Creative Habits (vs Goals) and How To Sustain Them, with Adam Ming

From the Writing Desk:

The day after Christmas, one of my best friends messaged me and said “THE HALLOWEEN SEASON BEGINS ANEW.”

Yeah, I’m feelin that a little bit over here. Don’t get me wrong, Christmas and New Years were truly amazing, and I had a blast with my family in St. George, and then going to Disney Springs for ma birthdeeee. (Ya girl turned 36 on New Years Eve!)

But now…a little cozy, a lot over the Mondayishness of January already, and slowly but surely filling up with weird, nutty, swamp witch energy that I hope I can manage to hold on to the whole year.

Anyway.

December wasn’t the best words-on-the-page month (is it ever?) but it was actually quite a good growing of the idea seeds month.

I turned in a spooky short story for a possible anthology. I sent revisions on a picture book to my agent. Made some tiny, tiny progress on the adult novel. And for the first time in a while, have a couple middle grade projects that are starting to get their hooks into me.

The last few weeks, I’ve actually been doing more of what I thought was non-writing creative work. I’ve been researching auditions, figuring out self-tapes, drawing more, and watching art tutorials.

But after focusing on that “other” stuff for a while, it unlocked (reminded me?) of something very much key to my writing process. I had a bit of an epiphany.

My epiphany was this: For me, everything is about character.

That sort of seems obvious, but it’s been hammered home in a new way lately. My favorite music is showtunes because of character. I have a desire to perform because I want to create characters. I’m interested in illustration because I want to create characters. Larger than life, memorable characters. The kinds of characters that out-live their creators, like Bugs Bunny and Sherlock Holmes. Or Captain Hook. (Whether written by J.M. Barrie, drawn by Milt Kahl, voiced by Hans Conried, or played by Dustin Hoffman, he’s just a great character.)

Realizing this in regards to performing and illustration gave me an ‘oh duh, that’s what I want in writing too’ moment. And it’s helped a lot.

These new middle grade ideas I’m stewing on? One is new and chock full of weird characters. The other is an idea I’ve been stuck on for…well, years. Then I thought, what would happen if I just threw in someone completely and utterly whacky? And now I’m finally able to make progress on this idea and see it in a new way.

Maybe that will help you with your stuck ideas too!

(Psst…have a minute to leave a brief 1 liner review for The Nightmare House or Monster Tree on Amazon? Thank you friend!!!)

Onward!

Creative Habits (vs Goals) and How To Sustain Them, with Adam Ming

It’s an honor and very exciting to have Adam Ming with us today! Adam is an amazing illustrator with one of the best newsletters on creativity and creative habits on all of substack. As we start the new year, I know I could use both new advice and refresher thoughts on building creative habits. Make sure to sign up for Adam’s newsletter to get daily prompts and creativity exercises!

Welcome, Adam!

1. In your awesome newsletter, you’ve talked about how sometimes setting concrete goals isn’t as helpful for you as focusing on consistency and regular steps towards something broader. Tell us a bit more about that, and how that works better for you?

Check out the full interview here, and make sure to subscribe!