Living In The Creative Place

From Morguefile

For years now I've been "writing a novel."  I put that in quotes because I've started at least six different novels, all set in the same fantasy world, none of them have gone beyond a dozen or so chapters.  The world is now well fleshed out in my mind (and in, quite literally, hundreds if not thousands of pages of notes and manuscript pages), populated with people who, while not "real" to me are at least as well developed characters as any in other novels that I have read, kingdoms and cities and towns and a map and...well, you get the idea.

Over the past couple weeks (it began a couple weeks ago when I took a week of vacation) I've had a bit of a creative upshot in the "I'm writing a novel" arena.  I've outlined the major points of the story, I have a beginning, middle and end (and sequel, of course - it's epic fantasy, after all, so it would have to be a series), I have the major characters in place, some of the key scenes sketched out, a few even written.

But there's a problem.

To do creative work - any creative work - I have to "live" in that world as deeply as I can.

Here's what I mean by that: when I'm putting together a video for worship (not just editing down a movie clip, but making something original), I focus all my thought, energy, as much time as possible on the video - I obsess about the details - how loud is the music?  Should I fade or jump cut that transition?  How is the flow?  And on and on...  I do many revisions...

So I basically write two sermons a month (at least) and so some other writing for the church as well (the Transformation Journal, for example).  I spend a significant amount of time, effort and thought living in the Scripture passage for each message I write - and not just for the "coming week" but for weeks in advance.  And I don't want to give any less attention and effort to what is one of the most important things I do (and my favorite).

So it will almost certainly be a long time before my novel gets written - as I simply can't "live" in that world for any significant period of time.  And that's okay.  That writing is fun, it's for me anyway.

I don't say any of this as a complaint about my work, just as an observation about the need to live in the creative place - if that's the right word for it - so that Sunday mornings I don't just "phone it in".