9/29/2022 0 Comments Being creative is hard (again)A.
Somedays I feel like I'm just throwing things into the abyss and hoping something comes back to me. That something sticks. I'm not sure if it has or hasn't yet but I keep trying either way. I'm currently sat up on my bed at 11pm, I've called half my contact list because I am in one of my weekly panics about not being good enough to keep throwing things at that abyss. Not sure that it wants anything I have to offer. Of course I have to make everything some poetic metaphor but basically? I feel like I suck at creating things and I need someone to tell that I don't. I am one of those artists that needs a 'good job' every now and then, that pat on the back that says that I've accomplished even some little thing. Maybe that's why I like preforming so much. It's nerve wracking, because there's always that chance that you were wrong and that this is not the audience for your work, then there are no pats to be given and it really feels like you should be yanked off stage with a big can. But lately I've been working a lot on projects that require me to be in my room, alone, in my own head, overthinking away and adjusting every little sentence and editing slider until I feel like I could go absolutely mad and I can't stand the thing I'm working on anymore. It's an interesting process honestly, that record scratching that happens between "I love this project this is going great!" and "Oh god I can't do this I'm wasting everyone's time." It's a back and forth I am all too familiar with. Because I've been so in my head lately, I thought "Blogging! That's the best way I know to talk to an audience that can't be in the room." So hi dear reader welcome to my creative spiral. You're probably wondering what I'm working on that's got me all tied in knots this time, so I thought since I haven't really introduced my projects in a while, I'd do that here. Then maybe I can get some self validation that I have in fact been doing something other than locking myself in my room for months at a time. Project 1: Violets In The Winter You can find more information about this project in the work in progress part of my website, but I wanted to give you a bit of information here now that I've got things moving along a lot faster than when I last talked about this. For those unaware (though who really is at this point with how much I talk about it) I am a poet and preforming artist. I have two poetry books published and out in the world right now I Am Arrogant And Cruel and Lovely Thoughts At 3am which are both available on Amazon. Violets In The Winter is my third poetry compilation which feels really crazy to say but there it is. I've been working really hard behind the scenes on as usual just picking apart my heart for display, writing as straight and honestly as I can even when it makes me cringe a little and curating that bundle of poems. I've just gotten to the alpha reading portion of editing so I'm sending it out to a small group to get feedback and of fucking course that means that I've been freaking out for the past week getting it ready. I know it's supposed to be messy but it's hard to get out of my head and pull my hands away from wanting to edit out all the actual feeling. Hopefully my friends can bully me enough to get me to be even more emotional. This poetry collection is a bit different from others I've done in that I'm going to be actually adding in images instead of just text. I've been taking photos with a little instax all year and I will be combing through those to find ones that compliment the book and set the tone I want. It's a new thing for me, but it felt like a natural addition. I've always wanted to add images in my poetry books so...third times the charm right? Project 2: Monster Photoshoot Okay so this project has been really killing me on the name BUT everything else is setting into place so nicely that I can only hope that the name will eventually run out and punch me in the face soon. This is a photoshoot that was birthed by my obsession with Cabin In The Woods horror aesthetics and the video game Until Dawn. Somehow someway a little idea for a cabin photo shoot grew to involve four friends volunteering to model, a photographer volunteering to help with shooting (you have no idea how much stress it takes off to have an extra photographer when me AND my usual backup photographer will also be models), and a whole organized set up. So far we've gone over the first half of the test shots and tonight I'm working on the information packet to send out to everyone which feels so much more fancy and professional than anything my photoshoot have ever been before. I'm effectively working as a project director, editor, photographer, makeup artist, and model which is honestly pretty normal for me, but not usually with OTHER PEOPLE my shoots are almost always done solo and the times when they aren't it's just me, my best friend, a camera, and a dream. Now I have a whole crew list. Insane. Insane. I've been freaking out over it for like a month. I've looked over the information pack like 80 times and I keep making other people who aren't involved look at it because I just so greatly wanna get this right. I'm really lucky to have a crew that trusts and believes in my vision with this, so I refuse to let any part of it go awry. If that means I wanna stab out my eyeballs if I have to read the shot list one more time, so be it. Least I'll remember the bug spray this time. Project 3: Book Tour You heard it here first, I am going on a mini BOOK TOUR. It's literally just around Jacksonville but I am losing my MIND over how cool it is that I'll be doing this. Findable on the Published Works section of my site, you'll find my first anthology inclusion which is a book titled Places We Build In The Universe! I will be touring different book stores in Jacksonville with another author in the anthology lovely Michelle Flores. Dates and stores and all that are TBD but you'll differently hear about it if you follow my Instagram and Twitter. As an independent author, planning these things is a me job, so I've been just a little bit freaking the fuck out ever since people started agreeing to let us use their venues. Now I feel like I have to throw like the most Gatsby book releases ever even though realistically it will probably be just a little under the Gatsby standard(only a little). Can you believe that I sleep? I know, me neither. I've turned pretty much nocturnal so that I have all the time I need to get everything done since I work best at night. I feel like a vampire plotting in his lair these days. But it will all be worth it when everything is done, and then onto the next things... Until Next Time. Signing Off, Stiles.
