I stated last week that the Loop can be started and begin again at any time. At its base, the Creative Loop is a fluid cycle of ideas, effort, and passion. Each stage lends itself to another and each one can spur the others into action, all of them are interwoven together to enable and support the others. Each stage of the Loop contains the same weave of ideas, effort, and passion within its core. We will start with the seed, the spark or our ideas. Our ideas are the most basic part of the dream. It is the thing we want to make. It is the painting we want to paint. It is the book we want to write.
When I first imagine a plot or a character it is a thin sketch, hardly suitable to build an idea upon. Over time I add to that idea and build it up. I do this by taking the elements that I need it to achieve and taking them apart. I lay them out and examine them and then put it back together. I repeat and repeat adding and building and expanding until I have something that works. This is how the Scroll Mage project started. Just an ink pen doodle that captured my imagination. A spark of inspiration, a flash of magic, that captured my imagination was all it took.
Our ideas don’t just come from nowhere, they come from within ourselves. The Two Souls project was spawned from the experiences within my own life and my struggles with identity and belonging. The Pit project was born out of my frustration working an endless amount of jobs, with no meaningful return on my investment of life. The massive World Builder Project, which started all of this, came from my desire to simply be the hero of my own story for once. These stories I write are all parts of my soul, expanded upon and given their own life. They put on display parts of me for all to see.
We build our ideas gradually, accumulating them over time. We store them up inside of us as we live our lives. This is how I feel about being slighted. This is how mad I feel about the state of crispy pickles in the world. I cried when that book series ended. I laughed with delight when I tried that cupcake. We are an amalgamation of our experiences, our desires, our defeats and our triumphs. Even if an idea is given to us from an external source, much like this week when my friend asked, “Can a robot be a troglodyte?” A new idea was formed, and I filled that idea with my own notions of what it means to have free will, how much intelligence would be needed, and what kind of robot it would be. This is part of what I love about writing. You could give a room of students that writing prompt, and you would have an endless supply of various stories each one as unique as the author who wrote it.
It is the same with our dreams, they are ours. They are unique. They are often simple and beautiful. Sure five people could all want to suddenly open a cake shop, one will spell shop with an “e.” One will sell cakes to the masses. One will specialize in wedding cakes. One will make cake sculptures. The point is this, we all have ideas and dreams and ambitions. Sure yours may sound similar to another, but make no mistake if an idea is yours, then your dream is as unique as you are.
However, the idea is simply just that, an idea. My Troglodyte Robot may never see more pages written about it than these. For now, it resides as a quick sketch, some notes, and a story idea hashtag. To bring that little idea to life will take effort, it will take passion. Which we will move on to next.