520 - Does Creating Feel Hollow Right Now? How to Unlock New Fire

0:02On the creative journey, it's easy to get lost, but don't worry, you'll lift off, sometimes you'll just need a creative pep talk.

0:20I don't know if it's just me, but in this moment in time, it hasn't been easy to find my creative spark. Making picture books, drawing pictures, telling stories, making art, it can feel a little bit hollow in contrast to the very real problems and crises and madness and chaos that are happening outside of this door and throughout the world. That there are times when things get really tough, that making art can feel like such a luxury. It can feel like the first thing that needs to be cut from your life, right? And when you feel that impulse, like, what am I even doing? Why am I wasting my time with this?

1:18It's hard to keep at it. It's hard to silence that voice long enough to get through making anything. Now, I have never been through times like we're experiencing at this moment, but I have been doing freelance illustration work since 2008 and the world has gone through all kinds of things in that time. The recession, a pandemic, a lot of personal ups and downs. And I can say for sure that the time that that art making was most vital were the times when things were tough. When I figured out how to tap into that spark in the midst of the chaos, that those were where the biggest opportunities were.

2:10Also, just where art ended up meaning the most to me and some of the work that I made there meant the most to others as well. And so my aim is that by the end of this episode, you will feel more excited and more passionate about making art, that you will want to double down because of the times we live in instead of the inverse. And if you stick around to the end, we're going to do, I'm going to share a tactic that is called hold the cheese. And the purpose of this is to help you to mine your life for deeper creative sparks, deeper creative work, and use your creativity to be more tapped into and more present in your life.

3:01And so stick around for that. But first, I got to tell you about a friend I had in high school that taught me a very vital lesson on this front.

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5:00so how do you find your spark in the tough times just before we get into how to do it when i talk about this spark i don't know about you but for me i am this type of human neurodivergent folk who struggles with what they call object permanence so if it's not in front of me, it doesn't exist out of sight, out of mind. That is really a problem for me. Um, you know, people that I haven't seen a while, I can forget to exist and then see them, uh, all of a sudden, all these feelings come back and like, Oh my gosh, I've been missing this. And how did I let this slip away? And all that, um, I really struggle with that, but it works on all kinds of levels.

5:46It works like, I forget what my passions are. I forget what it feels like to be happy when I'm sad and what it feels, forget what it feels like to be sad when I'm happy and all that. It's very, it makes life as a artist, father, husband, tricky at different times. And I've had to kind of overcompensate for that nature that I have. And so just in case any of you are in that boat, in that camp, let's just talk just for a second about that creative spark and what it feels like in case it's been a minute since you felt it. You know, for me, that creative spark can sometimes take the form of consuming a piece of art that just knocks my socks off, that just changes me.

6:40You know, I can think of those moments going to the movie theater and seeing Eternal Sunshine as a high schooler and just walking out and thinking life is different than I thought it was. Or having that sick day in college, watching Spirited Away for the first time and just being like, this is like, I have been changed. Or reading the book, The Little Prince, and just feeling like nobody gets, I'm not the same person that I was. but I can also think about that feeling when I was on fire at school going to the bookshop hoping that the new design magazine called graphic was out for that month because every time I got it I would just smell that bad baby hot off the presses and just feel so switched on or the times when we would go out after class and get a few drinks or I'd go get coffee in the morning as I was a few years into my career and talk about the strategies and the ideas and the personal projects and my next hypothesis of how I was going to break into this or that sector of illustration and just fell on fire for this thing.

7:51One of the things that just helps me cultivate that off the top is hearing other people talk about that spark. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to do this episode and also one of the reasons why I wanted to start it with. Just remember, just let's soak up for just a second, what's at stake? That feeling when you're like, oh my gosh, like all I want to do is play in this zone because it's rich. It's other. It feels, dare I say, transcendent. Okay, yeah, I'll throw it out there. If art in that form isn't transcendent, what is? Okay, like that's about as good as we've got as humans. So that's the thing that's at stake.

8:43That's what we're talking about. And when I think about tough times, rough times, times when I'm having a hard time accessing that spark, I think there's a case to be made that in the particular lies the universal, Not all the time. That's the James Joyce quote. But I think maybe there might be something universal that we could pull from just some individual experiences of tough times. One of the most tough times that I ever went through was early in high school. So early in high school, one of the darkest couple of years of my life, part of it was that we moved to a different town and I started high school freshman year a couple months after everybody else had started school.

