Creative Habits (vs Goals) and How To Sustain Them, with Adam Ming
From the Writing Desk:
The day after Christmas, one of my best friends messaged me and said “THE HALLOWEEN SEASON BEGINS ANEW.”
Yeah, I’m feelin that a little bit over here. Don’t get me wrong, Christmas and New Years were truly amazing, and I had a blast with my family in St. George, and then going to Disney Springs for ma birthdeeee. (Ya girl turned 36 on New Years Eve!)
But now…a little cozy, a lot over the Mondayishness of January already, and slowly but surely filling up with weird, nutty, swamp witch energy that I hope I can manage to hold on to the whole year.
Anyway.
December wasn’t the best words-on-the-page month (is it ever?) but it was actually quite a good growing of the idea seeds month.
I turned in a spooky short story for a possible anthology. I sent revisions on a picture book to my agent. Made some tiny, tiny progress on the adult novel. And for the first time in a while, have a couple middle grade projects that are starting to get their hooks into me.
The last few weeks, I’ve actually been doing more of what I thought was non-writing creative work. I’ve been researching auditions, figuring out self-tapes, drawing more, and watching art tutorials.
But after focusing on that “other” stuff for a while, it unlocked (reminded me?) of something very much key to my writing process. I had a bit of an apostraphe.
My epiphany was this: For me, everything is about character.
That sort of seems obvious, but it’s been hammered home in a new way lately. My favorite music is showtunes because of character. I have a desire to perform because I want to create characters. I’m interested in illustration because I want to create characters. Larger than life, memorable characters. The kinds of characters that out-live their creators, like Bugs Bunny and Sherlock Holmes. Or Captain Hook. (Whether written by J.M. Barrie, drawn by Milt Kahl, voiced by Hans Conried, or played by Dustin Hoffman, he’s just a great character.)
Realizing this in regards to performing and illustration gave me an ‘oh duh, that’s what I want in writing too’ moment. And it’s helped a lot.
These new middle grade ideas I’m stewing on? One is new and chock full of weird characters. The other is an idea I’ve been stuck on for…well, years. Then I thought, what would happen if I just threw in someone completely and utterly whacky? And now I’m finally able to make progress on this idea and see it in a new way.
Maybe that will help you with your stuck ideas too!
(Psst…have a minute to leave a brief 1 liner review for The Nightmare House or Monster Tree on Amazon? Thank you friend!!!)
Onward!
The Smorgasbord is a hand-kneaded, hand-shucked, reader supported publication. Honestly, it takes a lot of time and effort to get these interviews, articles and resources put together. To keep it cooking, become a paid subscriber and get access to special publishing resources, video courses, and more!Creative Habits (vs Goals) and How To Sustain Them, with Adam Ming
It’s an honor and very exciting to have with us today! Adam is an amazing illustrator with one of the best newsletters on creativity and creative habits on all of substack. As we start the new year, I know I could use both new advice and refresher thoughts on building creative habits. Make sure to sign up for Adam’s newsletter to get daily prompts and creativity exercises!
Welcome, Adam!
1. In your awesome newsletter, you’ve talked about how sometimes setting concrete goals isn’t as helpful for you as focusing on consistency and regular steps towards something broader. Tell us a bit more about that, and how that works better for you?
This might be particular to Creative Work, but let me try to illustrate by example. Having a goal to write one great comic strip is mind-numbingly hard. But the goal to write one crappy comic strip a day is both easy and fun, and if you do it consistently the odds of coming up with great strips eventually become pretty good. Or writing a newsletter, writing one great newsletter a week, is almost impossible for me, but writing a good newsletter daily is easy. The thing is 6 good newsletters can easily be edited into one great newsletter each weekend. I guess, more action (consistency) is more valuable than anything else.
2. What are your best tips for maintaining consistency towards your creative goals even when life gets chaotic?
DO the minimum. 1 push up, 2 minutes of drawing, write one sentence... keep the streak going.
3. How do you a) avoid beating yourself up and b) get your momentum back when your creative progress has taken a hit?
DO the minimum. Understand that that small action is success, spend the beat up energy to instead do the minimum and take that small win. Building momentum is just about stringing together small wins.
Thank you so, so much Adam! It was an honor, and thank you for your work and your time. Make sure you check out Adam’s books and his amazing illustration portfolio on his website!
What I’m Reading: I’ve been wanting some fun, delightful graphic novel reads lately. (If you haven’t already discovered The First Cat In Space Ate Pizza, you are in for a treat). One that really surprised me with its gorgeous artwork and powerful story was The Girl & the Galdurian by Tim Probert. Definitely worth checking out, and I think the graphic novel readers in your life will love it.
What I’m Watching: I have been evangalizing Professor T and the absolute neurotic glory that is Ben Miller for a couple months to everyone in my life and will continue to do so. This is now a touchstone, gold standard show for me. Bless your life.
PAJAMAS AND WRENCHES PODCAST!!: So, my amazing friend PJ Gardner (the “Pajamas” to my “Allen” wrench eheheh) and I have done the thing and started a podcast! Our first two episodes are up so far, and we chat about what’s inspiring our creativity and filling the well, and then what challenges we’re facing as we work on our writing and other creative projects. Check it out! We hope you’ll find it helpful (and fun…I know we have a blast making these!)
What I’m Sketching:
“Perfect happiness implies the solidarity of the angels.”
—Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
Writing Opportunity: “Amid the lights, games, and shows, in the shadows the bright lights don’t reach, are horrors of all kinds…” Check out this very fun anthology opportunity from Undertaker Books. Due January 31!
Teacher or Librarian? I would love to do a free virtual Q&A with your class or book group! If you’re interested in scheduling a visit you can reach out to me via my website. Let me know how I can support you! I’ve also got free classroom resources to accompany each book. You guys are rock stars!
Thanks for coming along everyone! The best way to support is to 1) subscribe, 2) get a copy of the book bebes, and 3) keep glowing, you shining star you.
-Sarah
Links include Amazon Affiliate links where I may make a small commission.Thanks for reading!
