(no subject)

[outsidetheparty]

I've been noticing lately just how infrequently it is that I go without input of some sort. Music playing, or a movie on the television, or books or magazines or some quick match-3 game on the iPod when I have a spare few minutes, not to mention the feedreader and the email program sucking down new data every fifteen minutes on the dot...

I'm spending so much time consuming sounds and ideas and stories that I'm wondering if I'm forgetting how to create them.

Comments

[the-star-fish.livejournal.com]

Oddly, we were just talking about how I want a tattoo, but would like a trial run first, and Osirus suggested maybe you could paint one (or two) on me ...

[outsidetheparty.livejournal.com]

That could be arranged. What style are we looking for?

[the-star-fish.livejournal.com]

Hieroglyphic - I want a cartouche with "Osirus" in it. Because I am sappy. And a dork. :)

[squirrelhaven.livejournal.com]

Also you are super-cute.

[outsidetheparty.livejournal.com]

Nifty. I'll get to sketchin'.

(Where will it go, if I may be so bold? :)

[the-star-fish.livejournal.com]

Heh. The upper part of my left breast. Nothing you haven't seen before ...

;)

[spyscribe.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that too. Not so much the creativity drain, but that my life is so seldom quiet. Even when I'm alone I put on the television, or the radio, or I'm on the computer or the telephone.

Makes me wonder if I might need to get in the habit of cultivating regular unplugged time.

[outsidetheparty.livejournal.com]

I'm starting by cutting myself off from some of the more time-sucky websites (not this one, though, obviously :) and just generally trying to pay more attention to what I'm doing at any given time, and deciding if it's what I really want to be doing with that time. We'll see how that goes.

yet more input

[dooneling.livejournal.com]

Maybe. Would you object?

I'm more creatively inclined (ugly as the phrase is) when in one of these extremes:
- immersed in solitude, with social contact an infrequent blessing
- overfed and under-exercised
- under the influence of someone else's particularly wonderful and well-wrought work.
- in the early stages of a challenging project with a close deadline (But, alas, not always on this last.)

Re: yet more input

[outsidetheparty.livejournal.com]

That's fascinating -- some of the things you list really work for me (challenging deadlines, especially; my biggest hurdle is just sitting down and starting) but others are things I have to struggle against: too little activity I get torpid and useless; too much external influence and I either get discouraged (as in: I'll never measure up to that) or else I feel inspired but quickly find I'm just making a pastiche of their stuff instead of my own. (Whatever it is that "my own" is; I keep hoping I'll find out someday.)

Solitude is a tricky one, double-edged.

[osirusbrisbane.livejournal.com]

I will soon acquire an El Guapo sombrero. Just sayin'.