I have a specific question about returning to your creative side after a long hiatus
Oftentimes I find myself feeling overwhelmed when listening to music that speaks to me. I feel vivid imagery cover the landscape in my mind's eye, as if a custom made music video was being created on the spot to accompany the sound.
I encounter a frustrating obstacle when considering how to best translate this surge of inspiration into art. I know exactly what I want to create but feel limited by a lack of experience in animation, modeling, illustration etc. and the time it would take to approximate my vision. Altogether, it becomes discouraging and the idea withers before it has a chance to blossom.
My question to the creatively-minded is this—what strategies are deployed to counteract your self-doubt before it undermines your inspiration?
.
Thank you for any wisdom offered. The tildes community is special and dear to my heart ♡
The only reliable method to reduce the time required to bring your vision to life is practice. That goes for all things. I used to be demoralized by not finishing my original thought before it was gone but I’ve acquired an appreciation for the new visions that only pop up while you’re working.
Create any semblance or portion of your idea using low-stakes materials and processes. For example, sketching with a ballpoint pen on a table napkin or the back of a receipt. Or even just type a description of the piece in your phone notes app.
The goal is not to create a polished masterpiece, it's just to get any portion of your idea out of your mind and into an expressed form, whether physical or digital.
I believe there are also many voice memo style apps which could be even faster at recording your thoughts — for me at least, I can word vomit much faster with my voice than with any form of writing
Short answer: sketching.
However, sketching can be dangerous! As soon as you give some form, any form, to an idea, the idea itself changes and loses a bunch of characteristics. You can only sketch a particular facet (or a few) of the idea before losing the rest. This is why the act of sketching can feel painful and destructive. The only solution is to keep sketching anyway. Over time, you'll develop a skill that lets you pick the desired facet with increasing accuracy in terms of what you most value about your idea, and that makes it easier to tolerate that you're also letting go of the rest.
It's a good idea to experiment with a broad range of sketching techniques, as the chosen technique can largely determine the range of attainable results. Even if your idea is visual, you may want to make a verbal sketch, describing the core idea to yourself rather than using a drawing tool. A voice note may yield a different result than writing. Same for typing vs. handwriting. If you do use pen and paper, again there are a number of different techniques to choose from. I recommend trying a medium that is counter-intuitive to your intended result, such as modelling clay for paintings, crayons on paper for music, etc.
When you find a technique that works for you, have the process streamlined so that you are able to sketch whenever and wherever an idea comes to you. You should be able to automatically whip out your tools without having to focus on looking for them, because the shift in focus will cause the idea to shift (not always a bad thing but it's better to have the ability to catch it immediately). Teach yourself to respect the ideas and actually do the sketch every time, even if you wake in the middle of the night to an idea.
If you absolutely can't sketch immediately for some reason, you can try to make a condensed verbal sketch and then memorise the words.
As others have said: this will become easier and start feeling more productive the more you practice. Sketching is a great way to overcome self-doubt because it's not intended to produce any workable result. It's just a practice that you do without worrying about the results. Sometimes you get something you want to take further, most of the time not, but every time you've given yourself the practice that you need to become proficient. Browse through your old material time to time. For myself, sometimes it takes years to realise something in my sketch stash is valuable.