Tag Archives: inspiration

Saturday with the Spark

Organize Your Creativity with Bubble Maps

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Around third grade, I was taught how to draw something like the following illustration:

Using this, we were told, you could expand out ideas based on a central concept. You’d put the seed of the idea in the middle of the map, and then write more details about the idea in the outer “bubbles”. This was called a “Bubble Map,” one of the many thinking maps we learned how to do that year (see examples of other thinking maps in this PDF).

We often used these in school to get our thoughts together before writing a rough draft of a report, or to record observations on a specific concept. And there are several other uses for them, according to this eHow article.

Mostly science, language, and history used these thought-organization tools…but it occurred to me recently to try using a bubble map in particular to expand on a creative idea.

Why I Chose the Bubble Map Form

The structure of a bubble map is quite adaptable to any idea you want to explore, and its creation is simple; considering that my motivation for creative things has been somewhat lacking of late, I knew I needed something that was simple and adaptable for my use as a visual “thought prop”, to allow myself to flesh out an idea without feeling so daunted and overwhelmed.

Examples of Creative-Idea Bubble Maps

Seeing your thoughts visually organized like this can boost your creativity, as I found out while constructing the following two examples:


This one depicts ideas on my newest layout ideas for WithinMyWorld.org. Notice how I’m tackling many facets of design–usability/legibility, color choice, image and link styles. Bubble maps are great for doing this; the only limit to what you put in the “bubbles” is how big you drew the bubble to start with!


In this bubble map, I’m thinking hard about the various style details of a new song, describing the “mood” of the music, how to play the melody and accompaniment, how to style lyrics, etc. Bubble maps are very good for fleshing out minute details–stuff you would usually think of in a burst of inspiration and then forget.

Learn How to Make Your Own Bubble Maps

Aside from the time-honored pencil-and-paper method described in this eHow article, you can also do as I did and create one digitally using your favorite image-creation program (I used Microsoft Paint). With later editions of Microsoft Word, you can also do SmartArt Graphics that mimic some aspects of bubble maps and other thinking maps, as well. (Learn more about how to make SmartArt graphics here.)

And, if you want to build your bubble map digitally and easily online, there are actually several online apps that you can use. These are NIFTY 🙂

Don’t Think These Would Work for You?

Well, what if I told you that the song I describe in the second bubble map wasn’t even on the list of creative projects until I started trying to do a bubble map about music? Within moments of finishing the map, I was inspired to go to the keyboard and start messing around with a totally new melody.

If these things can jump-start my creativity in these days of headaches and mental fatigue…well, they might just save the world, who knows? GO BUBBLE MAPS! 😀

Saturday with the Spark

The More Outlandish the Idea, the Better

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Ever come up with an idea that was just so silly you couldn’t take it seriously?

Or what about a concept that completely disregards all the rules?

In reality, these crazy, far-flung ideas may be the key to thinking more creatively. You just can’t allow yourself to dismiss them before they help.

Why “Outlandish” Ideas Actually Aren’t

When we’re trying to do anything, whether it’s solving a problem or coming up with a new idea, we sometimes lock our mental processes within certain boundaries, sometimes without realizing it. We follow the rules society has laid down for righting this particular problem, or we cling tightly to the types of ideas that have been successful in the past.

Now, I’m not saying throw aside all rules, regulations, and useful advice. It’s good to remember what’s been successful, and it’s good to remember what society generally likes. But it’s definitely not good to keep ourselves locked within rules when we’re trying to come up with something very new and different. “Thinking outside the box,” an innovative phrase repeated so often that it’s become cliche, really means setting yourself free from what you think you “ought” to come up with, and allowing the creative process to come more naturally and freely.

Examples of Outlandish Creative Ideas

For instance, Mary Shelley’s vision of a monster cobbled together from various body parts might have seemed outlandish, but it certainly laid the foundation for a genuinely spooky and sad tale–Frankenstein. And Edgar Rice Burroughs’ concept of how a man could live on Mars erupted into series of books, which laid the groundwork for the science fiction literary genre for over half a century, even up to the present day. (Burroughs is the author behind the book which the “John Carter” movie comes from.)

