Mirrors And Windows
Time marches on and this will be my last blog post in 2023.
I’ve been thinking about what I want to write about for this entry. Do I write a postmortem for He Is Born? Do I write another amorphous musing about creative philosophy? Do I pull back the curtain and reveal more about my creative process(es)?
None of those options sat right with me. Not for capping off my 2023. Instead, I think it’s more appropriate to reflect on my 2023 while also looking ahead at 2024.
Last year, in 2022, at this time I was working hard at setting myself up for a successful 2023. I laid out a schedule of creative projects I wanted to tackle, on a month-to-month basis. The first couple of months were rough - I wasn’t used to this type of discipline, especially for creative work. Eventually I found my footing and my self-discipline became less of a hassle to manage, which in turn meant I was honing my focus and my dedication to my creativity.
My 2023 was largely a year of self-exploration and self-discovery. The projects I scheduled were varied: music composition, visual art, video game development, and my first plunge into dedicated writing. It was a year of heavy experimentation in a multitude of ways. What music do I want to write? What style of art speaks to me? What kind of art do I want to produce? How can I push myself as a game developer? How do I tell the story that’s in my head in an effective way?
These questions remain (and I think they always will, and they probably always should so I can stay dynamic in my creativity), yet at the same time I have answers. Having attempted so many different creative avenues this year, I’ve emerged with a better sense of what I like to create, what I don’t like to create, what speaks to me, and what turns me away - in essence, what I gravitate towards.
Back in February, I wrote out a list of abstract elements that either I’ve always been drawn to or which often appear in my most effective works, such as Environment, Intuition, Richness, Contrast, and Raw Imperfection. I then wrote a brief summary of each element as it pertains to my creativity. And I’m glad I did this so early in the year, because it stood as a guidepost for me throughout 2023, especially when I started to fall into a rut or was experiencing a period of self-doubt or aimlessness in my work.
Branching from that, a big theme for 2023 was discovering, learning, and creating systems that work for me. Yes, I know how to write music, but HOW do I write music? I realized that I didn’t have consistent methods to… a majority of my creative pursuits. Which meant my processes were inconsistent and, in turn, my outputs were inconsistent.
That’s not a good thing.
Throughout 2023, I was intentional about how I would approach each new project, paying close attention to what I liked and didn’t like about a method. Each step along the way I was curating my own unique systems for executing my creativity, and with each iteration my work saw a shorter length from ideation to execution. This curation is, I think, now in a continuous state of iteration. As I see it, it’s a living system.
Keeping all of this in mind, these are the relevant accomplishments I was able to achieve in 2023:
Over 120 minutes of music
Three (short) video games
About 120 paintings
Began the first draft of my first novel
20 blog posts
Curated method for writing music
Curated method for game design
Curated method for creative writing
Began selling my creative works (one of the best feelings)
Which leads nicely to… 2024.
Month-to-month project scheduling works well for me, so I’m continuing that schedule. Knowing what I know now and having learned what I’ve learned in 2023, I feel confident in my continued success going forward. The methods I continue to develop for myself will be a major asset in 2024, and I look forward to refining them even further.
I’ll be turning 30 in December 2024, and I’d be lying if I said this hasn’t been weighty on my mind this year. As 2024 closes in, I’ve been thinking at length about what I want to accomplish creatively in the next year. The big answer is: focus. While 2023 was a year for exploration and discovery, 2024 is going to be about focus and dedicated trajectory. My projects will be less varied in exchange for more deserved attention to what I do take on.
That’s a good thing.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. Hopefully these personal ramblings have reached you in some way.
Please look forward to more blog entries in 2024.
