My creative method is a small cabinet filled with ideas that resemble incomplete outfits. Allow me to explain.
Every day, all day, I have many ideas. Most of my ideas are safe, about routines and stuff I do and like. That’s perfectly splendid. But now and then I have weird thoughts, painful or harmful thoughts. Those are part of me because of my experiences and my fears. I know them well. I let them be for a while, but then I exorcize them promptly. Furthermore, I’m not a masochist.
As you may know, these dark ideas want to come back. Also, the light and the grey ideas come along. There is not only darkness in me.
And I obsess over my rainbow ideas. But I don’t like to be obsessed.
Obsessing about obsession.
Walk with me. Every obsession is like a textile. Some are itchy, others are smooth, sharp, or cold, or warm… And I create metaphoric clothes made with fictional ideas. This is my art: sometimes I enjoy crafting pants made from multicolour world-building patches.
I take all the ideas in the shape of clothes and place them inside this small cabinet I told you about. They hang in there, very close one to another. And they find their perfect match, in time.
Sadly, most of my outfits have missing parts. Others look complete, but the jacket is too tight, or the hat is too big. With this, I obsess a lot. And I don’t like to be obsessed.
How often.
So, every semester I pick an outfit, one that looks OK but is misshapen or incomplete. And I work on it very hard until I cannot work any more. The outfit may be done and ready for display, or it may go back to the cabinet. I’m fine with that.
So, that’s how it is for me. It took me like twenty-five years to get to this realization. To stop obsessing about all the unfinished stories I crave to tell. To recognize that the darkness, the light, and the greys in the middle, are all part of me. And to not be ashamed because I create fiction with it.
I keep making these metaphoric clothes and putting them in the metaphoric cabinet. I keep taking some outfits out from the cabinet, so I can work on them. And when a finished story hits the display, oh my, it is such a joy!
«Obsess less. Have (more) joy».