Other so-called “crazy” ideas are now commonplace to us. The automobile itself was considered more a novelty than a necessity, even when it first rolled off the production line. And when I read one of my cousins’ textbooks from the ’70s talking about corded phones which showed the face of the person you were talking to, no one ever dreamed it could really be possible–the cordless, wireless iPhone and its FaceTime were still nearly 40 years in the future.

Getting Hold of Your Own “Crazy” Ideas

So, how do you come up with your own wacky creative ideas that just might take off?

Make a promise to yourself that you will pursue and develop every idea that pops into your head, without laughing it away or dismissing it out of hand.

Start brainstorming, about whatever you need a creative idea for.

For instance, do you need an idea for a story’s villain? Start thinking about actions, voice types, facial expressions, clothing, and dialogue that you personally associate with being villainous, and expand on that. This will inevitably lead to developing a backstory or a “reason for being evil”–run with it. Trust me, you will like where it ends up if you let your mind wander. (I did this very process with my own novel’s villain, who didn’t exist until one of my very earliest readers pointed out that I didn’t have a real villain in my book yet.)

Document how your idea grows and changes. Sounds weird, but if you keep track of your original idea and the subsequent changes you’ve made to it, you’ll be better able to fall back on earlier changes if you need to. Plus, even if one little detail of an idea doesn’t work in one context, you could easily use it somewhere else. It’s good to hoard your ideas!

Don’t discount your dreams. If you find yourself dreaming about your idea (which often happens, if you’ve been concentrating on it a lot!), write down what you dreamed about as soon as you get up. Your sleeping mind might just come up with the solution to the last troubling little detail. (Don’t laugh, it’s happened to me before–I dreamed about taking a final exam, and one of the “questions” was actually an answer to the thing I couldn’t figure out before I went to bed. WIN)

If someone else thinks your idea is “weird”, let them think that. Until your idea is fully fleshed out, it might sound a little far-fetched to others, and that, contrary to popular belief, is OKAY. Don’t let anyone’s disapproval get in the way until you have sorted the idea out for yourself. If they have constructive criticism, like my friend’s suggestion that my book needed a stronger villain, that’s awesome; if they just brush your idea aside, then they’re proving they don’t need to be part of your creative process.

If this idea doesn’t work, take it apart and try again. The idea you come up with might or might not work. If it doesn’t, take the non-working bits out and refashion them, as many times as you need to. Ideas are not like laptop computers, whose parts seem specifically made to work with only a scant few other brands of components. Ideas are endlessly flexible and reparable, and best of all, you need only one tool–your brain!

Saturday with the Spark

Avoid Writing a Boring Song

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Boring songs do not get listeners. And yet, what do I find myself writing when I have such an awesome idea for these lyrics and it’s gonna be totally amazing? Thaaaaat’s right–a boring song.

Or what about when I find a melody that’s just crazily beautiful and I gotta find words to go with it right now or I’m gonna burst? Yup–I end up writing a boring song.

What prevents such awesome lyrics or beautiful melodies from being interesting? Well, I find that when you focus too hard on the lyrics and message of a song, the melody and chords–what really carries the message to your audience’s minds–go by the wayside. Ultimately, you end up with a really weighty song, like a cake that’s dense and chewy instead of light and fluffy (and yummy).

Conversely, when you work really hard at the melody and chords of a song and forget about the lyrics and message, the words of the song seem not to match up to the beauty of the music. It’s like trying to match a lovely, subtle striped pattern with a garish, huge polka-dot pattern; the delicacy of the former is overshadowed by the brightness and boldness of the latter.

Can You Quantify “Boring Music” or “Boring Lyrics?”

Well, I’m not sure, but I’m going to try. Here’s some examples of how a songwriter can bore audiences to death, at least in my opinion:

Boring Lyrics Boring Music
  • Introductory verse is too long/wordy
  • Too much “meaning” has been crammed into the song
  • Lots of trite or unnatural rhymes/word rhythms
  • Introductory music without words goes on too long
  • Music between first chorus and second verse repeats too much of the intro
  • Melody is reused over and over without any innovation

When your melody/chords sound like they repeat themselves ad nauseum, or the lyrics just don’t sound natural, your audience is going to be turned off (trust me, been there, done that :C ). You can just tell when their minds start to drift away and stop relating to what you’re singing about. Any time your music and lyrics are not in balance, any time they tug against each other for attention rather than supporting each other, your song becomes a drag to listen to.

