I’m thinking about digital gardens and my creative mechanisms. Making anything involves ideas, craft and tools. My current mechanism feels like a meat grinder. I’ve managed to make “creative writing” into something brutal and excruciating. Time to dismantle the machine.

This is what I do now

I go to the gym for weights. I stretch my hips at home.

I write in my notebook (a lot) to help me process things going on in my life, some dreams if I’m lucky, but mostly feelings and patterns. There are lots of notes towards a second novel.

I post to Bluesky, but recently I’ve been using an alt account because I needed to play around without censoring myself for an audience. I write the occasional blog post about my life. I read novels and post my notes on them to Patreon. Sometimes I’ll do a film challenge and post a series of short reviews. Once a month, I post a list of books read and films watched for paying patrons, and I started recording a vlog (which has stalled).

Every couple of years I redesign my website and move it to a new technology. I play a golf video game after work because it helps me relax and reminds me of my dad. My day job is mostly problem-solving, in software, systems and group dynamics.

My daughter introduces me to new music. I recently became obsessed with music reaction videos on YouTube—people recording themselves experiencing classic songs for the first time. (Coming off them now. I got addicted to the emotions.)

This is my creative life. Body. Bluesky. Blog posts. Novels and notes. Films. Coding (rare). Managing a team (9-5). A video game (one!). Music.

What’s the problem?

Anxiety. My anxiety says I’m not making anything. Not really. It says I’m not being serious. There’s no ambition. I say, I’m in survival mode. In other ways, I’m thriving, but my anxiety doesn’t buy that.

My mother was ambitious, my father wasn’t. Those two wolves still face off every day in my mind—one dissatisfied with her lot and wanting more, the other work-exhausted and wanting to hide in his burrow. I’ve created routines that serve the exhausted wolf because I’ve become a version of my father. My day job goes against my nature, but it keeps us all safe and warm. Dad climbed machinery in a steel works, I work at a desk with abstractions in code (and people).

Mum was a numbers gal, a bookkeeper, a jigsaw-lover, and did evening classes in all sorts of things. Dad read gigantic fantasy novels, watched old films and played golf. I have so many more opportunities than either of them had. Work makes the weeks go fast. Children make the weeks go faster. My notebooks fill up with the same old spirals. I keep thinking of my age, the age Mum was when she died, when I’ll die.

Possibilities

I want a softer machine, perhaps even something organic. An animal. A wolf wearing reading glasses. A panda. A Cronenberg-style metal-flesh hybrid. A naked woman. Talking books on a walking set of bookshelves. All of these. I want making to be fun.

It’s important I’m not just writing. The Bluesky alt account showed me the wonders of a free(r) libido. The animal wants what it wants and is surprisingly easy to negotiate with if I’m respectful. There’s no reason to limit myself. Piano. German. Learning to draw. Dungeons & Dragons (I loved being a Dungeon Master as a teen). Photography. Tennis. Travel. Let’s go!

Wanting success is the problem. The illusion of hard work guaranteeing success is baked into our culture. My mother believed it. Dad didn’t. The pressure that comes with that crushed the joy out of writing for me. I’d rather be ambitious for a full and interesting life.

What’s next?

I realise I’m restating similar ideas to my last post. That’s how it works in this house. I’m going to replace my author website with something more playful. I might link to a YouTube channel. I’m going to write less in my physical notebook and work through my daily shizz in more creative ways. Sometimes this will be online, mostly it won’t. There will be new skills.

I’m excited to be a beginner again. It’s going to be uncomfortable. My censor will try to block me. The internal chorus will try to shame me. The overwhelming feeling I have is a deep regret I didn’t understand all this sooner mixed with excitement that there is a wave building through these words with so much energy it could take me somewhere completely new.