The Creative Process

The Creative Process

Baby, I'm back!

The last few nights I've turned a bit of a corner. It's been a very slow few months for the general creative process which has not been the greatest. I've been getting into some good new things like Yoga and so on, but my evenings have been filled with much-too-much Netflix instant watch marathons and not enough creating lately.

A combination of a bunch of things has affected my boundless evening energy (see blogs I've ever posted from 2, 3, 4, 5am...) and as such, has affected my creative output :( But onwards and upwards (ever upwards, swirling, swirling!) we go. It's nice to have a project with a quick and immediate deadline. This speech I'm (re)writing is for the Waterloo Alumni Event at Facebook HQ in Menlo Park in a couple weeks. I had something drafted that I didn't like and I am throwing away most of it. There are a few pieces that were good but it's not great, and it needs a lot more oomph. The strange thing is, if I am a little more tired, that really helps get the juices going... so tonight was a pretty solid chunk of work time. I've made some good progress and I can now see the direction this is going and I am happy with it. To appeal to an audience of wildly varying ages and life-stages is a challenge... and to that I say, Barney Stinson-style "Challenge Accepted!" (I've actually got a HIMYM reference in the talk draft right now, but I'm not sure if it's gonna make the final cut. Depends if I think people will get it without destroying the joke by explaining it) ;)

It's funny I find I always need to be in the "right mood" to write a speech. If I'm not, I'll spend hours and hours looping over the same things and getting nowhere. But if I'm into it and everything lines up, I can just roll it out and tear through the bad ideas quickly and get something I'm happy with. It's a fun process. That said, I'm tired so I'm gonna stop for tonight. Hopefully a few more nights of the "right mood" and I'll have some work I can be proud of.

Here's to the creative process, and the joy of many late night staying up doing fun stuff when I should be sleeping. I need to be doing a lot more of that. Last year was filled with it. This year is off to a slow start. But I'm gonna rally, I need to.