9:30And so I started with no friends. I was eating at the cafeteria table alone for several days, maybe a whole week, maybe longer than that. I don't know. But I was sat alone, just humiliated and so lonely and so embarrassed and so desperate for a connection of any kind that I couldn't be choosy. and so i was just trying to find a friend anywhere i could find them and i was i had to not be picky and so i ended up making friends with this guy who was on the track team i did track my first year and you know we'll call him chris because you know what what are names anyway um it wasn't his name but uh we'll call him chris and i didn't really like chris i didn't really think that we gelled but I just needed anything like any kind of conversation.

10:27I kind of clung to him. I started eating lunch at his table with his friends. And even to the point where I would order what he ordered at lunch. Okay. Now listen, it wasn't just me being like the best friend when you're in kindergarten, like I'll have whatever they're going to eat. Um, it, uh, it wasn't just that what he got for lunch was actually delicious okay i'm defending my honor here i don't want to be completely humiliated on my own damn podcast and it it sounds gross okay but i'm telling you it worked uh what chris would get is this thing called a bosco stick i don't know if you ever heard of that on its own even in theory it's already disgusting but it gets worse and also better because it was delicious.

11:18A Bosco stick, if you don't know, is like a hollow piece of bread. It's like a vessel, kind of like a breadstick, but it's full of liquid cheese. And now that wasn't enough for this guy. He had to also get the nacho cheese and a little cardboard little cup and pour all the nacho cheese in there and dunk the vessel full of liquid cheese into more cheese. And that's what he would get a couple of those. And that would be his lunch. Now, I can't say for sure if I was just copying him at first, but I definitely got into it. Okay. It was disgusting and amazing all at the same time. Two things were true at the same time.

12:04and yeah, that was my lunch for probably all of freshman year was Bosco sticks dunked in cheese, okay? Now, one time we're stood in line and I am blabbering because, you know, like I said, I was desperate. I needed a friend. I needed to talk. I needed, I just needed some connection. I need some hype. I need some dopamine. And so we're in line and I am just going on and on and on about this track team that we have this year. i'm just hyping it up like we got ryan that guy can do sprints we got that kurt he can do the long distance we've got we've got everything in this team and i'm just trying to like get jazzed about anything so that i don't feel depressed and uh any kind of spark and so i'm just going on and on and on excited about it like this is a really fun part about being about on team is just hyping each other up.

12:59And then right before we get to our Bosco sticks, he's like, dude, quit talking about it and just do it. And the reason I tell you this story, first and foremost, is because it was such a traumatic, traumatic experience that I'm still thinking about it. Years and years later, I was so devastated by being called out for just hyping. And yes, it hurt my feelings. Yes, I think there's something to be said for don't just talk about it, be about it, do it. I think that you can fall into a trap of talking about what you're going to do and then never doing it. I think that there's good even evidence to say talking a ton about your goals is actually going to make it harder to reach them because you're getting all this early dopamine release.

14:00But there is, I think there's a really great case for saying that talk, even if it can be empty without action, with action, it can be next level. if you're not using talk to just say what you're going to do, but you're talking about what you've done or your strategy, it can be so additive. It can be the cohesion that brings a team together. Chris, and by the way, his name isn't Chris. I'm not going to say his name, but I was kidding at the beginning when I said names don't matter. We know that names matter. If I say the name of your grandma, you're going to feel something. If you think about what the names of the people you love mean to you, yeah, names are a vessel, but they're an important one.

15:00And you're not going to be able to hold that romantic, transcendent, cheesy, you will say, part of life without it. And so even though I'm mad at Chris, we'll say, I almost said his real name, for giving me crap about talking and in the line, I also have to be a little bit grateful for him because he taught me one of the most important lessons of my life is that the vessel, the hollow, can be the most incredible thing. It can be the thing that allows you to hold the cheese and not just hold the cheese, but dunk it into more cheese. And so words may be empty. They may be hollow. Art might be hollow, but what if that's not a bad thing?

16:06What if that's exactly what makes it the thing that can allow you to pick up and hold that cheesy goodness in life, the romanticization of your experience. What if there's no other way to pick that up? And what if you're able to use words and art to hold that stuff in such a way where you can dunk into more of it. That has been my experience with art, is that, yeah, art for art's sake is hollow, and that's not a great thing. But when it's able to capture the transient, ephemeral, slipping away nature of life in such a way where you can hold it, and you can dive deeper into it, that hollow vessel becomes the most important thing when you are feeling more disconnected and more disgusted by life than you ever have.

17:15So are you really saying that art is a Bosco stick? You're damn right I'm saying it. In fact, I put it in writing. I mean it so much art equals Bosco stick and as empty as those words may be or may have been before you heard this episode my hope is that those words stick with you when you are feeling like is this just meaningless why even make a picture why even tell a story why even show up to the studio or the desk or the page today. I hope that you remember that art is hollow, but that hollow things are essential. Two things can be true at the same time. And that if we didn't have hollow things, we wouldn't be able to drink water.

