Has anyone else discovered this phenomena? In my experience, I either have an exciting social life but no creative endeavours or I have an active artistic life but barely any friends. There has to be some people out there who've been able to balance both lives. Can you offer some tips to those of us who are social butterflies/mad artists?
Well...I've surrounded myself with the most bizarre group of people; A goth, a football player, a wrestler, a rock star, a internet super-hero, a video-game nerd, a businessman, and an artist. We pretty much do everything together, this little group of mine. So if you could find yourself some really out of the ordinary types...might help you solve that quandary.
I for the most part agree with you. The rate of poetry I've been writing (and to a lesser extent, the quality) has plummeted since I came to boarding school.
hrm....I've never had this as a problem really. I write all the time and my friends accept that. I visit them, I need to write, I write and most of them are writers themselves anyways. I am not a very sociable person either though. I'm some what of a hermit. I like that too. But I find it easy to balance writing and a social life.
Hmmm .... what a difference a few hours can make. I read this earlier and didn't think much of it. Now, as I watch a friendship slowly coming to an end, this post took on a whole new dimension. Yes I will miss them and the time we shared. My artistic side, however, is suddenly drawing me towards those projects I have left unattented for far too long.
Being not entirely disabled just enough to make having friends awkward it really isn't much of a problem for me. Except that having friends gives you a different outlook on life and your own creativity. You watch friends and have these strange ideas that turn ordinary life events into strange story material. You have friends and start thinking what your hobby could make as a gift for them. You have friends and when you tell them a story plot you think is crap they tell you something that will change your mind and it turns into a wonderful story line. Or vice versa. They don't even have to be close friends just acquaintances can affect your creativity as well. So in my opinion creativity does like friends. What do hermits write about. what they had for dinner?
I think it depends on how willing you are to sit down and do something creative after going out and doing something with friends. Usually I find myself either more social or more reclusive, never in between, but it doesn't determine how much creative writing I do. Try coming home from spending time with friends, and forcing yourself to write. Even if you don't get anything worthwhile out of it, what did you lose?
Actually, I know exactly what you mean. . . When I am creative, I don't isolate myself from my friends but I spend less time with them. I dont know why that is but since I'm in college, when I do party, it's impossible for me to write...lol. It's really hard to find time to write when I'm on campus, I do a lot of my writing when I come home on break or on weekends.
My friends accept that I write and I don't think I have had too much of a problem...maybe once...she totally didn't get it. But, aside from her, I have never had this problem..
An active social life is imperative for me during the writing process. I know (because I have been told on more than one occasion by people literally continents apart) that I have a strange speaking pattern. I was once told, “You talk like you ate a dictionary.” If I don’t socialize, I can’t write dialogue that sounds natural to anyone other than myself.
I think in my own case, the only reason I'm so creative is because I have no friends, and nothing else to distract me or hold my attention (I have terrible anxiety and am thus disabled), so I make up all the exciting things in my head, myself. An attempt to counter the loneliness and emptiness by filling it up with make believe. I'm not saying it works, but I highly doubt that I would write nearly as much as I do if I actually had a life and friends like normal people. Most of the other writers I encounter online are always lamenting about how little time they have to write, and I notice that they have friends, jobs, families, etc., so maybe that's an issue. Finding time to write and imagine just isn't much of an issue for me because I have nothing better to do. Unfortunately, I've never been in a position to speak from the opposite side (active social life/minimal creative life), thus I have no advice.
I never thought if it this way. It's true that very few of even the best friends are patient with being told, "Shhh! I'm thinking!" too often or in other ways being utterly ignored when I'm in the grip of an idea. My poor husband has had to curtail conversations with me because I was busy mulling over a creative problem and had to solve it before I could talk. He's also had to put up with getting a perfunctory kiss on my way through the door because I HAD to get to a sketchbook or notepad. Amazingly, I'm still married, though. Not many friends but I think that's fairly normal for a full-time mom.