Well, What Makes “Interesting Lyrics” and “Interesting Music?”

I believe the following examples are ways we as songwriters can make our songs more interesting to hear:

Interesting Lyrics Interesting Music
  • Introductory verse frames the “story” of the song
  • Song contains just a kernel of meaning, and builds emotion around it
  • Rhymes/word rhythms sound natural
  • Wordless introduction lasts just long enough to set a mood
  • Main melodic theme of the song is strengthened between verses with accompanying, grounding chords
  • Main melody is toyed with between verses, or a secondary melody is added

Wait, This All Looks a Bit Formulaic

I admit, this seems more like a mathematical formula or scientific theory rather than the stereotypically ethereal and beautiful practice of writing music. And I agree, sometimes good songs just form–they pop into existence in minutes, and it feels as if its chords and its words fit perfectly together without any help from you. But sometimes, especially if you’re struggling to write a new song, it’s hard to figure out what will be listened to and what won’t be.

That’s why I started coming up with this listing, as a way to educate myself about the creation of music (especially music that includes lyrics). Songwriting, at least for me, is kind of like speech-writing combined with music performance–you’re trying to get across a verbal message, but at the same time couch it within melodies and chords that are easy on the ear. How do you get someone to listen to a speech? You make it relatable and meaningful without being heavy. Same thing with a song–it must mean something and be memorable.

Summary

Boring songs, suffering from either lyric failure or melody/chord failure, do not have to stay boring! Thankfully, music and lyrics can be rewritten and revised till they both support each other, and an interesting and lovely song emerges. Believe me, it’s possible to make a previously boring song into something magical to listen to!

Saturday with the Spark

Picturestruck

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Have you ever been outside and been surprised by the beauty of light and shadow playing on an object? Or ever been amazed at the perfection of a flower blossom? Has anything, natural or man-made, ever looked so suddenly awesome that you just HAD to stop and take a picture of it with whatever camera was to hand?

If you have, you’ve been picturestruck. I get that way all the time, even though I’m not a particularly visual person usually. Sometimes I’ll see the sky in the daytime, for instance, and be awed by sunlight streaming down between cotton-candy threads of cloud; other times, the quiet loveliness of a full moon casting silver shimmers along the wide river close to my house will render me silent.

Taking care of the urge to capture the image before you is fairly easy if you have a cameraphone or small digital camera with you. It’s as simple as taking the device out of your pocket/purse, lining up the shot, and clicking the button. But if you’re picturestruck while driving, as I am so often, it can be difficult to balance your need to stay on the road with the desire to get an awesome picture right now!

I’ve been known to pull over to the side of the road long enough to fish for my phone and take the picture through my windshield, if I can’t stop long enough to get out of the car (or if it’s not safe to try to get out). But usually, I like to completely stop the car, get out, and take the picture without having to rush. Convenient parking lots are good places to stop for impromptu pictures, even if it does make me look like a tourist in my own town. LOL

Even if it might sound a little weird to practice this kind of art, I do enjoy it, and I end up with some beautiful images that I’ve even used in my web designs. Random spots of beauty in our world are always worth capturing for posterity if we can manage it, I believe.

Have you ever been picturestruck? Ever get any randomly awesome pictures? Tell me in the comments!

Saturday with the Spark

Find Your “Style,” and Revel In It

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What defines you as an artist? Is it the short poetry you write about random objects? Is it the monochromatic shades you use to define a mood around the subject of a painting? Do you use dance to show the fluid motions of air and water in human form? Or do you design websites that stun with only beautifully-chosen fonts on the page?

No matter what art you choose to do, if you try to stray too far from the things you love to do most, you will find yourself easily running out of steam. Stretching your creativity too far, into things you don’t particularly like creating or thinking about, will inevitably lead to the well of creativity drying up for a while.

Making “Fresh” Art Doesn’t Mean Trying to Be Someone Else

Artists should not be bullied into doing art that isn’t natural for them. Take a musical artist who is encouraged to “find a new sound” because his/her old sound is “tired.” If that “new sound” differs too much, the musician may not feel as connected to his/her music as before, leading to a less inspired sound. The same could happen to a painter who is told he/she needs to change the style and approach to painting–too far away from the natural style, and the subsequent paintings could end up looking and feeling like so much tripe.

