Today's effort to do something creative didn't result in anything I can actually publish (yet), but was still enjoyable and worthwhile, and I wanted to share something about the experience that I hope some of you find useful.
I'm disappointed that I don't have anything to point to and say, "hey, I made this", because even though I think it's an unreasonable expectation, I still hoped that I'd be able to pull together a 100-300 word story, like some of my friends do.
Yeah, it turns out that making something up and giving it life, as opposed to remembering it and recreating it, is hard enough without trying to cram it all into a very small space. Being seriously out of practice after spending months focused on acting didn't help, and the ideas I had just couldn't be assembled into a monster from their individual parts. (They looked lovely, though, spread out all over the lab, and the thrumming of all my mad scientist electrical equipment was … energizing, to say the least.)
But this doesn't mean that it wasn't worthwhile. I don't have something to show off today, but one or both of them may be available soon … and even if they aren't, I still spent a considerable amount of time today working at it. I spent a lot of time and energy today being a writer, being a creator, and that goes down as a good day in my log book.
I guess this could be compared to a runner working really hard and logging a lot of miles trying to get a faster time, or greater distance than before: even if that specific goal isn't met, she still got a whole lot of good exercise.
Discover more from WIL WHEATON dot NET
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
You made this. That’s something you can point to. In fact you did point to it. That’s how I found it.
So well done you. Have a pat on the back and a hearty handshake 😀
That’s why I love the Daily Writers group on The Node. A daily, ten minute burst of writing on a theme word to keep the creative machine well-oiled and running smoothly. I even have something I want to follow up on so I can see where the story goes from the brief glimpse I got.
There’s a lot of NaNoWriMo people out there who probably feel the same way right now. Even if we feel that way about all 50,000 words or the bit of fluff we had to write to make word count for the day. Personaly my Monster is probably never leaving the lab.
There was Professor Wheaton in his underground lair. All the individual pieces of his creation were laid out on the bench. Sentence by meticulously crafted sentence, each on an identically sized piece of pristine, hand made paper, lined up in a neat row.
Carefully, the scientist applied electric clamps to each end, followed the leads to the generator, stepped up the reactor power input by three more points, cackled madly and threw the enormous circuit-breaker. Lightning arced over the pieces of paper, fusing them together in a huge plume of smoke.
After the had settled, Professor Wheaton carefully unclamped his now complete masterwork and held it up.
“It’s ALIVE!” he announced, alternately pumping his fists and pulling at his hair in mad excitement.
Mad Scientist Wil is an image that is begging to be drawn! Can’t wait to see the fruits of your labors when they all come together and become ALIVE!
I wanted to let you know that I’m actually writing and not doubting myself! Go, me! I’m doing NaNoWriMo and having so much fun. In the past I totally had absolutely no faith in myself, and here I am this year totally winning. I’m taking a (sort of) page from your book and writing a book for my daughter, starring my daughter, going on adventures through time to find dinosaurs. She’ll freaking love it. But anyway, I mentioned on your blog a long time ago how I really look up to you and your writing skill, but never had the gumption to do it myself, and LOOK: I am now. Thanks for inspiring me. 🙂
Yeah, I seriously hope someone is going to read this post and draw it.
That's wonderful! Congratulations to you both 🙂
The whole ‘worthwhile’ vs ‘good’ issue is one I struggle with. There’s a saying that your first 10,000 drawings will suck, so you’d better just get used to the idea and get cracking. I’m probably somewhere in the high 8000s, so mine still suck. They just suck less than the ones in the low hundreds did. They’re still worthwhile to have done, but they’re not what I’d consider good.
It’s very rare that I look at something I’ve drawn or painted and thought, ‘Hey! Other humans might like this!’ It’s much more likely I’ll plot ways to light it on fire without the fire department noticing the plumes of black smoke billowing from my house. Many days the only thing stopping me is that I live just yards up the hill from the local station, so there’s no way I could burn paintings undetected.
Sometimes it’s the process that makes it all worthwhile.
I’ve found that sometimes when I can’t go from idea to done quickly enough, it does feed into something downstream … and I think that’s the secret of delayed gratification.
Wise, very wise words, WW. Thx! I’ll proceed with the Not-Beating-Myself-Up-Any-Longer-It’s-All-Good perspective.
Goodness, you know it’s much harder to write a 100-word story than it is a 1000-word story. And that’s harder to write than a 5,000-word story any day. You just ran out of time! 🙂
Put the bits and bobs in the compost bin. Something will grow out of them.
Off-Topic.
Thought you might like to see this. Cybermen on the London Tube.
Disneyland Report:
You talked about TRON a while back.
CA Adventure has opened Flynn’s Arcade.
I wasn’t in there long enough to see if you had to pay but there was:
Qty 1 Centipede
Qty 1 Donkey Kong
Qty 1 Asteroids
Qty 1 Tron
And a bunch of other games I didn’t really care about.
The Tron game had a long line so I turned around and left. LOL
Hey Wil, I was looking through Netflix Instant and I found this amazing mid-1980s TV pilot for “The Man Who Fell To Earth.”
In it, you play a rebellious youth who acts out by stealing from record shops and dressing like Neil Young. But that’s before your character finds a mentor in the Man Who Fell To Earth (portrayed less as a tortured alien soul and more as a cool 1980s guy with permed hair.)
As a fan since the Stand By Me days I wonder if there is any chance you can talk about this.
Why, thank you! I just broke 40K tonite and I’m freaking out that I’m probably going to actually finish this thing. CRAZY! 🙂