18:08We wouldn't be able to be alive. And the same goes for if we didn't have art. If I didn't have art, I'll speak for myself, I'm not sure that I could taste life at its deepest levels. That for me, consuming art, creating art, as someone who is ADHD, finds it very difficult to be present, art is the thing that allows me to hold a moment. it is hollow enough that it can carry life.

19:07So what do you do with this? Maybe you're down with the idea that art is hollow and that's the magic of it, that that's why it's like a Bosco stick that can hold the cheesy stuff in life. That is what really matters. The romantic, you know, sappy, sensitive stuff. Maybe you're down, but you're like, okay, what do I do with that? How does that help me find that spark? Well, every episode we like to leave you with a call to adventure, the creative call to adventure, the CTA, not just an idea, but something you can actually do. this week is the CTA is hold the cheese. And I'll explain what that means before we get into that.

19:55I want to just say just a quick little side door. Sometimes it's as simple as tapping into talk. Now that can be talking with a friend about your art project and that can start getting you hyped about it a little bit. You know, talking through what your intentions are, what you're hoping to do or what you're stuck on. Sometimes that can do it. For me, one of the things that gets me there so quick is hearing people nerd out about the same sorts of things that I nerd out about in my process, but hearing about it from their side. And so I would just recommend whatever your medium is, whatever your passion is, if it's illustration, if it's design, if it's writing, if it's photography, whatever it is, I recommend finding those people, even if it's a parasocial relationship, it's a podcast where they're geeking out about the stuff that you geek out about.

20:53That for me, that can snap me out of that rigid, lifeless, moving through life in such a way where it's just about a to-do list and it can help me remember, oh, it's not about just making money. It's not just about getting the oil change. It's not just about somehow finding the energy of getting through the day. That there is this cheesy side of life. There is this like, oh man, like the thing that makes you want to hold on to it. And why you want to dedicate your life to the craft of holding on to that and holding it through making art. So sometimes it's that simple. It really can jazz me up and fire me up.

21:39But if that's not doing it or you want to take it to the next level, I recommend holding the cheese. And what this looks like is doing some art that the only purpose of it is to capture a moment in time. You're not trying to do something in that moment. You're not trying to do something profound. You're not trying to say something. You're not trying to add any cheese yet. You're not trying to add your own perspective and your point of view. You're literally just using your art to capture a moment, to be present, to hold a moment. Now, this can look like there have been a couple of times where I realized like, oh, we're on a hike.

22:22We're throwing rocks into this waterfall with my kids and my brain is somewhere else. Like I am not able to get that one day I'm going to wish that I was here. I could feel that. And it happens to me all the time, okay? I'm not some model parent that just knows how to lock into presence with their kids all the time. I am no bandit healer from Bluey. But in that moment, I had the perspective to think, if I just take a little video on my phone, a little home video, that little frame will allow, that frame of my phone will allow me to see this moment at a distance temporarily, like I'm viewing this from the future and help me to get into this moment.

23:13And the same is true when we went to Italy recently. I know that, you know walking around ruins and long days out and just kind of like the low stimulation of just wondering about sometimes i can have the adhd feeling of i need where's the freaking ice cream where's the pizza where's the drinks how do i turn this thing to 11 i need some action and i'm tuning out i'm disassociating and i've learned that if i will take my sketchbook and just draw what's happening, it will allow me to hold on to that in a way that I'm not able to with just my brain. And so the first piece of it is, if there are things in your life that you wish you were more present for, you wish you could drink in more fully, the hollow vessel of art can help you do that.

24:14And I was thinking through this, I was thinking at just a random kind of sci-fi or fantasy story of what if you get to the afterlife and they're like, okay, great. Here's what the afterlife is. You just get to relive all the times you were locked in, all the times where you were all in on your focus and you were tuning everything out. You get to relive all of those things that mattered so much that you gave them all of your attention. Okay, let's go. And you start out and at first it's a birthday party. It's fishing with your dad. It's a couple of things like that. And then it's a video from Instagram.

24:58And then it's you playing mobile game. And then it's you doing some video games. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with those things. But if I were in that afterlife reliving the things that I gave the most time and I'm sat there focused on my phone and reliving hearing my kids' voices trying to get my attention or missing the walk and the waterfall and I can't drink that in because I'm thinking about what I'm gonna post on Instagram tomorrow, whatever it is. That's not gonna be the greatest afterlife. And so I want tools that can allow me to hold this stuff. And one of the things that really helped has been just capturing a moment with art, not trying to make it something deep, not trying to make it something full, not trying to make it something rich on its own, but just doing the step of capturing the moment.

