Path
Originally uploaded by eschipul.

Lately I’ve been thinking back on my creative journey.

For some people it’s really pretty simple. “I’ve just always been into writing,” or “I’ve always been into drawing.” For me, however, it seems like it has been more of a meandering journey through various forms of creative expression. It’s like those kids in college that can’t decide on a major, and so they hop around from discipline to discipline until they end up being forced to graduate. Sometimes they are referred to a “professional students”. Well, I guess that would make me a “professional creator”?

I presume the biggest problem with my creative journey is that I was never much interested in settling down in one place. For me it has never been about any particular art or discipline… it has always been about enjoying the feeling of being creative. For me, it has always been about the journey itself.

I can think way back to my early years in elementary school, where I really enjoyed writing little stories. As I grew older, I began to explore more of my creativity through carpentry, models, and other physical expressions. (I was using power tools to build stuff by the time I was 8 years old… what were my parents thinking!) Junior High and High School was my “visual arts” period. I never really got into painting, but I would draw like crazy! This was also about the time that my parents got a full-sized VHS video camera… hoo boy! I quickly appropriated that thing and made a ton of really bad movies with it. (Hmmm…. I wonder where all of those tapes are now?)

In college, I discovered music. I learned to play the piano and the guitar, wrote some songs, and even tried my hand at some multi-track recordings. Also during college, I decided that, while I would get my engineering degree, I would pursue instead a career in 2D animation (mind you, this was during Disney’s 2nd golden age… who would’ve thought that they were going to kill the art form so quickly). I worked at my aunt’s animation studio, then partnered with a cousin for our own studio. I even spent a summer out in California taking animation and art classes at the Cartoonists’ Union.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I sat down and wrote a musical! Yep… I wrote the music and lyrics, produced various performances over two years, and directed the performers. That creative project was a lot of fun… and a lot of work! (I’m still tired!)

After the musical, I meandered through writing screenplays, 3D animation, film and video production, but I was never able to get enough traction on any one project. Then I came across National Novel Writing Month.

I figured, “hey, I’ve got a lot of stories inside of me… and I can spare one month to focus on it. So why not?” My first NaNoWriMo spawned “Murder by Design” and the second gave birth to “Conclave”. Now, I am hooked on writing! I can’t honestly say that I am producing novels, since at just shy of 50,000 words it is technically considered a novella, but I’m having fun writing the stories anyway!

Now, here’s the dirty little behind-the-scenes truth about true creative journeys… they never reallyend!

I now have gotten involved in podcasting. “Murder by Design” and “Conclave” will soon be released as serialized audio fiction (podiobooks), I’ve consulted on the development of some new video projects, and I want to turn some of my old screenplays into video podcasts.

Truly, for me, the journey is more fun than the destination.

So, what’s your creative journey been like?