Know Your Seeds
My creative process
I lied. Not to you, dear reader. I lied to myself. When I posted the entry Paid to Write, I made the case that my day job pays me to write, which makes me a paid writer and therefore I am fulfilling my calling.
But is writing itself my calling?
A few discussions were published this week on YouTube with me verbally processing all of this. One is a conversation with J.P. Marceau on applying symbolism in the work world. The other is an epic round-table discussion with “middle-class” myth-makers on How to Make Good Myths in modern times. Fantasy author, Nicholas Kotar, singer-songwriter and filmmaker, Neil DeGraide of Dirt Poor Robins, and Tolkien scholar and RPG game designer, Richard Rohlin, lay out what it takes to be a storyteller and what beginners should know getting started.
Through these conversations, a subtle but critical detail availed itself to me.
Some people love to write. It matters not what they are writing. Their assignment could be to write anything from a fantasy fiction to a grant proposal to an obituary.1 Whatever it is (within a certain moral framework), writing is a end in itself, and they are pleased to compensated for their work. The same applies to YouTube. Some love making videos, growing an audience, and monetizing their content. They could be posting movie reviews, essays about baseball lore, VHS collecting, or orchid care. They enjoy the process itself more than the content itself. They care about the mechanics of crafting, than what they are crafting.
That’s not me. I work the other way around. Writing is not my calling. The stories are.
Since I was a teenager, ideas for stories arrive in my mind, like guests arriving at your door.2 The stories are the point, and writing is a means to producing that end.
Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not talking about how some artists describe being a conduit or channeling the muses. I get what they are saying but I it misses the mark. A different controlling metaphor does, at least to my experience.3
Martin Laird, in his book Into the Silent Land, describes a gardener and his seeds.4 The type of seeds inform the gardener what he needs to be done to bring the plants into fruition.
What types of seeds have you been given? Here is my quick list from the last post Opening the Trunk. I’m working on a more comprehensive one and plan to post it by the new year.
Fantasy epics, music concept albums, graphic novels, historical fiction, and a mystical memoir.
Yes, I have received quite the eclectic collection of ideas. I'm uninterested in picking a niche genre and drilling content. I am convicted by cultivating the seeds I've been given, not manufacturing cash crops. What can I say, I’ve never been one for monocropping.5 Even so, the point is that I plant what I've been given. If, from here on out, I get nothing but sci-fi dramas, than so be it.
I get an idea, a special kind of an idea, a sacred idea. Then it is up to me to tend to it, to partner with the pattern.
Some people, I imagine, sit down and say, “I’d like to be a fantasy sci-fi author.” But for me, a story arrives, and as I get to know the story, it tells me what type of genre it is. “I guess I need to write an epic fantasy sci-fi trilogy,” I say to myself. One is the means informing the end; the other is the end informing the means. I start with the end in mind (as Covey puts it in 7 habits). The whole of the story comes first, then characters and details arrive over time, steadily.
I am a gardener. Writing, playing music, podcasting, and YouTubing are supportive means to that end. Whatever it takes to get the story out there. It doesn’t matter to me if I am a paid writer. I care about finishing these stories, before I die, because no one else can. I must tend to the seeds that I have been given and do what needs to be done to bring them to fruition so others can benefit from their life-giving contents.
Know your seeds. Tend to them.
Post Script
I posted three short video clips from the 2-hour How to Make Good Myths podcast.
The first is called Watch ANDOR: convincing let-down artist Star Wars series actually good. (5 minutes)
The second is called The Differences between Myth & Mythology explained. (9 minutes)
The last one was my first forret in YouTube “Shorts” and is called The only honest response to a work of art. (24 seconds)
I recorded a conversation with Matthieu Pageau. It premieres on YouTube on December 13, 2022, at 6pm pst/9pm est.
See my article in the Symbolic World Blog, The Symbolism of Story. I break down the difficulty of composing a measly 200 word paragraph to encapsulate the essence of a person’s entire life.
I talked about this more in my post The Calling in Your Heart.
I picked up this term from Alastair Roberts in his book Echos of Exodus. I elaborated upon “controlling metaphors” in a short video.
A big shout out to
for recommending the book in the comments section of the post Purpose in the Pain. My friend, Andrew Tran, and I are reading it together. It’s been a blessing to read thus far. You can hear Andrew’s story in one of my podcasts from 2020 called Becoming Whole.More so Permaculture and regenerative gardening. See my conversations with Evan Doukas and Steve Larson.