The Creative Process #32 - Colouring Outside the Lines

I spent the last six weeks zigging and zagging. For five weeks I was the logistics guy for a workshop, pretending to be an extrovert and keeping everything running smoothly. Following that I had a week of waking up at 4am, dodging the kangaroos on my way to work, and trying to grapple with some of the toughest maths I’ve ever had to face for three hours before the sun comes up. Exhausting but worthwhile stuff. And, to be frank, it’s the reason why I’m a little late this month.

While everything was going exhaustively tickety-boo, I’d occasionally and instinctively turn my head to check the news. For the most part it’d just be a pummeling tuba of farts to the face.

As a creative force, it’s easy to fall into extremes. You might surrender to Voltaire’s Candide and decide that you just need to “cultivate one’s own garden”. Shut out the world and draw the borders with your outstretched arms. And I admit, some nights this month I did that — spent from the day, I would just play Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. I’d punch a few Nazis for carthasis, but otherwise just revel in a gorgeous adventure away from any real concerns.

In the other extreme, it might feel like the moral imperative is to discard all creative endeavours and fight until the world is right again. But that will use you up too quickly, and life hopefully goes on for quite some time.

I’m trying to find somewhere in the middle ground. Do the things that fill my belly, literally and creatively. But also push just a little beyond the edges. It’s a little scary colouring outside the lines. It’s necessarily messy. But doing the same old thing isn’t going to work nowadays. At least not for a while. Even if it’s not neat, let art glow.

Devin Kelly wrote a lovely blog post on Camille Rankin’s “This is What I Do Instead of Dying”, which I think points in a similar direction.

My little effort

One way that I’m trying to colour outside the lines is that I’ve volunteered to be on the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation’s grant committee. I’ve been donating to the IFTF for years, and helping out a little more recently. I’ll be meeting everyone in a week or so, and find out how I can help.

This is a step up for me — such things probably involve quite a bit of discussion and decision-making in an area that I’m really not experienced in. But I’d like to take an active role in boosting projects that colour outside the lines a bit, and redefine the landscape for the better. Again, I’m neither a traditionalist nor a radical, but am keen on positive change.

Coincidentally, also on the panel is Aaron Reed who makes many things that I enjoy. One of those was the procedurally generated (non-AI) spectrum of novels called Subcutanean. Five years ago he had promised to release the source code for this project, and true to his word, he did. Subcutanean is such a unique project, and it’s great that he’s released it into the world. A more boring person might hold onto it forever.

Why the edges shouldn’t be boundaries

My daughter turned seven this month, which aged me greatly to realise. She’s a beautiful, clever girl and moving out of her “young kid” phase. As a sign of trust and experimentation, we got her an iPad of her own. She’d often use mine; with clashes when I needed it for RPG Fridays, or as she puts it, Girl’s Night with Mum.

I’m a diehard Android user, but I have to admit that the tablet wars were won by the iPad. So we made the plunge.

I had to set it up covertly before her birthday. I preserved the paper wrapping so she could have her own unboxing experience. Although after trying to put the screen protector on, she’s lucky to not have to fish it out of a deep wound in my office wall. It was a great success.

The purported benefits of the whole Apple ecosystem is that they define the boundaries, but you’re guaranteed a great experience therein. I don’t think the latter is true any more. They are top-notch physical products, but their software is garbage. I can say that when their specific “use your iPad to set up your new iPad” product broke in fundamental ways that required me to skeeze my way through installation. You can’t debug anything, you just have to hope it works right away or maybe after a reboot.

Though, for all my complaints, it’s been a great experience for my daughter. Having her own computing device that she can customize how she likes is a new experience for her. I can see the boundaries of that experience much more clearly than her, partly because I set some of them. But I am optimistic that when I set up her first proper computer, those boundaries will open up yet again.

I thoroughly enjoy personal and creative computing. I want to be able to tweak things and put dents in others. I want my computing to have character. I want it to have my character. Too much of computing is anathema to that. Apple products especially, but increasingly of Microsoft and Google. We’re seeing a existentially weird version of that where so many people are surrendering their voice to the voice of a corporate LLM.

For all the billions of dollars, they might have something arguably intelligent. But it’s definitely not human.

Practice

Over Christmas I had a break, but close to the minimal amount. I usually enjoy devoting January to exploring new ideas or technology, but I couldn’t, given my workshop duties.

I’m now on a few weeks’ leave, which is an incredible luxury at this time in the world. But I need it.

I plan to devote my quiet time to working on some projects, primarily interactive fiction. I also want to spend some time being intentional and tidy up. It’s easy to be a mess when the world feels like it is on fire (and in some cases, actually is).

One of those intentional projects is telling the blue passion flower vine in my backyard that it has way overstepped its boundaries. A few weeds here and there is acceptable colouring outside of the lines, but by engulfing and starving my native bottle brushes, it’s taking the piss. It’ll be a long road ahead. These things try to dig their feet in and dare you to go to great lengths just to prevent them from taking hold again. I can’t devote all my energy to it, but it’d be good to get it closer to an approximation of acceptable.

And I mean that all literally. Though feel free to take whatever metaphor you may find, Voltaire.

In general it’ll be a quiet, creative month. I hope to avoid tension as well as flabbiness. Hopefully next month I can talk in terms of progress rather than metaphors.