The Magic of Making Things – Three Stories of Successful Creativity

It’s the start of a new year, that wonderful time when people set well-meaning resolutions and then drop them like rocks, narrowly missing their toes.

Looking back, most of my goals from last year remain the same. They’ve simply morphed into new forms. Ninety days is too small, a comma in life. This year I’m setting a period. I’m not just aiming to save money now, but to better manage my finances. I’m giving myself a daily budget, not to be exceeded without good reason. And I have to figure out how to be more disciplined with my time, because I’m still one of those people who are five minutes late for everything. 

Last year wasn’t wasted. Far from it. I learned some important lessons, and I realize that now I’m looking at not just goals, but processes. I’m trying to change myself. This year I want to take more interest in my surroundings. To practice mindfulness and meditation. And to nurture my creative side, which is what this post is all about.

Last year I started coloring again. I wanted to get back to my roots, so to speak. I also had the vague idea that I would learn something about discipline and seeing projects through to the end. And I did. I learned I was missing the point.

Discipline is key, don’t get me wrong. But creative pursuits are so much more than a series of tasks. Creativity is about finding the spark that lights your soul on fire. To quote Bohemian Rhapsody: open your eyes, look up to the sky, and see. The world isn’t all black and white and shades of grey.

Life is meant to be filled with colour.

Today I’m talking about the magic of making things. 

 Because it’s about time I sat down and wrote my damn story.

It’s been more than two years now since I first conceived of Wraithblade. Ever since, I’ve worked on it in fits and starts, never getting very far. Recently I’ve been thinking about the creators of the books and games and series I love. What are they doing? What am I not doing? How can I take last year’s lessons and apply them to my writing?

I came to three conclusions.

1. I need to work harder.

To make anything of quality, one thing is clear: you have to put in an astonishing amount of work.

The manga artist behind Full Metal Alchemist, Hiromu Arakawa, grew up in a farming community. At an early age, she learned the value of hard work, balancing farm chores, drawing and art classes for years before finally moving to Tokyo to pursue her dreams of a career as a mangaka.

Although I never read the manga, Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood was the best anime I’d ever seen. Two brothers, one with a mechanical arm and leg, the other a soul bound to a suit of armor, embark on a journey to regain their former selves. It’s a tale of war, loss, conspiracy and mortality amid a steampunk world inspired by Europe in the early 20th century, where guns, trains, robotic limbs and alchemical powers exist side by side.

Image credit: Inverse

It was the story that inspired Wraithblade. 

That idea of a duo scarred by the supernatural stuck with me. I imagined a boy with ghostlike powers, and a floating, skeletal spectre who was once a girl. Because I always wondered. What if the Elric brothers really had brought their mother back from the dead?

This is the beauty of creative work: it inspires others. But creativity is nothing without commitment. The flat truth is that I’m just not writing enough. Arakawa-san’s work ethic is inspiring – apparently she was once back at work a few days after giving birth. Intimidating, but inspiring. She drew up a brilliant story. I need to work harder on my own.

2. I need to focus.

I’ve been playing a mobile game called Crashlands.

You play as Flux Dabes, an intergalactic courier whose ship is shot down over an unexplored planet. Together with her robot sidekick, you must forage for materials, battle alien wildlife, build new equipment and help out the locals in order to survive, thrive and get those shipments back on track. It’s a sprawling adventure with hilarious dialogue, equal parts crafting and action-RPG. It even won a few Game of the Year awards back in 2016. 

Who, me?

What inspired me about the game, though, was the story behind it.

Crashlands was the work of three brothers. The Costers were young, independent game developers who made fun-but-forgettable mobile games. They’d just started turning a profit when disaster struck. Sam Coster was diagnosed with cancer, non-Hodkin’s Lymphoma, stage 4b. He was twenty-three.

It changed things. Their latest project was now unfulfilling. After the diagnosis, Sam told his brother, “I don’t want this to be the last game I make before I die.”

In contrast to their earlier titles, Crashlands was a vast undertaking, an entire world inspired by the likes of Pokémon and Diablo. This wasn’t about building a platform or making money. It was about making something that mattered. A triumph of creativity and imagination. And so despite the rigors of chemotherapy, from his hospital bed, Sam would fire up his laptop to write and draw. The game is noticeably upbeat, filled with silly jokes and nonsensical scenarios. This is escapism as it’s meant to be: an escape from a much darker reality.

I’ve already had a taste of how death clarifies things. You see what really matters. The second flat truth is that I’m too distracted. Social media, video games, and even blogging are all activities that have to take a backseat to what I want to accomplish. I have to be focused. Who’s to say how long I’ll have the chance.

Sam Coster made a game while battling cancer. What’s my excuse?

3. I need to believe in magic.

I've just finished Oathbringer, third book in the Stormlight Archive. The saga of the Knights Radiant is excellent, full of unexpected twists, complex characters and subverted fantasy tropes, with plenty of real world issues on display. The world of Roshar is wonderfully alien, full of imaginative flora and fauna.

Shallan in Words of Radiance.

Have you heard of Brandon Sanderson? I’m sure I’ve mentioned him a few dozen times.

This level of skill doesn’t blossom overnight. In his twenties, Sanderson took a job as a night clerk just so he’d have time to write. He spent years churning out mediocre books before finally getting published. It was finishing the Wheel of Time that propelled him to stardom, but since then he’s proven himself a master in his own right. He teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University.

Clearly, he has focus and commitment. And something else, a third, crucial element that all of the best creators share. What drives someone to make that kind of effort in the first place?

They believe in what they’re doing.

A major aspect of Stormlight is the concept of spren. Obviously inspired by faeries, spren embody elements, emotions and ideals. Windspren are tiny silver figures flying on the breeze. Gloryspren are golden orbs that shoot up around a person who has accomplished something. Painspren are disembodied hands crawling around a wound. There are dozens of species, of varied power and intelligence, many as ubiquitous as insects.

Among them are the creationspren: glowing spren which only appear for a skilled act of creation, like drawing or carpentry. The characters take them for granted, but the idea spoke to me. A magical embodiment of creation.

Because you see, I lost the magic.

I remember thinking of drawing as drudgery, hours of effort for a single picture. I realize now that I viewed my story in much the same way – too much work for a limited payoff. It wasn’t being lazy per se. I just didn’t see the point. I admired others’ artwork, got lost in their fantasy worlds. Yet I stopped believing in my own. Somewhere in my daily routines and distractions, the magic slipped away.

If you don’t take joy in what you do, then why are you doing it? If you can’t find pride and purpose in your actions, what’s the point?

Where’s the color in your life?

I realize now that dreams don’t die of failure. They die from a lack of faith. We get tired, distracted, caught up in worldly struggles. And so the magic is lost. We stop believing in dreams. We forget why we ever believed in the first place, resigning ourselves to a mundane reality. So long, the end.

How many of our younger selves would be proud of the people we’ve grown up to be?

I think the most inspiring thing I can tell you is that we can get the magic back. I have. I found it in artwork. Now I hope to find it in my story too.

At the very least, I know the magic is out there. And that’s a start.

***

I’ve always loved magic. Seeing the extraordinary in ordinary things, finding the light in the darkness. I’ve always wanted to share that with others. Imagination and inspiration, the two focal points of my highly eclectic blog.

For now, I’ll be cutting down on the essay-length posts to focus on my goals. There are so many things I want to talk about. Books and games and movies and life lessons. Stories, real and imagined. But I only have so much time. I have to start using it wisely. If you’ve followed me this far, thanks for reading.

Don’t worry, this isn’t goodbye. It’s see you later. I’ll be back now and then.

How else am I going to show you the world in color?