Ideas Turn Up as Little Embers

2021-07-07 · essays

Not my words: a monologue by Exurb1a, which I posted on 2021-07-07 because it said something I could not.

In my experience, ideas do not turn up fully formed, anyway – they usually come to you as little embers that you have to fan, and sometimes they go nowhere, and other times, for no apparent reason, they take off by themselves.

For every excuse for content, I personally put out, about four or five scripts go in the bin.

"Mom! Mom, come here, I fucking got it!"

But you didn't get it – it was ridiculous, and it didn't work.

A surprising amount of doing this isn't actually writing – it's letting go of stuff you thought might work in preparation for something you hope will work better.

However, I believe there IS a science to creativity, for finding the optimal conditions for having ideas.
The problem is, it's a science of one. It's entirely personal to you.
I would encourage you to watch the inside of your own head and notice when the fireworks go off and try to recreate those conditions.

We live in minds we do not understand, but one doesn't have to understand the machine to determine the optimal conditions for use.
It just takes a bit of experimentation and self-observation.