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I’m a creator. Not because I want money or fame or a viral moment, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting those things, but because I don’t feel good when I don’t. I’ve never had a time in my life where I was not creating but I have had several times in my life where I was not creating much or I didn’t have the energy or the time and each of those times I’ve been just about the most depressed I’ve ever been. For those of you who don’t know, Hi. My name is Nico, and I have depression. And somedays the only thing that gets me through that is my creations, I write, I draw, I get it out the best way I know how. It’s something that leaves a space in me and I think I fill that space with my art.
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how I create and what. I’ve felt very disembodied, like I was looking out from the inside just trying to piece myself together. I had a lot of huge life things happen all in succession which kind of for lack of a better term left me with nothing in place. It forced me to look at myself and what I’m doing now and ask what makes me get up in the morning. I know, dramatic. It’s the only way I know how to be. I don’t obviously want to figure out the secrets to my life all right now, I don’t need that, but how I start this chapter? Who I am in this current moment? And when I asked myself those questions, and it did take some time, I started answering them by doing. Now, this isn’t my first time at the existential rodeo, and usually this is how I answer it, I just start moving forward. Funny enough I never really know where I’m trying to go until I’m on the bus. I’m not even really sure what I’m trying to say here. I’ve just started writing. So I started creating more. What do you do when you’re feeling existential? Well I try to make something out of it. I’ve started a YouTube, the same channel that I’ve wanted to have since I was a kid I’m finally actively creating. I’ve started a new blog, always loved that when I had my anon ones in Highschool. And I’m daily posting on all my socials. On top of I’ve been applying to more magazines with my poetry and photos and I’m working on my third poetry book. So I suppose my answer to how I want to move forward is that I want to create. And funny enough I’ve found I want to create in the same ways I’ve wanted for years, just new things that I never thought I could. It’s interesting the things you come back to, but isn’t that supposed to be a sign to keep them? The thing about me and creating is while I do it because I have to, because I love and I breathe it, I always feel like I’m in a competition, but not with other creators, while yeah I have my moments, I compare myself to others just like everybody else, but usually? I feel like I’m in a competition with myself. I’m just always trying to one up me and create the best work I ever have over and over and over. It always has to be bigger and better than the last thing I’ve done and while I guess it’s not all bad, for me personally I think I tend to stunt myself with that want. Because sometimes the thing I’m making is just as good as the last thing or sometimes I want to make something simpler or I get to thinking what will be the highest I can reach? You know like what do I do if this is the best that I can make? I like kill myself in this competition to be better than me and sometimes it keeps me from appreciating the things that I do. Like nothing really feels like an accomplishment because that goalpost keeps moving before I’ve even gotten a long enough look to know what colour the flag is. And I don’t want it to be like that obviously. I’ve tried to make an effort lately to really just take a secound to be proud of my work before I compare it to see if it’s gotten as good a reaction as my last post or if the editing is visibly better or if it’s a more extravagant idea than the last thing I did and just sit with the fact that I did something. I made a thing exist. And as artists especially now you know in the time of social media artistry and me being a content creator, we move so fast to get things out and to keep up with algorithms and to give our audiences new material that we don’t really give ourselves enough credit to sit with the fact it’s just cool as hell that you made a thing. This thing didn’t exist before and then you just did it. There’s something beautiful in creation no matter what it is, I mean the word creator is religious. It means something. I definitely don’t see myself slowing down anytime soon. I actually think that because of all this introspection and existentialism I’ll be creating a lot more, I mean art is how I process all this whether it looks like that’s what I’m doing or not. But I do wanna take more time to appreciate that. I know that a lot of you who follow me and definitely a lot of you who read my blog are also artists and really I feel like everyone is an artist in someway or refusing themselves the credit they deserve for something or other so I hope if you read this far and you feel emotions about it, that you start trying to give yourself a little more credit and the room to appreciate your mortal divinity aswell. And I’ll keep trying to appreciate the me that I am trying to be better than. Until Next Time. Signing Off, Stiles |
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September 2022
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