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doorbloggr · 2 years

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Sunday 7/11/21 - Head Full Again; Gotta Braindump or I won't be able to write anything else

So it's been a couple weeks since I've written an article on here, and it's not for lack of stuff to write about, I've just had hit a sort of creative wall. I have lined up a few articles to write and I know what they will feature but it is the process of starting that is making it difficult.

So in order to start pushing myself over that hump, I've decided I'll just brain dump some of my recent frustrations tonight. Because if I write and publish something right now, then that's more than what I've written last week, and I'll have less of an excuse to put off starting other work.

Creative Activation Energy

There's probably established terminology for this issue, but as a man of science, I've come to compare it to a scientific idea. In chemistry there's this concept called Activatiom Energy. A lot of chemical reactions will happen spontaneously, that is, the reaction occurs without putting in extra energy. But often, some energy needs to be put in before the process will flow by itself.

Thermodynamics diagram of Activation Energy

The amount of energy that comes out at the end is more than is put in, but without that push at the start, nothing happens.

I feel the same with a lot of my creative endeavours. The process or starting a new drawing, or writing a new thing results in a lot more stress and requires more mental energy than the bulk of the total process. Once I have started a blog post for example, the writing is easy, and I might spend one afternoon on a shorter piece. But I might stress about starting that blogpost for most of a week before I eventually start. I haven't yet solved how to best tackle creative activation energy, but as I worry more about starting a thing, the amount of energy required to start it gets larger.

This activation energy problem has made a larger problem for how I plan out my blog topics.

Self Imposed Routine Burnout

This October just passed, I participated in a variation of the Inktober format, where you submit a drawing for each day of October, usually from a predetermined list of prompts. Rules as written, you don't necessarily have to do the drawing on the day, or necessarily even have to submit it on the day that drawing is for, you just have to finish 31 drawings.

In previous years, I had better planned this out to minimise stress. Around mid September, I would start doing drawings for Linktober (Legend of Zelda Inktober), so that when October 1st comes around, I've already prepared maybe 10-15 drawings, and by maybe the 20th of October, I've already finished 31 drawings. But this year I decided to do it differently. I restricted myself to a very simplistic artistic and colouring style so I could pump them out quicker, leaving myself time for other, non-Linktober art. This idea on my usual Linktober schedule would've been great, but I decided to do it wrong.

My Linktober 2021

I started prep for Linktober 2021 like 5 days before October and then after that, my headstart only got shorter, until October 27th when I fell behind. It was a very stressful Linktober and by the end I was not enjoying myself. And doing art in a way that makes you hate doing art is the worst thing for an artist. It kills creativity.

It never occurred to me that I could keep doing Linktober at a slower rate later just as long as I finished 31 drawings sometime before next October, but I did finish Linktober 2021 and I feel a lot freer. Since I have oodles of free time left over now, I need to get around a different type of activation energy. The energy to use free time passively.

Doing nothing to get better at doing something

Since one of my regular blogpost topics is recommending media, it necessitates that I need to sit down and experience it. This is part of the reason why I've gone a few weeks without recommending something new. I haven't been able to force myself to watch or play anything new.

Anytime I get free time, I've been forcing myself to make something. It was mostly Linktober recently, but less so is my dedication to D&D with my friends. My enjoyment of Dungeons and Dragons has led me to making weekly fanart of the events that happen. So after we play a session on the weekend, I spend a lot of time over the next week stressing that I need to finish that previous week's session art. So anytime I get a day off work, or have an afternoon with some energy left over, I spend it on creating. And that's not even mentioning that I've been DMing too lately and so have to do planning over the week too.

Art for the latest D&D session I DM'd for

But the issue is, if I want to make just leisure art, or write, I need to stop spending my free time making art or writing for D&D and just watch anime or play games sometimes. Because without that inspiration, my creative well will run dry and the process of making new art or D&D plans, or blogposts will only become more drawn out and painful.

We didn't get to play D&D this weekend just passed, so I'm ahead on planning and caught up on art. This might be the chance I needed.

So I'm using this blogpost to make a promise to myself. I will not force myself to draw this week unless I really feel inspiration strikes, and I'm not putting a deadline on finishing it either. I WILL sit down and watch some anime so that I can sit down on Thursday and Friday and tell my readers about that anime.

And for my palaeontology readers, I plan to write at least one more entry in the Dinosaurs of the World series this week.

That was my braindump for the week. Pray for me that this helps.

#blog #blogpost #brain dump #train of thought #creativity #creative burnout

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