Capturing creativity

That whole Ficlet Friday experiment? Yeah, it was fun while it lasted but it seems as though I, along with everyone else, let it whither in the Summer Sun.

Sorry. If I’m blogging about writing – fiction writing – don’t deny me an allusion.

Cut to last night’s iPhone/iTunes update. I get an email from Chris @ NaNoWriMo about some site upgrade or another and it reminds me that while we may be 7 weeks away from the general election, we’re closer still to the start of NaNoWriMo.

And this is the year I finish.
This is the year I write like I’ve been exercising: daily
This is the year it goes into a document, not into the void or a dream or a lazy cubicle chat with a colleague.

Rather than continue making declarative statements that may not come true, I’ll link to a Psychology Today piece on creativity that induced both head-shaking agreement and head-shaking bewilderment. Why are creatives (and I’m being generous to lump myself in here) such dichotomies?

So how should I harness these dual impulses inside me to create … whatever it is I’m creating.

Art?
A novel? (Hopefully)
Prose?
This blog post? (Definitely)

I’m thinking the solution, which came to me via Bump, is going to be Evernote.

Simple.
Multi-purpose (good for grocery lists AND late-night ideas).
Multi-platform (Web & iPhone app)

Here’s the first “creative” thing I’ve captured using Evernote. Let’s hope I give it enough food and water to grow:

The fight isn’t the last stand
It’s the first stanza

Granted it’s only a fragment, a strand, a shard of an inkling of something larger, but I like it. For the moment.

My point is that at least the moment was captured. If I revise or delete or reverse or reconfigure later, the fact remains that I had the raw materials to begin with.

While I may feel sorry – surprisingly not too much – about the Ficlet Fridays petering out, I’m happy that, for the first time, I’m confident and assured by some semblance of process going in to NaNoWriMo.

More as I create more.

Happy Hump Day!

4 thoughts on “Capturing creativity

  1. I think it’s harder to provide good feedback with flash fiction than it is with short stories, novellas, screenplays, etc. There’s not enough there to get much past “I liked it” or “I hated it,” which doesn’t tell me a whole lot.

    And that lack of good feedback, for me at least, makes it hard to stay motivated to keep writing it. I really don’t care that much if someone liked it or not so much as I care if if it was believable, captured someone’s imagination, etc.

    Stilll, it was fun while it lasted and I’m glad I participated.

  2. I’m glad you participated as well. I’m happy for ALL the participation/participants, actually.

    I’m proud to call you all very talented writers.

    The like/dislike factor certainly gives you something, anything, concrete to cling to, but I’m a sucker for more substantive critique as well.

    I’m hopeful my prior NaNoWriMo experiences coupled with my new-found organization will pay dividends.

    *fingers crossed*

  3. Flash fiction is a source of constant turmoil for me. I run on reader input like it was oxygen, and ficlets gave me some instant gratification, but they weren’t actually helping my long-form fiction that much. It was too easy to get the quick fix of, “Hey! Somebody read that!” and let that suffice.

    But it doesn’t suffice. Not for my real goals. So when you went on vacation I sort of let Ficlet Friday drift away on my end, too.

    Also, I think there’s probably a better venue for flash fiction, that helps to market me as a writer, than posting at Ficlets. That site is great for organic story-growing (like this zombie-story thing that Wil Wheaton sparked off one of my old ficlets this week), and it’s a lot of fun, but it’s a toy, and I need to be serious if I want to succeed.

  4. Flotsam and jetsam…

    Ephemera
    Detritus
    “Stuff”
    My day has been beset by a seemingly open calendar going all to hell with tiny, inconsequential tasks and “to-do” items.
    In return, I give you the blog post equivalent of chewing gum.
    First, I would mak…

Leave a Reply