![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Jul. 2nd, 2011 02:25 am
Late-night Random
Another bout of insomnia, dammit. So here's a small ramble:
I wish I didn't feel so guilty for not being a large consumer of others' creative works. I have my favorite things, of course, and frankly, a huge chunk of my free time is spent consuming various kinds of pop culture. But I also don't do all the stuff I'm "supposed" to, especially wrt books, indie films, etc. For one, I just don't have the time/bandwidth, for two, I don't have the interest, and for three, I generally dislike consuming stuff in a genre/format in which I'm also creating, because it throws me off-track.
I don't think that makes me a bad person. Nor do I think it makes me a bad artist. Of course there are things one can learn from the work of others who have gone before. I certainly wouldn't be writing the stuff I write had I not read stacks of SFF novels when I was a kid. But now that I'm actively creating, I find consuming other stuff is just a distraction--not an inspiration. All it does is either give me ideas that I can't use in what I'm working on, or make me feel like what I'm doing is utter crap, and I should just set fire to it and not bother.
Also, my attention span is so awful to begin with that anything that could possibly throw me out of a creative groove is dangerous for me. My biggest failure as a creator isn't the quality of what I create, but the fact that I have a hell of a time actually finishing any of it. So if I want to get anything done, I have to stay away from everything else that might go leaving footprints on those parts of my brain. I can always improve on the finished product later, but I have to get there, first.
I realize some people probably think this is snobby of me or something--like I feel I'm too good to look at what other people do. But that's not it at all. I just can't be a consumer and creator at the same time, because both things take up so much of my creative bandwidth that one inevitably goes by the wayside. And as being a creator is so hugely important to my mental health, that's the one I have to choose. Frankly, if I were prevented from creating, I'd probably be too bitter to enjoy consuming anyway, so it's a better choice all around to leave it alone much of the time so I can do any of that at all.
I wish I didn't feel so guilty for not being a large consumer of others' creative works. I have my favorite things, of course, and frankly, a huge chunk of my free time is spent consuming various kinds of pop culture. But I also don't do all the stuff I'm "supposed" to, especially wrt books, indie films, etc. For one, I just don't have the time/bandwidth, for two, I don't have the interest, and for three, I generally dislike consuming stuff in a genre/format in which I'm also creating, because it throws me off-track.
I don't think that makes me a bad person. Nor do I think it makes me a bad artist. Of course there are things one can learn from the work of others who have gone before. I certainly wouldn't be writing the stuff I write had I not read stacks of SFF novels when I was a kid. But now that I'm actively creating, I find consuming other stuff is just a distraction--not an inspiration. All it does is either give me ideas that I can't use in what I'm working on, or make me feel like what I'm doing is utter crap, and I should just set fire to it and not bother.
Also, my attention span is so awful to begin with that anything that could possibly throw me out of a creative groove is dangerous for me. My biggest failure as a creator isn't the quality of what I create, but the fact that I have a hell of a time actually finishing any of it. So if I want to get anything done, I have to stay away from everything else that might go leaving footprints on those parts of my brain. I can always improve on the finished product later, but I have to get there, first.
I realize some people probably think this is snobby of me or something--like I feel I'm too good to look at what other people do. But that's not it at all. I just can't be a consumer and creator at the same time, because both things take up so much of my creative bandwidth that one inevitably goes by the wayside. And as being a creator is so hugely important to my mental health, that's the one I have to choose. Frankly, if I were prevented from creating, I'd probably be too bitter to enjoy consuming anyway, so it's a better choice all around to leave it alone much of the time so I can do any of that at all.
Tags: