What Have I Been Creating?
I thought I’d start a new quarterly update to share a little more about what I’m currently creating. I like this idea as I’m hoping it will give me a check point to look back on to be able to see my various projects moving forwards. I also hope it’ll be helpful for you if you need a little creative motivation and I’ll try to be as honest as I can about the challenges I face and the obstacles I find creating independently.
I’m always a bit self-conscious about the fact that I work on multiple projects at once. I’m not quite sure where it comes from but I feel a bit ashamed about jumping from one thing to another and like I should be focusing on one thing at once but… I just can’t. I love variety and I have many different creative moods. Sometimes words draw me in. Sometimes I need to swish some paint around or to simply sketch. The thing that ties my projects together though, is tenacity. I may jump from one thing to another across a few months or even years but once I fall in love with a project, I will keep coming back to it until it’s finished. I feel that so much of being a creative person is about staying power. And to have staying power, you have to really love what you do, right?
So, what have I been creating lately?
The Merry Players Script
I always have several ideas on the go at once but there’s often one that is a constant, that I have my teeth well and truly into. And at the moment, it’s the screenplay of The Merry Players novel. During the various lockdowns, I realised just how helpful it is to have a clear run at writing. I got into a good habit of sitting down to write at 9am every morning and my mind got to know the drill. Writing really is just work. Often wonderful, blissful, lost in the flow work but work all the same. Now that my day job is back, I’m trying to bend and shape writing around it and being honest, it’s been so much harder to get as deeply into it as I need to. I’m on the third draft of the script but with stopping and starting around my freelance job, it’s taking me a lot longer than the first two drafts. In truth, this is partly because I’ve been determinedly trying to get the treatment right as well and there’s one plot point that just isn’t quite translating from page to screen as well as I would like. So every time I find time to work on it, I find myself obsessing over the same point. And then a few weeks of work go by and I find myself back in the same place again.
What I’m Learning…
I’m not saying any of this to moan, more to acknowledge that creativity is so tied in with tenacity. And so tied in with loving what you do. Sooner or later that plot point will ease up. And surely if you find yourself coming back to a project over and over, it’s a sign to Just. Keep. Going. It doesn’t matter how long it takes.
Even After Everything Poetry Book
I’ve been slowly writing more poems over the past year and have recently collated them into a second book to proofread. Reading them as a collection on paper makes them feel so different from the rambling sentences, hastily captured on my Notes app at 2am. Poetry is still quite new to me and I love the feeling of playing with the rhythm and rhymes. I also like how it pushes me out of my comfort zone. And writing about grief especially has helped me to feel less alone. I never expected to be so open about the experience of loss but it’s made me understand more than ever how healing creating can be.
What I’m Learning…
As this is my second time putting a poetry book together, the process has been so much easier. It makes me grateful for everything I learned the first time around as it’s been a lot less time consuming and challenging. If you’re thinking of publishing your own poetry book, I wrote about my process in this blog post. I hope it’s helpful and I hope you’ll enjoy reading the book when it’s published.
A Brand New Picture Book
Drawing using Procreate on my iPad has really freed me up to be able to draw while lounging. Which means working on a new picture book really doesn’t feel like work at all. I draw in the evenings to relax and it means I’m slowly moving towards creating a third picture book. I’ve had a couple of false starts with other ideas but finally this one feels right. So many of my projects are solo but this one is a collaboration with a friend. We came up with the idea and words together and it feels so good to have a partner in crime. I can’t reveal the idea yet so the illustration above is unrelated but it’s an example of something I’ve drawn on the iPad. The ease of the medium really encourages me to experiment more.
What I’m Learning…
This will be my third picture book so I’m starting to feel more comfortable with the process. I know to draw everything on a larger canvas than it needs to be, in a high resolution to allow lots of flexibility for the book designer. And I’m also putting a lot of thought into how the pages will flow and into ensuring that the book has lots of variety such as individual spot drawings, full page spreads, different characters and cliffhangers between pages. I like Alex T Smith’s way of thinking that each spread should be like a scene from a film and really want to try to make this book a mini piece of art.
Hug Book
As you might have seen on my blog, I also recently published my Hug book. I’m so pleased with how it turned out and enjoyed selling some copies at Christmas. It was the end of a long project and a real labour of love that helped me to find comfort during the various lockdowns. This week I decided to sell the remaining copies to raise money for the DEC Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal. If you’d like one, please have a look in my Shop.
Painting
And when I just need to feel the flow, without words or explanation, I’ve been painting. For some reason, often on a Sunday morning. There’s nothing quite like just feeling the brush on the page. No puzzling, no need for perfection.
What have you been creating lately? Come and find me on Instagram. comment on any of my posts and let me know. I’d love to hear.
