Juggling My Creativity

Part of the reason I threw myself so deep into the writing pool, was that I had no other creative outlet. My brain wanted to turnover problems and solve them. It wanted to be challenged, and pushed, and made to create. I used to do this by handcrafting stuff in the Society for Creative Anachronism, but when we no longer played- although the urge and skill set remained – their was no purpose or outlet for it. Sure, I could make mundane stuff, and gift it, but the wide range of possibilities that all the different SCA persona’s offered wasn’t there, so the challenge wasn’t there either.

Writing didn’t use my hands but it did use all the same style of mind work. I take an idea, and shape and mould it in my mind. I research the information I need,  twist ‘facts’, and make my own representation of them. Then I take all this and craft it into a story. An object made of words instead of metal or bone. I clean it, sand it, polish it and finally I am done…and ready for the next challenge.

Now that I am back playing in the Society, I have returned to the other creative outlet. I have been absorbed into the other type of creative outpouring. I am getting a rush from research and creating things that are physical.

So now I must learn the balance. I need to adjust the internal scales so that I can find the thrill and satisfaction in both means of releasing my creativity. I don’t want to stop working with words just because I have returned to an old habit that is shiny and ‘new’ only because it was set aside for so long. Nor do I want to shut off the making of things, just incase it overwhelms my ability to write.

I know there is a balance. I know I can find it. Right now I’m doing more in the handcrafting than the word crafting. Part of this is because it’s been so long since I worked my grey matter in that way. Part of it is the ‘new’ of this old craft. Part of it, I know, is also because when I started playing again, I was already in a doldrum when it came to writing.

This doldrum will pass. I foresee a time when I am so swept up in the writing, that physical projects are pushed to the back burner. A time when a small part of my brain panics because I was hoping to get said item done by a certain event date.

I am lucky to have such skill sets and abilities to allow my mind to create in such different ways. I refuse to lose any of them. Actually, I plan in revelling in all of them.

Filed under: SCA, Writing Tagged: current work in progress, handcrafting, jewelry, Society for Creative Anachronism, world building, writing