The Swarm of Creativity

This is an issue I've had, even using a winery as a creative outlet... which still makes money so it sucks time, LOL. However, I've gone the opposite direction and have chopped out the other creative avenues (gaming, game creation, screenwriting, world building disease gets stuck in there, map art) and focused on writing for the first time in 20 years or more. And I kick myself now for all those detours, but at the same time, life experience will make the writing richer. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I think it was Mark Twain who was obsessed with shooting pool which probably cost him a lot of writing, heh heh. I'll blame pool halls and dart boards for my lack of productivity in my 20's, LOL, plus online gaming... even the text MMO Dragon Realms and table RPGs sucked too much time. GM'n games sucked lots of creative energy.

Creative ADD has ruled my life, too many pokers in the fire, but I've finally gotten to the point where I just want to shut my money making business down and hermit-write, heh heh. Unfortunately, this is the real world, need to make money writing before I do that.

 

Writing is such an innate part of me that i can't really get sidetracked from writing. I have long periods where i don't actually work of books or stories, yes, but during that time i am always coming up with ideas and writing them down, processing my own experiences so they can eventually inform my stories, writing down names or sentences I like, working on poetry or songwriting, or acting out my characters' dialogue in the shower (no, i'm not kidding, i have done this)--it's always something, and I don't even try to do this, it's just the way my mind works. Occasionally, i seek other creative outlets, like drawing. I'm kind of terrible at it, but it is a creative outlet. Possibly, the reason why other creative outlets don't sidetrack me is that i'm just awful at everything except writing, haha.

 

Aside from writing, I also make music, and have recently started getting involved in film making. It's hard to juggle the different creative projects, along with work and classes. I still try to find time to write as often as possible, though it isn't every day like it was before I started doing other things. I've pivoted a lot of my writing time to short stories recently, because that way I'm still getting in practice, and I'm pumping out more finished products. A lot of the short stories are set in the world of my novel, so it also helps me do some worldbuilding in the process.

 

Oh boy, it's tough. I get sidetracked aaaall the time.

I find that to finish a piece of work, I have to focus on it to the exclusion of everything else. Else it drags on and on and on...

 

I find that engaging in my other creative pursuits actually helps my writing. Taking time to knit/sew/crochet is as relaxing as meditation to me and I often come up with new ideas, figure out ways to fix story or character problems, etc. while going through the repetitive motions.

Woodworking helps be build my creative problem solving skills (I pretty much wing it, so there's lots of problems to solve).

Gardening also gives me time to think, and there's something about being covered in dirt and being in nature that is reenergizing. Whenever I'm stumped on a story, or too mentally or emotionally exhausted to write, an hour in the garden usually sorts it out.

I sometimes still feel guilt, using spare time to pursue other endeavours, but I'm personally working on creating more balance in my life, and it's hard to have balance when all my creative ducks are in one basket.

 

Yay! Someone who understands that gardening nurtures the creative soul!

 

I have the same problem.
Beating my self up about such things makes me less productive and my bad conscious brings negative feelings to the table, that is not helpful when it comes to writing and wanting to get forward with my projects.
So I am trying to teach myself not to beat myself over the head when that happens and just allow myself to take on what I am doing at the moment, often those other things spark something or give me ideas I can use.