A way with worlds: 29 - Why are we doing this?

A few columns ago, I wrote about "Timeline Based Writing, which works in the following way:

It's been nearly a year since I started "A Way With Worlds," and I figured that for the anniversary, I'd get philosophical.

For a year, I've written about creating worlds and populating them, on writing about them and exploring them. You, my readers, have written and planned and crafted and told tales in the last year.

So, why did I do it? Why do you do it? Why are we spinning worlds and universes? What's the point?

Well, I've asked myself why I write and why I write this column, and, ideally (note, ideally) why people write and create. What is it, at the core, that motivates us and makes us happy, what is an artist when you get down to it?

So, without further ado, I celebrate my sort-of-anniversary with a hideously introspective warm-and-fuzzy examination.

It's been a year. I've earned it.

EXPRESSION:
Creating is what I do. I imagine any artist understands this, at heart if not in words.

Creating is human. Creating is like breathing or eating or reproducing. Creating my column, writing my stories, is me. Recently I took up learning how to draw because I wanted to; it felt good, and what I could do with it felt good (even if I'm a long way from it looking good).

Sometimes, we make writing or art into a job, a chore, a demand. We drain it of its naturalness, of ourselves. That's not worth it. That may produce more "product," but its not as satisfying.

Our creativity is not separate from us, it is us. An expression of who we are.

So if people ever tell you you shouldn't create, or ask you to justify your creations, tell them to justify the rain falling or the wind blowing. Those things don't need justification, and neither do you.

I don't think I have ideas. I think ideas have me.

COMMUNICATION:
Expression is great. But sharing is part of an artist's life as well.

We're social beings, and communicating ideas is part of that. Our creativity is something too much fun not to share with people.

This is a difficult area - to some, communicating art is as much fun as creating it. To others, there are barriers in skills and personality to sharing creations. It's not easy, and it can be frustrating. Shyness, social position, and lack of communication skills can be a barrier.

We also fear communicating because we're afraid of having something as intimate as our creativity criticized. I find that when we keep in mind that creativity is us, a part of us as real as the sky or the ground, it's easier to communicate. People may not like what we do, and they're welcome to live with it.

It also helps to remember that communication is easier when we treat it as a creative endeavor as well, when we do it and play with it and experiment and forge new ideas. New ways to display our stories, new ways to show art, new ways to connect.

TAKING IT ALL TOO SERIOUSLY:
There is an element about creativity that's all too common and all to ignored.

Taking things too seriously.

Of course we know of other people who take things too seriously, can't stand criticism, don't like some things at a psychopathic level. We know about them. We probably wish they'd lighten up, and sometime we wish they'd go away. We don't want to hear about what they hate or like in minute, self-righteous detail.