Trying new things in art is great–it stretches your creative “wings,” and can allow you to become a better and more experienced artist. But that evolution and exploration must be a natural process. Artistic style evolution cannot be forced along by anyone’s good intentions, not even our own.

Art: A Growing Process, Not a Personality Change

For instance, I’m a little bit different composer and poet than I used to be. I used to write long tirades of poems going on about my inner life, school, and the junk I was going through; now, I write shorter poems about the life going on AROUND me. I used to write huge, long piano solos, and now I write piano/vocal music, mainly Christian in theme.

And yet, this evolution was not forced. It happened gradually as I grew up. No one shouted over my shoulder and told me I “shouldn’t be writing this way” or “shouldn’t make music like that.” I was allowed to grow as an artist naturally, by both my parents and my musical instructors, and I feel that this made me a much more balanced experienced artist later.

Experiment With and Explore Your Chosen Art, but Stay True to Self, Too

As artists, and as friends of artists, we have to be similarly supportive and understanding of our own works as well as others’. Being creative means we allow ourselves to try new things without fear of rejection, either self-rejection or others’ rejection, just to see if it works. Heck, at least half the art I do starts out as a silly experiment, something along the lines of “Hey, never tried this, wonder if it works? Ah, what the hey, give it a shot.”

But we should never pursue “different” and “new” art so far that it becomes alien to what we believe in and what we love. I cannot compromise my taste for symmetry, lovely blended shadows, and flowing, lyrical melodies, not even long enough to make a little money, because if I tried my hand at sharp, angular, and irregular art, it would feel fake. It isn’t my style, and it would show.

So, even though the sharp, the angular, and the irregular modern art are “all the rage” these days, I stick to what I love and what I can do best. I may never shock anybody or create headlines with my music and my writing, but since it is in my natural style, it will be better art.

Summary

Your art is your own, and don’t worry about it not being “the current style” or “what anybody’s looking for.” Create it first for yourself, to reflect your own tastes, and you might just find more people drawn to it for its authenticity.

Saturday with the Spark

Scheduling Your Creative Time

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Are you currently stalled out when it comes to your creativity? If so, I have been there, and this article is for you.

I’ve written in some of my Saturday articles before about having trouble writing my novel, and the troubles have continued even up until a week or two ago. It literally felt like it had come to an immovable standstill; some days I would just open the file that contained it, read over the last few pages of my writing, and just close the file again, not sure what to add or where to go from where I stopped. I felt paralyzed.

That is, I felt paralyzed until I began to put my novel on my to-do list.

Can You Really “Schedule” Creativity?

Well, no, you can’t plan when you’ll have inspiration. But you can carve out part of your busy day to allow yourself to BE creative. When you allow yourself time to be creative, you open the door for inspiration.

Not realizing this was my biggest mistake: I hadn’t scheduled myself any time to be creative. Without a definitive, set time for “noveling,” I was depending on “feeling like” writing, and I didn’t “feel like” writing because I didn’t see that I had time or energy to do it. The underlying problem was stress over ill-managed time.

Overcoming the Time/Motivation Problem

The last straw came when it had been about a month since I had last written in my novel. I knew that because I looked at the “Last Modified” date, and it read January 17th, 2012.

I was astonished at the date. How could it have been that long? How could I have stopped writing for that long? What was wrong with me?

And, just as quickly as I realized it, I got mad at myself. “If I’m intending to be a great novelist, I first have to get off my butt and WRITE the aforementioned novel,” I grumbled to myself.

Using the Sticky Notes desktop gadget, I finally wrote in a definitive goal for the next day: “Write 1,000 words.” That’s all I had to do–write a thousand words. Didn’t matter how far it took me in the story or anything. Just 1,000 more words: progress. 1,000 words is what I’d been doing every day before I had inexplicably dropped the ball; I wanted to hit the ground running.

…And It Worked

The next day, I looked at my to-do list for that day…and suddenly, 1,000 words in my story didn’t seem so unconquerable, especially when compared with the other stuff I had to do (write 2 blog posts, finish writing my Sunday school lesson for the week). Suddenly, I found myself thinking, “Hey, I can write a few hundred words in my novel when I get tired of writing my blog posts or reviewing the lesson.”

