identity

Thou, the Creator

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

I recently heard a question that led me to understand one of the most significant drivers of creativity.

That question was, “What would your seventeen-year-old self think of you now?“

My seventeen-year-old self would be reasonably happy as I had fulfilled many of my youthful dreams, at least partially. I had worked in video games, even if I found it wasn’t for me. I had and continue to be a published writer, even if it’s self-published. I am in a happy relationship, though I have one amicable divorce under my belt. I had done pretty decently.

But that made me realize that many of my dreams were creative dreams, and what had helped me reach them in part was that I had held on to some of my youthful desires to be a given kind of person. I was the writer, the game professional, involved in IT, and so on. I had held on to the dream of being a certain kind of person, even if the hope slept for years.

That’s when I realized a core driver of creativity is identity. When you identify as something, you become that thing – if not in whole in part, if not as a burning hot dream, then a warm reality. Some youthful identities had never left me, and thus I became them, and my further readings on productivity have confirmed that.

When I looked around at successful creatives I knew, it was almost always the same – each person dedicated to being a certain someone. A documentarian who could write with lightning speed scribed books faster than anyone. A creative idolizing people like Kubrik and punk rockers who could always find a new boundary to walk across into wild art. A cosplayer who constantly created as it was simply them.

And me, a person who wanted to be a writer as a kid who just kept writing, an IT geek that did it as he liked it who ended up in Silicon Valley. All that was just me being me.

Identity drives us. It is that which we are and must be, and nothing stops us because it is us. A failure may interrupt us, a crisis may mean a delay, but we surge ever forward because it’s what we do.

Identity keeps us from distraction. When you have a choice between things, your identity helps make the decisions, minimizing distractions. Even when there is chaos and crisis, that identity helps you go around the distractions when you can. Perhaps in crisis, you even find your identity drives you to a solution.

Identity channels our energies.  It is the lens that focuses the light of our adrenaline and power and fear and hope. It tells our energies where to go, and from that, great things can result.

A person who knows “I am this” is powerful as they are something, even if they are not the best form of it – or the best form of it yet.

For you out there, the creative, find your identity, hold to it, act on it. That’s your skeleton key to life, to unlock what you want to do. I am not saying it is easy or without pain – not at all. I am saying it is what will help you make art, and music, and books, and cosplay, and more.

Let me leave you with something that helped me. Write down everything you want to be/think you are – and keep it positive. Out of these, find seven or less – even if you have to drop some that seem little relevant, consolidate others, or even make hard admissions to yourself. Find what speaks to you.

Now ask, if these are who you are and will be . . . what do you do next?

Keep asking that question whenever you need to. Eventually, your seventeen-year-old self may be quite impressed – or you’ll find they already are.

Steven Savage

Stop Being The Writer You Are

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Let me ask you a question – imagine someone is basing a character on you as a writer. How would they portray it, what “writer archetype” would you easily map to?

My guess is that answer came a bit too easily, or that once you examined it, you found the choice was not quite right.

Our culture provides us many ways to think about being a writer – roles and tropes and ideas of who we should be. Lately I’ve been aware of just how often writers (and indeed creatives) slot themselves into various cultural tropes. I think it’s actually holding us back.

How often have you met people describe themselves as “X kind of writer?” How many people have said “I’m trying to be like X?” Have you ever met someone who seemed to be playing a “role” as an author like Unappreciated Creator or Self-Depreciating Writer or Calculating Opportunist? Culture provides us many ways to think about ourselves.

How do you think about yourself? And is it healthy? I’ve come to wonder if the roles society gives us aren’t that healthy.

There’s so many negative ideas of authors and all creatives. There’s the inevitable Sad Failed Author, or the Unappreciated Auteur. There’s the Has-Been, and the Never Will be. If we’re not thinking of ourselves in bad ways, we worry others may fit us into the tropes.

There’s also so many limited ideas of author. How many people “Just Write X?” How many people “Want To Be Like Y” – the way so many movies are “like A plus B.” How many roles, even positive, are constraining?

So here’s my challenge to you. I want you to rethink yourself as a writer. Come up with a way to describe yourself that’s your own. Define yourself.

Perhaps you do it like a Fantasy Class. Are you a Fantasybender? Are you a Priestess of Promotional Advice?

Maybe you do this in a simple evocative way. You’re the Hard-Bitten Humorist. You’re The Worldbuilding Guru.

Another way to do this is put it as a role. Supporter of Cosplayers. Crafter of Sarcasm.

Try any of those, but I challenge you now to come up with a way to describe you, as a writer, that’s yours.

Steven Savage

Writing Is More Than Writing

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)

Earlier I’d discussed, with inspiration from my friend Serdar, about how writers are both compelled but also need to figure what to do with their writing to be happy.  Writing is an inclination – doing something with it lets it become more.

That’s really being a Writer, even if its not the kind of writer someone thinks you should be.  If someone thinks you should do more than Team Fortress 2 Slashfic and you’re happy, fine.  That’s what you do and it’s doing what you want.

But I’d be remiss in not addressing something else for writers. Namely that like any path, any career, anything you pursue, a larger amount of the path you follow isn’t what you think it is.

Writing Is More Than Writing

So a big part of writing is being read.  If for some reason you’re writing with the intention of no one ever seeing it (say journaling or something) then this part doesn’t really apply.  Otherwise I assume part of the writing drive is for someone to experience it at some point.

This means that to be a writer . . .you have to do more than write.

  • A good writer a the very least is a half-decent editor if only to make their work coherent enough for a real editor to understand it.
  • A good writer is a project manager so they can write on time and to a needed deadline (if only self-imposed)
  • A good writer can recognize their need to improve and implement it.

These are things t the very least you have to do.  But if you’re truly looking to be read there’s more.

  • A writer may need to be a marketer.
  • A writer may need to be enough of a businessperson to hire a marketer.
  • A writer may need to be enough of a psychologist to recognize what they can’t do – from an editor to a marketer to a personal aide.
  • A good writer is someone who develops the skills to support their writing.

So being a writer is also about being more than a writer so you can do whatever you want with your writing – even if it’s having someone else help out.

So if you want to be a writer – your kind of writer, whatever that is – you have to figure out what else you have to be good at.  Otherwise your being a “writer” is words that won’t go anywhere.

What do you have to be?  Editor?  Marketer?  Publicity agent?  Scientist?  What else do you have to be to be  a Writer?

  • Steven