💭 Where the Ideas Come From

Dear friends,

My creativity goes through seasons. Right now, I’m in a season of finding the seeds of new ideas, starting new drafting documents, and setting them aside. I’m in a season of doing administrative work, managing systems, and thinking about my creative ecosystem.

What I’m not in is a season of writing.

I would like to be writing! At least, my brain would like to be writing. The rest of my body, however, would like to be playing video games, sitting on the back porch, tearing through YA fantasy, and generally not doing anything that feels like too much work. Ideas and admin is about all I can manage at the moment, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years of being an artist, it’s that I have to let myself move at my own pace.

So, this month, our theme is Inspiration.

As artists, sometimes we’re inspired to do our art, and sometimes we’re just not. I think that it’s easy to fall into the trap of viewing the presence or absence of inspiration as a signifier of our worth as artists, rather than a tide that ebbs and flows like any other. What I’ve learned over time is that there are about a million other factors that go into “do I feel like writing right now or not” that have nothing to do with how “good” I am at actually writing.

I’ve experienced a huge creative resurgence over the past year or so, and I don’t think the timing of it is happenstance. I’m lucky enough to live in a nice spot with a wonderful partner, write from a home workspace that’s not in my bedroom, and have the time and funds to really focus on taking care of my health.

And perhaps the thing that’s had the greatest impact on my artistic life: last spring, I left a demoralizing job for one with nicer people, better pay, less stress, and the ability to work from home. Almost as soon as I gave in my notice, I had the mental energy to really throw myself into game design. Pretty much all the time I spent wondering “will this executive actually show up to the meeting I scheduled for him” and “when will anyone on my own team get my pronouns right” is now spent wondering “what if carrots were people” and “what delicacies would they eat on the salt planet from The Last Jedi.”

I know some artists really thrive while working through challenging circumstances, but I am not one of them! My inner artist needs to be figuratively lounging on a fainting couch eating pastries in order to get anything done. (If you’re also one of those types of artists, welcome to my salon: the couch is right over there.)

As someone currently surfing the tide of inspiration, here’s a look into the places my ideas tend to come from.

The bones of many of my games come from other media I’m enjoying. I tend to get stuck on a particular piece of a book or movie or game, and imagine a new framework springing up around that piece. My game As the World Falls Down is directly inspired by the ballroom scene from Labyrinth, and actually uses that song as its soundtrack; Dream Quilt began as a take on the part of Kiki’s Delivery Service where Kiki is too burnt out to do magic, and grew into something different. I’m playing a lot of Tears of the Kingdom right now, and I already have a draft based on it in the works! I have so much fun pulling those small pieces out of other things I love and transforming them into new experiences.

Once I have a vague idea for something, a themed call often helps me solidify and finish it. As a game designer, I mainly find themed calls through game jams: specific design challenges with specific deadlines that collect self-published work. If you’re a writer, you might enjoy the “themed call” filter on Chill Subs, a submission call search tool.

Having said everything I’ve just said about letting my creativity ebb and flow, sometimes, what does it for me is just a random, externally-set deadline. I probably submit to about a third of the jams I sign up for, though, so within this structure there’s still always room to decide I don’t actually want to push myself. My favorite jams have come from the Reliquary Street Station, a rad trans art collective I’m a part of; my game Your Friend in Witchcraft began as a Reliquary jam submission.

Finally, I’m sometimes lucky enough to literally dream up a fun idea, or wake up with a fully-formed structure already in mind. My poem autumn dream with pouring rain is a direct recounting of a dream I had; my game Colossal came from a dream I had in which I designed a game about communicating with a giant squid. I recently woke up with a full idea for the Aspire SRD Jam, but we’ll see if I make the deadline in time! The more I talk about my dreams, the better I’m able to pay attention to and remember them.

If you’re an artist, where do your ideas tend to come from? I’d love to hear about them in a comment or a reply to this email.

Announcements & Updates

• I’m now a featured artist with Lily Lane, a very cool Boston-area organization dedicated to sharing opportunities for local artists 🪷
• I’ll be vending at the virtual Sick & Disabled Zine Fair from June 18-24. I’ve gotten a sneak peek at the other vendors, and there’s going to be some really neat stuff here 💕
• My game Your Friend in Witchcraft is in the Queer Games Bundle 2023! You can pick it up with 400+ (!) other rad games by queer designers for the month of June 🏳️‍🌈

Current Projects

• I’ve been working on improving the accessibility of all of my games! I’m adding additional versions that use Atkinson Hyperlegible, a font designed for readers with low vision, and Open Dyslexic, a font designed for dyslexic readers, and adding alt text for images when possible. I’ve worked through a good number of them so far, and I’m hoping to finish the rest of my games by the end of this month!
• My aforementioned Tears of the Kingdom-inspired game, using Cezar Capacle’s PUSH system

Things I Loved This Month

• Tears of the Kingdom, obviously — did you know that the Legend of Zelda series is incredibly queer?
• Visiting my friends in Philly (and also eating an incredible scoop of vegan tahini fudge ice cream at Milk Jawn; if you are lactose intolerant and in Philadelphia, pls go there)
• Common Shapes, a new podcast about rituals & creative practices by Marlee Grace, an artist I’ve admired for a long time
• “Positive Charge,” the first new Gaslight Anthem song in YEARS
• The Last Hours trilogy by Cassandra Clare; warm weather is making me fully revert back to my teenage reading habits
• This beautiful d6 necklace from While Odin Sleeps that is maaaybe too on the nose for a game designer (but it’s so pretty I don’t care!)
• Textile projects! I’m making a throw pillow out of a sashiko embroidery sampler, and working on restoring a lovely and damaged vintage quilt

Thanks for joining me this morning — I’ll see you next time for a look inside one of my games!