And that’s exactly what happened. That day, I finally started writing again, editing and adding new bits in the story in between crafting my blog posts and reviewing/writing my Sunday school lesson. Like a key had been turned in my brain, the creative “engine” had turned over and started up again, all because my novel had been given a place in my writing life again.

So, How Do You Restart Your Creative Engine?

These are the tricks that worked for me. Try them and see how they work for you and your form of creativity, whatever it may be:

  • Make “creative time” part of your to-do list. Making it a priority is the first step. If you never allow time for it, it won’t happen.
  • Write reminders for “creative time” somewhere prominent. For me, that meant putting it on the computer desktop; for you, that might mean writing it on a whiteboard in your office, or leaving a note on your coffeepot. Anywhere where you will see it consistently and be reminded to do it, especially if you’re absent-minded and living in the future like me, will help you.
  • Remind yourself of what you were attempting to do when you last left off. I’ve taken to writing “When last I left my brave hero, [X], [Y], and [Z] happened/was going on” in my to-do list so that it makes me laugh and remember what I was writing about. That way I don’t have to “catch up” on my own book if it takes a week or two before I get back on the horse. (That’s saved me a LOT of time!)

Summary

It may make writing (or any other creativity) a little less glamorous if you “schedule” time to do it, but believe me, trying to force yourself to find time (when you already feel like your day is packed full) is only going to make you feel more stressed and more down on yourself. Making sure you give yourself even 15 or 20 minutes to be creative can jump-start that long-dead project or that abandoned flight of fancy. And believe me, it works and is worth it. 🙂

Saturday with the Spark

The Creativity Leak: Fatigue

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My novel, unfortunately, has come to a standstill, and not because I’m out of ideas. It’s because of a slow leak in my brain called fatigue.

Well, Isn’t “Fatigue” Just Being Tired?

Not necessarily. I used to think fatigue just meant I wasn’t sleeping well enough, but I have come to understand how wrong that viewpoint is.

Fatigue doesn’t just make you sleepy. In fact, it can make you the opposite of sleepy–you can end up so tired you can’t sleep, so used to the flow of adrenalin keeping you going that your body can’t relax enough to sleep.

Fatigue also takes away your energy to think and do things. You feel about 50% alive at all times, as if the other 50% of you is still in bed, and your thought processes are noticeably slower and less fleshed-out. There’s tons of stuff you want to do, tons of stuff you need to do…but even just thinking about it all makes you more tired.

This is what I’ve been suffering for the last few weeks, and my overall creativity has really taken a hit. Aside from time spent at the keyboard, I haven’t done much creative work except these Saturday blog posts (which, admittedly, have been much harder to come up with because of fatigue). And it’s not for lack of wanting to create–I just end up feeling too tired to deal with it.

This kind of tiredness, as I’ve found, leads to frustrated creative desire…and can leave you feeling painfully unfulfilled in your creative life.

Getting Rid of Fatigue So You Can Be Your Creative Self Again

This is as much for me as it is for y’all–I need this advice, too!

First, don’t fight fatigue with forced energy.. Pushing on through and trying to force creativity will only render an inferior product. You’ll be unhappy with what you’ve done, and you won’t want to try again for fear of the same terrible results. (See: my failed attempts at writing a “really good” song, leading to the fear that I’d “lost my gift.”)

Second, uncover the cause of your fatigue. It could be a chemical imbalance, a minor illness that just won’t go away, a vitamin deficiency, job stress, or even just a simple lack of GOOD sleep. Explore all these causes, and truly listen to your body.

In my case, I’ve had a cold and sore-throat bug that has been ongoing for several weeks, and the resulting fatigue left me nearly unable to write anything creative. How I’ve been able to come up with blog posts consistently is beyond me–I guess it is a labor of love. LOL

(I also must warn you to get checked out by the doctor if at-home treatments like vitamin capsules and meditation do not work for you. Fatigue can be a symptom of something worse going on. 🙁 )

Third, allow your energy to come back slowly. Don’t expect to feel absolutely AMAZING the day after you’ve figured out what’s wrong and started treating it. It will take a few days for your body to get back on the energy train, and possibly even longer for your brain to get back its precious creative juices.

