I made something today - a new piece for my show. I had a burst of inspiration and scrawled down the ideas in my notebook before I would forget them.
Then I brainstormed. I paced my office and stared out the windows. Coffee distracted me for a while then I came back full force with everything I needed. So I sat down to write.
I like to write on my MacBook. A clean canvas of white, with no other open tabs or background music. I need to see the words falling into place in front of my eyes so I can picture the end result.
The end is the beginning. The final image the audience will see is the place I start from. I picture the finale, then take tiny creative steps backwards and finish at the start. That’s when I know I’ve reached the end. (Or is it the beginning?)
I pulled books off shelves, consulted my notebook, and started to picture the process. But I needed some stuff. I needed to see how it would look. A trip to the art store was in order.
In the city, a trip to the store is a minimum thirty minutes. I have to wait for the garage to pull down the car, hit every red light on the way over, sit in traffic, and find parking. It can be a real pain in the ass.
But I had to have the stuff. So I made the trip. Blasting Spotify in my earbuds and unaware of anyone else, I raced the aisles frantically searching for the perfect answer to my creative problem.
There it was. Sitting at the back of the shelf. The only one left in the store. The only one in Chicago? Maybe. It’s possible.
And it was all mine.
Home I went. Back through the traffic and red lights, the garage and the elevator. Back for another cup of coffee and an arts and crafts session.
Finally, I was finished. My idea was sitting in front of me, in tangible form.
Hours of writing and reading and searching and thinking and creating had passed and I’d wasted twenty dollars on a piece of shit idea that I’ll never use.
It’s terrible.
But it was an idea. It was something. And you never know if it will be any good until you actually go out and try it. Otherwise it’s just a line in your notebook that you were too lazy to pursue.
Most of the time your ideas will be awful half-baked pipe dreams that aren’t worth doing. But when you hit on something great, you’ll know it and you won’t look back. Just keep creating, keep making stuff, keep pursuing your ideas. The more you create the more ideas you’ll have.
I can’t tell you how to create good stuff. But I can tell you what to create.
Something.