Creation or Content?
What kind of art makes your soul sing?
One of the greatest struggles I faced growing up was having an intense desire to do something and not knowing what I could do. I had an insatiable urge to create, inspired by the art that I loved, and no idea how to bring my ideas to fruition.
It’s only after growing up and learning to take risks did I realize that I did know how, all along. I was just too afraid that my work (and by extension, myself) would be judged poorly. I was afraid that things I made would be terrible.
On the few rare occasions when I did let myself try, I was my harshest critic. I discouraged myself from creating more. And then, I would fall back into an anxious paralysis, trapped between this need to create and the fear of the results.
The Creator - Creation Relationship (Creationship? Nice.)
It really is incredible how art has this amazing capacity to take on a life of its own. It may not have living cells that can form a moving, breathing body, but life is there nonetheless. How else would it move us to such emotion? Fill us with inspiration? Change our minds, and thus the course of our lives?
It is profound that our creations are something that we can love, judge, or even be afraid of. I’ve heard it asked: “Do you think that God hides in heaven because he fears what he has created?”
Okay, maybe that quote was from Spy Kids 2 but the thought experiment is solid.
Personally, I’ve never thought of God as a bearded man in the clouds. That would be far too simple and constraining for an all-powerful force.
This Universe we live in, however, feels much more like a God to me than anything else. The Universe is objectively real and powerful, and more than anything it is creative.
I’m talking about capital-C Creation. All that is, was, and shall be. Not an individual, but rather an endless pattern of more and more complexity emerging from simplicity.
An ever-unfolding process of creations creating creations.
And we are creators ourselves. We are the pattern that continues to unfold; the artistic process creating their way through this endlessly complex medium we call reality.
Loving the Process
I am in love with that process. Obsessed with it. Always have been, no matter what forms my creations take. I recently had a strong reminder of that, working on an adventure module for the Cloud Empress Winter Jam. I spent weeks ideating, drafting, editing, making mockups, finding art, laying out and refining it all into a work that I’m incredibly proud of.
In the early stages, I found it challenging to come up with good ideas. Every artist knows that the blank page is intimidating. But our minds are not blank pages. Ideas wander around like seeds on the wind, looking for a nourishing place to take root.
For me, there eventually comes a moment where lightning strikes. An idea sprouts, and suddenly everything falls into place around it. The idea grows and unfolds as new ideas grow from it, steadily coalescing into a cohesive whole.
That’s the moment when I become completely obsessed. When it’s difficult to think about anything else, and all I want to do is keep working on it with every moment of spare time I have, whether the work is on the page or in my mind.
In this most recent project, I woke up one day, got on my computer, and proceeded to spend about 11 hours working on it with few breaks. I never ran out of steam. In fact, I wanted to keep going late into the night, but I had to force myself to sleep.
I repeat: Art has a life of its own.
That is exactly how I know that what I am doing is worthwhile. It can take some time and space for ideas to take root, but when they grow, and fill me with life, then that is real creation.
It has been easy for me to fall into the trap of wanting to monetize my art for the sake of financial freedom, or more insidiously: validation. Of course, when you share your art, you want people to like it! Because you like it! Or because you don’t, and you want someone else to prove otherwise. We really tend to have strange relationships with our art, don’t we?
But it is a relationship. That, alone, is worth exploring.
Now I’m starting to take great care to seek that relationship. To avoid falling into the trap of making art for clout or recognition or money.
Because that is what leads us to making content, not art.
The internet is already flooded with more content than we could ever possibly consume. With the advent of generative artificial intelligence, we now have to sift through everything we see online to discern the bland, mass-produced, attention-grabbing content from works of art with real soul and meaning behind them. I suspect it will be something that future generations excel at, but currently it’s a real struggle of our time, especially for older generations who are accustomed to the things they see being, well, real. Regardless of how factually correct they are.
But it’s not just AI that makes things without meaning or creative spirit. I think all of us are guilty of doing that at least once in our lives. We’ll make something only because we think that people will like it, or it will give us some kind of advantage. We trudge through completing a project because we’ve already sunk so much time and effort into it, even though the initial spark of inspiration has faded.
We create something that no longer has a life of its own. Dead art.
It can be a sad thing to see.
The silly stick figures drawn with crayon hanging on the sides of the family refrigerator may not be masterworks, but at least you can always feel the life within them. The soul that animated these children to create, without the judgement of quality. And because of that, we can’t help but smile.
When I see content on the internet, I don’t feel much of anything at all.
When I see art, I am moved. Inspired. Changed.
So that is what I’m choosing to strive for now. It shall be my litmus test of whether or not I am really creating; whether or not my work inspires some form of life in me. Some emotion, whether happy, sad, angry, wistful or otherwise.
Something that brings me closer to life.
Of course, not every part of the process feels that way.
Sometimes, you have to let the mind and the hands wander without direction until the spark comes.
Sometimes you lose the spark and have to find it again.
Sometimes that spark is just sleeping. It needs time to rest and breathe and drink water and go for a walk and stretch and have fun with friends before it comes to life again.
When it does, do all that you can to help that life bloom.
And see where it takes you.
The Storm Brews
Hey, it’s been a while! The skies have been clear for some months now, but it seems as though the storm is spinning once again. In truth, the reason why I haven’t been blogging is partly because of life stuff, but mostly because other projects have captured my attention, and my obsession finds it difficult to work on anything else. But I want to talk about those projects and my process, so I’ll be doing that right here, in the Eye of the Storm!
Since my last blog post I have started an Itch page for my games, and published several projects (Most of which are completely FREE)! The ones I’m most proud of are Slipping through the Cracks — an adventure/setting module for the Cloud Empress roleplaying game — and The Scroll of Changes — a system-neutral oracle tool for creating adventures and the changes that result from them. Feel free to check them out, or my other projects on Storm’s Eye.
Charity Events!
But more importantly: My projects are a part of two charity bundles that are going on right now! One is for the Trans Empowerment Project (only 4 days left for the bundle!) and the other is for Take This! These are both awesome ways to contribute money to great charities, while also getting literally dozens of games in return.
What could be better than that?
You can find the charity bundles here and here.
Thanks for reading! I look forward to sharing more of my process here, and to get into some more grounded topics about design theory for tabletop roleplaying games and writing stories.