Right now, for instance, I’m using these creative Saturday posts to get back my own creative juices. I know the ideas for my novel are up there, but I can’t pressure them to come out–it’s like pressuring a souffle to cook. If you rush it, it deflates. So I have to be okay with what I can do now, and look forward to getting back on the ball.

Fourth and finally, celebrate your efforts, however small they might look. Right now, I’d be glad if I could write 50 words in my novel; that’s how bad my fatigue has been. If I can muster the mental energy to do it, I will be as happy as if I’d written 5,000.

Similarly, you can’t be upset with yourself if you don’t snap back to epic creativity right away. Be glad for the little, itty-bitty victories. If you let yourself celebrate those, you’ll have a more positive frame of mind and thus set yourself up for bigger and bigger victories.

With this good advice in mind (I’m like Alice in Wonderland, I guess–“I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it”, lol), I hope I’ll be back to writing my novel very, very soon. I hope, if you’re feeling a little tired and out of creative energy, that this helps you get back in your game, too. 🙂

Saturday with the Spark

Desktop Art: Wallpapers

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As long as I’ve had a computer of my own (which was when I started college), I’ve had the urge to design backgrounds for my desktop. In a way, it was part of creating art for me–I wasn’t particularly good at drawing, wasn’t particularly good at coloring, but I did seem to be good at making desktop wallpapers.

Unfortunately, most of the wallpapers I’ve created over the last few years are locked on a hard drive that may or may not be recoverable :(, but I can share with you the few that I uploaded to my deviantArt account many moons ago. I can also give you a few tips on creating a desktop wallpaper that will be a delight to your eyes.

Picking the Desktop Style that’s Right for You

What you like as a wallpaper varies greatly, depending on what you need your desktop to do. I know plenty of people who cover their whole desktop with icons for files; I myself prefer a desktop uncluttered with icons (regardless of how my physical room looks…*snicker*). Other people have hyper-organized desktops with tons of informational widgets and gadgets all over the place, from daily calendars to how hot the CPU is getting, and so forth.

I’d say that your desktop should represent you, and should also be functionally beautiful for what you need. In the next few examples, I’ll show you various ways of organizing as well as decorating your desktop wallpaper.

Make it Expansive and Gorgeous

A wide, panoramic shot is great for a large-picture desktop; I favor nature pictures for these, and I try to make them as uncluttered as possible, with very few desktop widgets or gadgets. Any picture with a broad view, lots of color, or an amazing light effect works great for desktops.


A Beautifully-Colored Sunset

This is a photo I took with my cell phone camera; I used it for several months as a desktop image, though I don’t have the actual desktop screenshot available. I loved the colors and plays of light and shadow in the picture, and so I fought to keep my desktop as clear as possible for this picture–I think I only had four icons on my desktop the whole time I used this picture. GASP!

A Desktop’s Not Just for Pictures

I like to include verses of poetry or quotes on my desktops, along with pictures or images. Usually I come up with my own poetry or quotes in direct response to what the image evokes in me; sometimes, though, I’ll mix my own words with someone else’s on the same desktop if I want a variegated desktop.

For these two screenshots, I show how I organize my desktop differently depending on my needs for that span of time.


Desktop January ’07 to March ’07

During the time this screenshot was up, I needed a constant HTML to-do list up on my desktop–thus, the large black area on the left, balancing the image (Sustaining Spirit, by Rebecca Guay) and my poetry on the right. (Had to motivate myself to do my homework somehow! I miss that functionality of Windows XP, to put an HTML page directly on the desktop…)


Desktop September ’06 to January ’07

For this desktop, I didn’t need a to-do list, so I just kept all the icons to a minimum and let the background speak for itself, with self-created poetry and a lovely image for which I cannot remember the source.

Make It Look Like a Scrapbook of Your Life

To create a “scrapbook” look, I’ll often put several pictures on a plain or subtly-patterned backdrop, arranging them so they look either neat or haphazard, either all together or spread out across the page. I find this to be an inspiring and fun background style to use on a daily basis–gives a little “oomph” to a bad day!