26:02and then after I've done that, then it might be time to dunk it into the nacho cheese, dunk it in for more. And it reminds me of, I heard Ira Glass talking about this on a podcast once where he said, you know, what storytelling is for him is this is what happened. That's the moment that you captured. And then there is the, this is how I felt about that moment. And that's not just this American life. That's true for anything. That's true for, we were just watching K-pop Demon Hunters, which I'm a huge fan of. And this is how it goes. It's plot, action. This is something that's happening. And then these are the characters having a conversation about what it means.

26:45And so after you've captured those moments, if any of those moments that you're capturing, there's a spark to it. There's something to it. There's some cheese there. There's something rich there. then you can actually add more to it you can say well why did i feel that and i've heard mike perbiglia talk with iron glass about this on his podcast and he talks to other comics about it is like oh here's a funny story here's a funny story this thing happened that thing happened and then he says what did you feel about that because that's where you can take it to the next level that's where you can dunk it a little bit deeper and add some sauce to it and so one of the things I'll do for this show or talks or when I'm writing for a picture book is just look back on my life and pick a random moment that for some reason is sticking with me, like Chris with these Bosco sticks telling me to quit talking about track and just do it.

27:44That was just a random moment. I didn't know what it was about. I was just thinking, all right, I'm going to pick one as an exercise. I'm going to hold that moment with a bit of writing, with a little bit of art. And then after I'm done with it, I'm gonna step back and say, how could I dunk into this deeper? What did it make me feel? Why just picking a random moment from my mind, why is this in there? Because there's a reason. What did I feel about that thing? And then those two pieces are where all of a sudden that hollow vessel of art becomes so much richer. And so that's the CTA. Take a random moment from your memory or a random moment in your everyday life and just describe it.

28:28Just capture it. Don't add commentary. Don't try to make it something more initially. And then after you've described it, after you've held it, then step back and say, how could I add a little extra sauce to this bad baby? How could I go deeper? How could I dunk it a little bit more and say, what did I feel? now you're having something that's a little bit fuller now you're having something that is a little bit supercharged and you have the start of a hollow start but a full piece

29:20so i part i kind of want to apologize for throwing that that uh thought experiment of an afterlife at you because for me it's kind of chilling to think about getting to an afterlife where i'm reliving when i'm most locked in and just hundreds of hours of that is me staring at my phone unable because i'm reliving it i'm unable to change anything and forced to look at this stupid crap that i didn't really need to look at in the first place while in the periphery in the background are all the things that matter vying for my attention and so art is the opposite of that for me because when art is at its best when it's it is a vessel when i think about the times that i was locked into that that's when i was savoring things i was savoring when i was telling this story i was savoring how magnificently unique and uh varied the universe is when i was making the book, A Sunday with Everything on It, which is about celebrating just how the multiplicity, the multitudes that are contained within this universe and how amazing that is.

30:45Or when I was making the book Invisible Things and I was kind of holding on to how much is happening beyond our vision and how mysterious and mystic and strange and weird reality really is and how deep and powerful and meaningful it can be when you look past what you can see. That that was me savoring those moments. And I would not only love to relive them, I was reliving them. I was reliving life. I was holding life through art. And it meant that I could really capture it. And so I apologize for that freaky afterlife notion. I'm not one of these people that doesn't think there's time to zone out, there's time to switch off.

31:36I totally am down for that. But I don't want to just be switched off. I want to do things that help me switch on. And I think art can be that, especially when times are tough. It can be incredibly important to hold onto the cheesy stuff, hold onto what makes this good, and also hold onto and shine light on and capture what's really happening. Some of the artists out here, that's what they're doing. They're using their art to shed light on all the stuff that's happening in the world that needs to be held by the general public. And so I hope this jazzed you up, lit you on fire and sparked your creativity.

32:23massive thanks to Sophie Miller for being an editor and producer on the show thanks to Connor Jones of pending beautiful for audio edits video edits sound design animation um thanks to Yoni Wolf and the band Y for our theme music and soundtrack and thanks to all of you for listening till we speak again stay pepped up

33:02Hello, this is Jack Wilson, the host of the History of Literature podcast. For the past 10 years, I've been talking to novelists, biographers, and scholars about the greatest books in the history of the world and the men and women who wrote them, like our recent episodes on Dante and Love, a starter pack of 10 Indian classics, the pop culture that influenced Sylvia Plath, and a talk with scientist and novelist Alan Lightman about the wonders of nature. Join us at the History of Literature podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, the podcast is over, so I don't know why you're still listening, but I am glad that you enjoyed it enough to stick to the end.