What creative outlets do you have other than writing?

There's a lot less music making in this thread than I thought there would be.

Yeah, I make music - the odd ditty here, an album there... and I'm a far better composer than a writer.

I dabble a little in drawing, but I don't have the patience to get really good. I plan to just focus on my writing, and at some point I'd like to commission a picture of my two little MCs, as I'm dying to see a decent picture of them in the flesh

Flanderso said:

There's a lot less music making in this thread than I thought there would be.

Click to expand...

Me, me!
That's awesome that you make full albums though--I'm still in the 'odd ditty here' stage.
I also like making art, fiber crafts and gardening. Lots of 'busy hands, empty mind' time for plot percolation.

Wow! such creative people. I used to draw and paint and do all kinds of crafts, but now my concentration has limited it to Adult Coloring books. Sometimes I make stuff on photoshop if I can get my brain and computer to work at the same time.

I sing - mostly in the car now, but I've done plenty of public singing in the past 20 years - and I make things (mainly out of fabric, leather, wood or metal). I also consider my martial arts practice to be a creative outlet, in a way.

I like playing chess - the creativity comes from the tactics you put on the board.

i play guitar and banjo. decent bluegrass picker but can't sing.

painted seascapes on old barn boards which i sold in a shop on the carolina coast.

that's about the extent of it.

Film. I acted in a short 5 years ago that's done well on YouTube. I just directed my first short. I'll release it next month. As much as I love books I also love screenplays.

Photography, singing, theater, reading, writing, and cooking I would consider my creative outlets when I find the time. Lately work has been so crazy busy, I am barely keeping my head above water, but am slowly trying to force myself an hour each day of creative pursuits...

I make jewelry, mostly beading and wire-wrap, but I did take a silversmithing class years ago and adored it. Once I scrape some money together I'd love to do that again. I also draw and paint a little (not well, but it's soothing), and I sang until I damaged my vocal chords by singing while sick. I also do a bit of photography, but not as much as I'd like.

What I really love is making costumes, especially for Renaissance Festivals, but it's an expensive business and I don't have a lot of cash. Maybe one day I can have all the costumes I've dreamed up - a female gladiator, Plague Doctor (I already have a couple of these I made by hand, but I want to really make a solid one that will last), an evil queen, the Lady of the Lake, all the fun stuff from the fairy tales I love so much!

I've been playing guitar badly since 1973. Played in folk clubs, and busked a bit in my youth. I can sing a bit, having been in choirs as a lad. These days I've got a touch of arthritis, so I use a bottleneck and play mainly slide blues on a resonator guitar, and bellow along in my best Howlin' Wolf impersonation.

I play guitar and compose music, I like to use Apple Logic. I do some photography.

I like to make digital art (character illustrations mostly), and I'm learning roller derby right now which has been great for distracting the writer-anxiety-hamster-wheel in my brain.

There are some great creative pursuers here! Nice thread. I wonder how common creativity urges are to writers; perhaps we're expressing part of a creative drive or imperative we have. That's not to say more fact-y people are not creative, but...

Anyway, my main job is dance teacher. I work with challenging behaviour in inner city schools in London for a charity called Children in Need and also The Petchey Foundation. My preferred style is traditional West African (and latterly Afrobeat) but my main training is in Hip Hop Theatre with a contemporary swerve.

My poor students. I've choreographed and made them perform an 8 minute piece based on the Star Wars saga, and at the moment I'm working with some 13-16 years olds on a Babadook dance.

For me, writing is a quiet, meditative act of creation, whereas dance is my physical meditation - if that makes sense (and doesn't sound w**ky)

pH

Crafting.

I like drawing. I'm self taught, through how-to-draw books and Youtube vids (bless Youtube, it was the best thing ever for learning how to do something), but someday I'd like to take a for-realsies art class. They offer them a lot through my community college for the general public, but they're expensive and I'm busy XD I was also taught to crochet at one time, but I haven't done that in over a year so it's kinda fallen out of use for me.

I like to mess around with RPG Maker, and have lost years & years of my life to that obsession. I have a Final Fantasy fangame with a page up, people seem pretty enthusiastic even though it's slipped into permanent hiatus (as most projects do). The software has some annoying limitations that slow me down terribly, and I'm not gonna stress about it when my writing is in a good place.

Sometimes I wonder if I want to learn C++, but that's not gonna happen, like, ever. Until then, I can rest on my laurels of having the largest collection of ripped and edited NES era Final Fantasy resources, which are available to download on RMN RPG. Would love to get deeper into game design, but first, novels.

I also used to be pretty good at designing fantasy and alternate history maps, though I've lost my mojo with Photoshop over the years.

Photography, computer-based art of various types, building things (mainly woodworking).

Soapmaking, sewing, knitting. I like making stuff too.

Two words: Anthropodermic bibliopegy

Also, do some painting with photoshop.

I play piano.

Long before I discovered the joys of writing, I wanted to become a concert pianist and I used to put in hours of practice a day. Marriage and children soon changed my priorities, but I still enjoy sitting in front of the Steinway and just letting my fingers run across the keys... it's actually quite similar to writing a flowing paragraph when you manage to play a piece flawlessly!

I do love to draw, colour and pinterest is a favorite of mine.

Sewing and building, though I tend to be too experimental, lol.
I built myself a hexagonal studio for writing and messing around with stained glass, then had the rather stupid idea to stucco the inside walls with homemade stucco... Cannot recommend making stucco from scratch! Hope to finish those walls next summer *sigh*

Kjbartolotta said:

I like to mess around with RPG Maker, and have lost years & years of my life to that obsession. .

Click to expand...

*cough* Same, same. Though my main project will be used in an engine called PAPER RPG Maker.

---

I draw. A lot. Some people think I'm good at it. *shrugs* I draw more than I write, but I'd prefer to just tell a story. I'm not confident in making some comic book yet, so writing it is. I'd do video games, but I get bored/lonely and overwhelmed making them alone.

I draw, characters and studies, mainly. I attend free sketch classes and binge-read when in London because where I live isn't conductive to either.