Desktop June ’08

During this time, I was away from home and was very homesick, especially being away from awesome boyfriend of win, so I created this bulletin-board-like desktop with five real pictures, including a picture of us together. ^_^ I also had Vista’s Sidebar active (on the right, with some gadgetry in it), so I made sure the background did not compete with the Sidebar, nor did the icons on the left.

(Also, this was the infamous desktop that one of my classmates saw and asked, “Aww, is that your boyfriend? How many years younger is he?” I replied, “I’m twenty-FOUR and he’s twenty-NINE.” LOL)

Designing a Desktop of Your Own

To try out some of your own desktop art, pull out a few personally-meaningful photos, find some lovely patterns and images online (or make some yourself if you like), and start working. Play around in your favorite image-creation software or online image-manipulation site (like Pixlr or Aviary); arrange the photos and images any which way, add text if you want, and splash color all over it. It’s your desktop, after all–try everything and see what works best.

A few guidelines and tips for this process:

  • Check out your monitor’s screen resolution settings before you design, and make sure your image is as close in size to the resolution as possible. For many of my old desktops, I designed for a 1024 x 768 resolution; later, I had to design for a 1300 x 1050 resolution (I think), and so on.
  • Remember that the desktop background will likely be stretched a little bit to fit your screen if it’s not the same size as your monitor. Keep this in mind when selecting images, especially big images–you might end up with a funhouse-mirror photo!
  • Know where you’d like to put your icons and desktop widgets before you start designing your background. In my June ’08 desktop, I knew that I wanted Vista’s Sidebar to display on the right, so I offset the pictures left of true center so that the pictures wouldn’t be shadowed.
  • Try out “framing” your pictures in colorful patterns and shapes, and play with drop shadows and blur effects. These all seem to work well in a desktop setting.

Summary

Making wallpapers into “desktop art” can be an easier and more accessible way to involve creativity in your life. If you’ve never tried it, I encourage you to do so–who knows, you might make something truly inspirational!

Saturday with the Spark

I’ve Still Got It!

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My creative musical life has gotten a huge boost very recently–in fact, “Monday of this week” recently! Thus, the following blog post is in honor of it. And if you’re experiencing a slump in your own creativity, I urge you to read this for advice that really helped me get back my creative groove.

Before Monday: I Haz a Musical Sad

It seemed that I was no longer interested in composing music, as I once had been. I had been used to writing tons of piano solos and piano/vocal music every year (at least 15 every year); in recent months, however, it felt like years since I had even sat down to compose. Once, I had done performances for other people, but even those were rare. It was like the desire for my own music had been drained from me, replaced by performing others’ music, as well as not having a ton of time anymore to muse at the keyboard.

I mourned this loss, and it made me downright unsure of my creativity in music anymore. I wondered, “Do I even have “it” anymore, the gift of writing beautiful music? Or has it all been replaced with ‘everyday life’ and random stuff?” Not only that, I feared I had lost the capacity to write beautiful melodies, and had also lost the time to just sit at the keyboard and expand upon them.

Then, I Got Mad

On Sunday, I realized all this. My first instinct was to wallow about in my sadness, and I started to draft a Saturday with the Spark post about “losing my musical mojo” or something like that.

And then, I stopped about halfway through. “Why am I LETTING this happen to my music?” I thought, staring at my writing. I was starting to get ticked off. “What is all this stuff about ‘I used to be good at music?’ Dangit, I want to be good AGAIN. And I can be–it’s just there’s all this CRAP in the way!”

Getting Rid of the Aforementioned “Crap”

So, in a fit of drivenness rather than rage, I systematically removed all the obstacles towards practicing music. Since my keyboard is currently set up in our finished basement, there were a LOT of physical obstacles in the way. I replaced the cold, creaky, too-short keyboard chair with another; I moved the pile of junk that sat boldly in the path to the keyboard; with Dad’s help, we fixed a light on the basement stairs to make it easier (and safer) to go down.

But that still didn’t remove all the mental obstacles. I had a lot of fear about whether I still had “it,” whether I could still write beautiful music. That, I left ’til Monday, and rested the rest of the night.

The next day, I spent most of the day writing, kindasorta avoiding the melody (and part of a little song) that had been twisting and twining between my brain cells for the last month and a half. At last, about 6:00 Monday evening, I set aside what I was writing, and began to fix up the song’s lyrics properly so that they matched the melody–what I had roughed together was okay, but it wasn’t the best.

