to create. It never says you have to create in a specific way or that you have to create a specific product. It just says that you have to create.
If you make something, you are creating. If you build something, you are creating. If you bring something that previously wasn’t into being, you are creating.
The point of creating is to create, regardless of the form. We’ve really become bound up in this idea that being creative means you have to be innovative, artistic, and in some cases misunderstood. But we’re putting too much pressure on the creative spirit. The engineer who designs a bridge is creative just as the writer hard at work over their novel is creative. They are bringing something forth that didn’t exist before.
So, what are you creating?
Jan
22
Create365: Braid
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This play-doh braid came out only a foot long. I think if I do this again, I want to make it long enough to curl up into a wreath.
What I really like about this is that it reminds me of the Celtic knots I used to draw. This was the first shape I learned, and it was the first time I really understood the concept of negative space.
Jan
18
Create365: Science Genius Girl
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The Challenge: Write down one big dream of yours. Draw or find a picture to go with it and put it somewhere you will see it often.
It’s another one of those nights where the Create365 Project collides neatly with the Escape Plan. I get to talk about something important to me and share my awful drawing skills all in one shot!
One big dream of mine is girls who don’t feel stupid in math and science classes. I’ve had way too many girls sit down in front of me and tell me they’re failing math because they’re a girl. In every single case, the fact that they’re a girl has had absolutely nothing to do with it.
What I really would love to create eventually is a product designed to show girls that they can be happy and successful working with math and science, and then help them learn the skills…or at least get a good, broad foundation.
This is actually what stopped the Dead Bunny project. I was starting to work on the videos, which are all labeled “Dead Bunny’s Guide to ____”. In my head, Dead Bunny has always been a boy bunny. I was the one narrating the videos, and I’m not a boy. And I knew that, while I’m trying to design something useful to all students, the target audience in my mind was that fourteen-year-old girl who thought the entire reason she couldn’t pass her math class was her gender.
There was a serious conflict going on there, one I haven’t resolved yet. But I keep playing with ideas on how I want to approach presenting these math and science skills and how to make something that will encourage girls to be something other than an outdated stereotype. (Hopefully, my lovely scientific companion will be much improved before she becomes something actually associated with my curriculum design work…)
I’m a geeky girl who hopes to share her love of math and science with future geeky girls. That’s my one big dream!
Jan
17
Create365: Sink
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I spent most of today organizing notes and editing, so I almost forgot I still had to do something creative.
Thankfully, OneWord comes to the rescue yet again:
We watched the ship sink below the waves breaking against it. From the lifeboat, we couldn’t see what had caused the hole that took it away from us.
I did try to start with the kitchen sink, but decided quickly that I just couldn’t make myself do it.
Jan
15
Create365: Snuggle Buddies
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I collect stuffed animals. I realize that’s a bit odd at my age, but I have quite a few serving as decoration around my room. And some of live along my headboard (mostly trying to keep my pillows from escaping). The other night as I was corraling said pillows, I noticed that two of the stuffed animals had moved into a cute position.
I had to move them to take the picture, but you get the idea.
Aren’t they cute?
Jan
14
Games Can Inspire Creative Thinking
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This really became an accidental series, but I think it reflects some of what’s often in the back of my mind when I’m playing a game or watching others game.
So far, the series has covered games as:
- a means to develop a better self-image while building team skills
- a means to learn how to interact with others fairly
- a means to learn how to best utilize resources and develop patience
Now, we have a skill I think I probably developed from playing all sorts of games when I was younger- the ability to solve problems, think outside the box, and innovate.
I know this is going to sound crazy, but for me thinking creatively really starts with thinking logically. What’s the procedure here? What are the absolutes? What’s the goal here? What’s the common sense here? And then I start looking at what I have and where I really need to go, and I make a decision from there.
Sometimes, it’s not so clear how I’m going to put things together to solve my problem, and that’s when the creative thinking comes in. I start theorizing ways to get where I’m going and pick the simplest or most effective one. When the first doesn’t work, I pick a solution that accounts for what caused the first to fail and go with that. I keep trying until something works.
It turns out I’m not so odd in my thinking. Researchers are finding that there are gamers who make guesses, execute their guesses, and then alter them to better fit the situation when they fail. They also document their data from earlier trials to help them later on. They apply the Scientific Method to their gaming. (You knew there was a reason you should pay more attention in science class.)
Sometimes, I’ll get stuck while playing a game, and then I have to resort to walkthroughs. I have found, though, that a walkthrough is really just an account of someone else’s trip through the game, and no two walkthroughs are ever the same. So, I’ll look at how they did it to see if I’ve overlooked something, and then I continue on. What’s really interesting is that Nintendo has a patent for the “Kind Code”, an in-game walkthrough of sorts so you don’t have to go looking for outside resources when you’re stuck (and so you won’t quit the game in frustration). But you can use the in-game hint, and then decide to resolve the problem your own way if you see something that would work just as well, if not better than the game developers’ solution.
With a little experimentation and a nudge when you need it, you can actually develop some well-honed problem solving skills simply by playing games.
Jan
13
Create365: Powder
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Today has been a long day. A good day, but a long day.
As such, I give you today’s OneWord effort without much in the way of introduction:
The freshly fallen powder glistened in the morning sun, beckoning us to pull our boots, coats, and gloves on. We ran outside for a major snowball fight like none of us engaged in as children.
Please understand I grew up in South Texas, where snow is quite the rarity. The first time I saw snow in college in Colorado, I was desperate to make a snowball, but failed because I didn’t understand that only certain types of snow could be compacted into a ball.
