Back to Practicing

I have discovered a new hurdle in my inner realm of creativity - I somehow don't feel the freedom to 'play' with pre-existing characters and storylines. I've been toying with writing fanfiction for the past while as more of a writing exercise than anything else. Ostensibly, fanfiction should be easier to write, or so I thought. The characters are pre-established. The lore is pre-existent. Character motives are clear and have abundant examples. All that's left for me to do is decide what I want the plot to be.

One of the easiest places for me to do this was with the Minecraft Youtube videos I've been making. I had a character I've enjoyed playing and a rough story line that I wanted to tweak. In fact, I completed one successful short story around that concept, and felt ready to tackle the second, but that's where I've gotten stuck. Turns out that I'm either creating storylines that are much bigger than I'm capable of expressing or wanting more hand-holding and cheering through the process than I'm comfortable asking for. So, I've decided to go back to some of the disciplines I had in place before studying took over my life.

Things I'm practicing:

1. writing something consistently

   1. the alleged goal has always been one word per day, but I haven't disciplined myself to it for several months

2. grief, even for little disappointments

   1. ignoring my emotions is disconnecting me from my creativity, so it's time to be done with that bad habit and start noticing the little hurts again

3. listening to my body

   1. this isn't just about my emotions, but also sleep, food, movement, rest, and when my social battery is low; it's time to recalibrate

4. speaking up when I'm hurt, stuck, or scared

   1. this is terrifying to me, but I'm starting to get there; in the last few months I've actually been angry (this is a rare thing for me!) and said as much

5. being kind to myself when I'm not good at self-expression yet

   1. and this one's difficult; I tend to set the bar high and expect myself to be capable of achieving it all easily because I can so clearly see what needs to be done

So, we practice until we actually have discipline. And as my pastor said in this morning's sermon - practice means more than trying. It means trying every day.