100 Things Number 6: Creativity and Trying Something New
Creativity and Trying Something New
It's true that there are any number of people who find their creative urge satisfied with only one form of creativity. There are those musicians, artists, sculptors, writers, chefs, gardeners, designers, inventors and any number of other sorts of people who are satisfied to fulfill themselves by perfecting their skills in their one area of expertise.
And then there are those of us who want to try everything, at least a little bit... I call myself a "jill of all trades"; some might call me a dabbler. I love to try something new and challenging.
It's why I have so much stuff (otherwise known as clutter) in my craft room. I have the materials and paraphanalia for at least a dozen different pursuits that I engage in on a regular basis: calligraphy, machine sewing, hand sewing, knitting, crocheting, polymer clay, painting, drawing, embroidery, beading, papercrafts, decoupage...
And I have stuff from things I've only tried once and probably won't ever try again, such as my drop spindle; and from things I've tried that I don't especially like that much such as scrapbooking (fortunately those supplies can be used for many other things)!
Of course, cooking and gardening supplies don't live in my craft room...mostly. And my computer where my writing is done is in the living room.
I am very easily distracted by the new and shiny, yet if there is something I really like to do, I will never completely drop it, but go back to it eventually-- and when I do, I may be doing the same thing only differently.
Because it isn't necessary to do something totally different to try something new. Think of those people I mentioned in the first paragraph-- people who try to perfect a single craft. They don't perfect it by doing the exact same thing over and over again. They perfect it by trying new things within the discipline they have chosen.
Look at the Beatles. Who could have imagined in those early days when they were known for such songs as "I Want to Hold Your Hand" that they would become the musical innovators they became with "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"-- a type of album no one had ever heard of before? And look at Paul McCartney today-- he is still glad to perform his old material from the early days, but he has written symphonies and he still comes up with new songs.
No one yet knows how well J.K. Rowling's new book for adults will do. She could have played it safe: written new material set in Harry Potter's Wizarding World, featuring her original characters and their offspring. No one would have been surprised, and people would have flocked to buy them. She is taking a chance for the challenge of trying something new that she has never done before-- whether it turns out to be good or bad, one has to admire her for sticking her neck out!
This is why I like fic challenges. When I first began to write fanfic, I very quickly became involved in Marigold's Challenges. Each month I wondered just what prompt or element or bunny she would send me that would make me think and would get me to write something I might never have otherwise written. That's why I am so committed to LOTR Community Challenges now, because I had learned there is something in taking on someone else's idea and making it uniquely one's own that pushes a writer outside the safety zone of what she might normally write and can often bring out the best.
Left to my own devices, I would probably never write about anything but Third Age hobbits, and most of it would be on the fluffy side. But by taking on a challenge or by trying to write for someone else in an exchange I've tried things and tackled subjects I am sure I would not have done if someone else had not given me the idea in the first place. I've also learned to stretch myself by collaborating, because when you write with someone else there is a great synergy to what comes out, and both writers can find themselves not only stretched, but surprised.
It's also why I like experimenting with different forms, such as drabbles, fixed-length-ficlets, unusual or shifting POVs and so forth. It's why I like to try different forms of structured poetry, experimenting not only with what's in a poem, but with how it's done.
It works out similarly in my other creative pursuits. Once I took up calligraphy, I wasn't satisfied to just learn one hand, but had to try as many as I could and play with making up my own. When I learned to knit as a kid, I soon grew bored with just knitting rows and rows of plain old knit stitches, and lost interest. But when I took it up again as an adult, I found that I enjoyed learning techniques such as circular and double-pointed knitting, and multi-colored knitting and double-knit and so one. Some of them were too hard for me at first, and I had to put them away and come back to them later when I knew more and had improved my skills, but I did come back to them.
If I could give anyone advice on how to keep the excitement in creativity, it is this: push yourself, stretch yourself, try something new and different and more difficult than you've ever done before. If you don't like it, don't do it again. If you like it, but aren't good at it, try some more until you get better. But you will never know until you try.