Thoughts on Creativity.

I’m not a writer, but I do *like* to write. Throughout a large portion of my adult life I’ve had numerous blogs, I’ve never used any of them. It took me some time, but eventually, I realised that I don’t really have much to write about, or to be accurate, the things I want to write about I can’t write about because of, well, reasons. I’m not trying to be mysteriously vague here, I’m not a spy (although that is what I would say if I was). Maybe one day I’ll be able to write about the things I want to, until then, I’ve always been content (or not so much) with writing nothing.

Something changed, I started a podcast.

When I started That’s A Free Bee, I didn’t quite understand the change it would inspire in me. I started it as a bit of a joke, really (even the title is based on a joke, but that’s a story for another day). People in my inner circle had suggested that I make a podcast because I seem to have a story for every situation. I started to notice over the following weeks that it’s true I do. But most of my stories involve other people or shared experiences that it’s okay to mention among friends, but not so much in a public forum. That’s just not fair to the other people involved. After some thought, it became clear I should make the podcast about me, but here’s the catch: I’m simply not that interesting.

Within the first 10 episodes, I noticed that I was going to run out of stories to tell. After all, I’m just an ordinary guy who doesn’t have much going on other than working a fairly ordinary job. Granted, I’m doing my dream job, but as previously established, I can’t really talk about that. I also have a family: a wonderful wife and two mildly annoying children (I joke, I adore them both). I thought to myself, “I’m just like everyone else”. That’s when the spark happened, and the fire rumbled on a low heat. It hit me: “We are all the same”. The idea formed in the flames, and it grew. What if that’s the point? What if what I have to share is the experiences of my ordinary life, the everyday challenges that we all hide because we have to seem so perfect to the outside world.

I had experimented with all kinds of gimmicky entertainment-type content, but the only thing I didn’t change was sharing about my life and the elements that make it up the fun parts, the struggles, the everyday conversations with my kids, the things that make me, well, me. These are also the things that make you, you. Fundamentally, we are all the same; we all have these experiences that make up our lives, and we all want those experiences to look like they mean something.

That’s what That’s A Free Bee became, just a look into the life of an ordinary guy, for some just a stranger on the internet.

It has become more than that. For me, it has almost become a form of therapy. Daily, I’m on the lookout for notes to make. I’ve built an entire system in Notion that’s simply there to help me quickly capture my experiences, my chance conversations, and the quirky things my kids say to me. Just the simple act of doing this has helped me analyse my life and see that it’s not quite as mundane as I thought. I do have some useful life experiences to share. Sure, some days, even weeks, have more high points than others. That’s just life. It would be so much more draining if every single day were full of surprise, excitement, and new experiences. Nobody has a life like that, no matter how they portray themselves to the outside world.

At this point, you’re probably thinking, what does all this have to do with writing?

I’m getting there. First, I want to talk about creativity. That’s Free Bee unlocked a level of creativity in me that I forgot I even had. In my late teens to my mid-20s, I was active in numerous online forums and was interested in graphic design work. I would spend large portions of my spare time playing Photoshop Tennis on DigiKitten (sadly no longer around), or playing around designing new user interface elements and sharing them on Macthemes (again, sadly gone). They were some of the most creative years of my life, and I got to know some remarkable people. As these services faded away into a distant memory, I moved on to photography, which I love as a hobby. I tried to go pro at one point, and while I told myself that I stopped because I didn’t want the hassle of running a business or chasing clients. The truth was that it’s just not as much fun when you’re not being creative for yourself. I didn’t enjoy it any more. Like the others, it just faded away.

I stopped being creative.

I didn’t even realise, I stopped my hobby of photography during COVID-19, I just stopped, I didn’t make a conscious decision, one day I just took my last photo and didn’t think about it again. I even remember the photo, it was actually a series about how being in lockdown can have a different effect on you from day to day. I’m not blaming COVID-19 because looking back I’m sure I would have stopped anyway, It certainly made stopping feel easier.

A famous vampire slayer once sang “I want the fire back” (I had to get a Buffy quote in here somewhere). Now, I’ve got the fire back. That’s A Free Bee reintroduced me to creativity. It’s not the most entertaining show in the world, it’s not at all the most professionally produced show in the world, heck it’s not even listened to by that many people (maybe 20-30 a week), but it’s my show and it’s my creative fire-starter. I’ve started collecting equipment again and investing time into learning how to use it. I now know more about using microphones, audio interfaces, and recording/editing software than ever thought I would.

I’ve also found that I want to do more.

Almost at the part about writing now. I’ve found that I enjoy speaking into the microphone every week or two. I even have some ideas in mind for some video related projects that I would like to do, and I would really like to start making some gameplay videos. I did try this before, but I found I was lacking the equipment and at least a bit of knowledge on how to put it all together. Furthermore, I’ve spent time learning and experimenting with setups and I think I’m at the point where I would like to start creating now. These are the projects I want to work on over the next year, I’m not putting any time pressure on myself — yet. I would like to have fun and learn new things.

Which finally brings me to writing.

I wrote this blog post, that's it. I’m kidding, of course, although not completely. Let’s go back to That’s A Free Bee for a minute, I promise it’s relevant. During my experimental phase I started a section called Podtales, yes I got the name idea from Ducktales, and yes, every time I say it I still say awooo hooo in my head. This section was inspired by the wonderful podcast Ungeniused by Stephen Hacket and Myke Hurley, two of my podcasting heroes (that’s digression for another time). In each episode, they pick a wikipedia article, and they read it in their words to us the listeners, and they discuss it. They are not the only ones who do this. I found many other podcasts do similar, most just read the article and add little. At first, I thought this would be useful as a filler idea until I found something else because at the time I was moving through ideas quite rapidly.

Only something was different this time. It took a few weeks, but I found that I was starting to enjoy the topics. I started to research and add more to them. I started to rewrite in my words, and I found my style. I didn’t realise it at the time, but I was writing a script for Podtales every week. I enjoyed it. I was enjoying writing something again, and more importantly, I had something to write about. I said at the beginning that I like to write. I always have. My secret, never said out loud, dream is that I have always wanted to write a book. Yes, a full novel with characters, a plot, the lot. I read many books, and I think everyone who likes to read at some point believes they can do it. Don’t worry, this isn’t me announcing that I’ve written a book, nor am I saying I’m going to.

I do, however, want to start writing more. Why, you might ask. To me, writing feels like the purest form of creativity. All you need is your mind and something to write on, and you can just go with it. I’m not discounting all the years professional writers spend studying language, composition, and storytelling, along with the hundreds of other skills I don’t even realise they require. What I’m trying to say is, I’m not a writer, but I like to write. That’s why I made this blog, to get me to write more. What am I going to write about? Some of the topics I cover, even just the ramblings about life, on That’s A Free Bee, would benefit from me spending some time thinking and writing about what I want to say. That’s what I’m going to do. I’d also like to try my hand at some short stories too. Who knows? My writing might be terrible. I don’t know. I’ve never written anything for public consumption before. What I do know is that practice helps, and so I’ll practice.