On Creative Pace

I have been thinking about the misconception that creative people are somehow overflowing with ideas all the time.

Like there is a river of concepts floating by and we simply dip an idea net into the water, pull something out, and hold it aloft as our next great creation.

That is not really how it works for me.

It is not that I have no ideas. That would be hyperbole. I have a multitude of visual ideas, sound ideas, music ideas, fragments of writing, strange concepts, textures, moods, things floating around in my head all the time. The problem is that many of them are rough, abstract, and not fully formed. Sometimes they feel more like a feeling than an idea.

Then there is the challenge of actually catching one of those ideas from the ocean of my brain and turning it into something tangible. Sometimes that process feels easy. Other times it feels nearly impossible. I have spent a lot of time wondering why that is, probably too much time.

I think there is a misconception, at least in popular culture, that artists and creative people simply exist in some permanent state of inspiration. That ideas arrive fully formed and the hard part is just choosing which one to pursue.

That has never really been me.

Are there people who work like that? Absolutely. I actually collaborate with one on Particle Bunni and Discoastal. His creative output is honestly astounding. Ideas seem to arrive quickly and fully formed, and he moves through them with a kind of speed that still surprises me.

If I am being honest, it is also a little intimidating.

Watching someone move that quickly can make you question your own process. Am I too slow? Too deliberate? Too stuck? Why does it take me so long to figure things out? But the more I have thought about it, the more I have realized that maybe the slowness is not a flaw.

I tend to be a slower, more deliberate creative. I nudge and massage ideas into shape. I tweak, remix, rearrange, and slowly push things into some malleable form until they begin to resemble what I think they want to become. My collaborator often creates something powerful and immediately wants to move toward the next thing. I want to sit with it. Pull it apart. Push it somewhere unexpected. Transform one idea into another.

And honestly, I think that is why our collaboration is working.

I have started to wonder if this is actually what I have been missing creatively for a very long time: a real collaborator. Not someone to simply divide up tasks with, but someone to genuinely make things with. Someone whose strengths are different enough from your own that the work becomes something neither person could have arrived at alone.

Maybe that is the thing I was searching for all along without realizing it.