About 10 minutes later, I took computer and all down to the keyboard, and set up the screen so I could see it from the keyboard. Then, I began to play and sing the song…

And Then, I Haz a Glad

…and it was magic. The song slid from my fingers easily, and I maneuvered the vocal melody just as easily as if I’d been practicing it for days (which, in a way, mentally, I had been). Not only was it prettier than I had imagined, but it was easy to sing, was honest, and…it was good. Much better than I had expected from myself after months of not doing this.

I had been so long out of practice that I had been afraid to try anymore. But I was pleasantly surprised–and very, very happy. I wept at the keyboard–it was like a long-lost friend had finally come home.

Have You Lost “Mojo” for Anything Creative Lately?

(Pardon the Austin Powers reference 😛 ) If you’ve lost the ability or time to be creative due to too much work, illness, etc., then you know the sense of emptiness and loss I was feeling. It really took me getting mad about it and getting fired up enough to change what had been happening, and I think that’s what it takes for any change like this to come about. You have to be dissatisfied with how it’s been going, and know what to change to make it better.

One key, as I found, is to remove all the obstacles towards being creative. If you feel at a loss for writing because you have no space to work, for instance, make a space to work. It might be at a kitchen table or counter, or it might be a cheap folding table in the corner, but make a place for your creativity. For me, the junk pile, the lack of light, and the too-short chair made it easy to make excuses…they had to be changed.

Another key is to make time to be creative. If you allow no time for creative activity, it won’t just happen on its own. If you keep yourself busy, don’t leave the Internet behind for a few hours, or don’t carve out even a teeny bit of time in your commute to just think out a couple of ideas, it won’t happen. I had to leave the Internet behind on Monday afternoon, just long enough that I could draft and play my song…and it was WORTH IT! 😀

The last key? Trust your ability. If you could do it before, you can do it again. You might be a touch out of practice, you might feel a little differently about the process, but if you expel all the doubt and fear from your system, you’ll do fine. At least, that’s what I found out.

Saturday with the Spark

Words as Pictures: The Wordle Way

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A few years ago, while stumbling about on the Internet, I discovered a very creative site, and I think it’s one of the best modern ways to use words in visual art (besides web design, of course).

Wordle is a Java-enabled way to make blog entries, feeds, articles, pasted-in text, or even Delicious tags into a graphic. Now, I know that doing graphic arrangements of words is not new to the world of visual art, but Wordle does it in a particularly interesting fashion, with the largest words being the most used in whatever text sample it gets.

Some Personalized Examples

For some beginning examples, I used Wordle to do a couple of graphics based on two large samples of my writing, below:


Based on my webmistress page
It amuses me that “Grits” and “driveway” are two of the biggest words…LOL


Based on Crooked Glasses’s RSS Feed
You can tell the gaming post was prevalent on my feed this particular day. Haha

In both these cases, I chose the font color and style, as well as the background color. I also chose how the words spread themselves across the image. All of these tools and many more options are available to you through the Wordle interface–play around with it and see what you like best!

Some “Famous Poetry” Wordles

I also used Wordle to make word pictures with a couple of my favorite poems, seen below:


From the poem “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe


From the poem “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost

Wordles as Wall Art/Gifts

Making a Wordle would be a fun thing to do with a particularly inspirational monologue, poem, or prose piece you like–print it large and frame it to put it on your wall, or just stick it on your bulletin board with tacks and call it a day. Anything that gets it into your line of sight on a daily basis would work well.

Also, if you wanted to give a Wordle as a gift, you could easily copy in the text of something a family member or friend has written, and transform their writing into evocative visual art that they can enjoy. Choose favorite colors for the words, arrange it all for best effect–it can make a beautiful personalized gift.

You could even write in just random positive words that describe the gift recipient into the text box provided. Just make sure the words that you want to be largest are there multiple times, and you’ve got it! Almost anything that uses words could become a word graphic using Wordle…you might come up with a totally new way to use it, too!

Try It On Your Own Writing!

Take the largest sample of writing you have, or the most vibrantly written work you have. Anything you want. It could even be a long Facebook status. Copy in your text, and see what Wordle can do for you. It’s not only a fun timewaster, but a great tool for design and art, too. 🙂