Artists express our care for the craft in different ways. Some seek out exciting new techniques, picking the brains of their favorite creators and adapting to their idol’s workflow. Others look inward, mining emotional veins and pushing deeper into the complexities of what drives us to paint, draw, sing, dance, write and build.
It’s no wonder words of advice are so often traded in creative circles, folks desperately hoping to find new and exciting ways of honing their creativity. Of course, advice is not always welcome. For everyone modestly doling out these nuggets of wisdom, there are just as many people shoving them down throats.
In the right context, talking about art is one of my favorite pass times, but I’m often hesitant to give out advice.
The reason for this is simple: just because something works for me, doesn’t mean it works for anyone else. There’s no one correct path for crafting art, and some of the best creators made their impact by completely ignoring the well-worn trails that came before them.
People often ask me—in a variety of different ways—how they too can become a successful writer. The truth is, I have no idea what journey will work for you. What I can speak on, however, is the journey that works for me.
With this in mind, I’ll offer up the simplest distillation of my own creative process: love is the most powerful artistic fuel there is, and I’m not afraid to use it.
Let’s step back a bit—way, way back.
In a grand, philosophical sense we know very little about our own existence. If you want to hone in on certainty, then Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” is just about the extent of any absolute truth we could hope to muster, and even that one has plenty of detractors.
Maybe we’ve pulled back too far. Zoom in ever so slightly.
Picture the universe before the Big Bang. Imagine a vast swath of nothing stretching on and on. It’s not empty space, it’s the absence of space. It’s the endless void.
Within the void is a tiny unit of something, and for unknown reasons this little singularity erupted into what we now know as the ever expending universe. Philosophers and scholars have been asking what caused this eruption since sentience allowed the very question to form, but a solution continues to elude.
As an agnostic, I’m perfectly fine without answers to the grand what. However, I’m still curious about this expanding universe in a smaller sense. The grand what has no hold on me, and neither does the grand why, but I’ll admit a few of the details have always drawn my attention.
Here’s where I’ve arrived.
There was once nothing and now there’s something. That something is always growing at an incredible rate, and while many scientists believe this growth will slow and eventually come to an end—or even reverse at some point—we’ve still got unfathomable eons of change ahead of us.
But it’s not just the universe that’s expanding, it’s every little part of that universe. Lifeforms evolve to spread themselves far and wide through replication and procreation. Sometimes, the communal growth of a species is even more important than an individual’s own personal survival. Plants will crawl their roots below the surface and cast their seeds through the air. Mold will creep across any surface it can. Animals will pound away at each other in an effort to make more little animals, who will one day grow up to repeat this process in turn.
As humans, we often maintain these primal motivations to survive and procreate, but disseminating ourselves across reality is not so cut and dry. For instance, many people can’t have or don’t want children, which is a perfectly valid way of moving through life. Sex is not just about creating offspring, it’s more often an act of self-expression, personal connection, and joy.
In other words, creation is so much more than biological reproduction. The artistic options that now rest at our fingertips are endless, and these deserve the same reverence as any deep-rooted primeval drive. We can write a song and belt it out. We can paint a landscape and hang it on the wall. We can choreograph a dance, then hold a show for our friends.
Humans are still pushing back against that endless cosmic nothing, but we’re doing it in new, exciting ways. Every moment of our existence we are creating, often without even knowing it.
You can create a walk down the block.
You can create a thought.
You can create a breath.
Regardless of what we build to fill the endless cosmic void, I’ve found that the raw materials for this process are dependent on community—art usually has a creator and an audience. This is true whether that connection is between the two sides of your own brain or a message to some massive international fanbase.
I also think the health of a community (artistic or otherwise) is tied to joy, gratitude and love.
Love.
We’ve finally arrived at this simple, refined ingredient.
Across every timeline—every one of the infinite parallel existence layers stacked atop each other like some delicious, never-ending pancake—I believe there is one universal truth. For any reality to survive in the vast empty abyss it must exhibit a drive for creation.
Therefore, a drive for community.
Therefore, a drive for love.
Once I realized this was the fuel behind everything, I used that knowledge to my advantage.
How do I get over writers block?
Turn to love. Harness that.
How can I tell this story in the most effective way possible.
Turn to love. Harness that.
How can I find an appropriate balance between my writing time and my personal life.
Turn to love. Harness that.
It might seem abstract on the surface, and maybe it is. This is art after all, so I’m not afraid to let the abstract creep in when my oppressive, logical brain isn’t looking. I’ve been working to integrate these two forces my entire life.
Some hear my creative philosophy and assume that working from a place of love means everything you make has to be bright, positive and cheery, but as someone about to publish a very dark horror novel, and can assure you this is not the case.
Horror is just as much about creation as any other genre. In fact, horror leads us through worlds of destruction as a way of celebrating creation. We cheer when our hero survives, and if they don’t make it out alive then we cheer because it’s only a book and we, the readers, are still here.
Love was around well before we arrived and it will remain long after we’re gone, because the very existence of something in a sea of nothing is an act of love. Reality is the biggest piece of performance art there is.
It’s a lot to wrap one’s head around, and I’ll be the first to admit my stance on creativity is likely full of holes and inconsistencies. We’re all out here struggling to pull together a coherent picture of existence, and my take is one hell of a big swing.
But that’s alright with me, because despite all this abstraction and all these unanswerable questions there is one thing I’m certain of—a raw, primal truth I just can’t seem to shake.
Creation is real, so love is real.
Originally published July 2023
Chuck Tingle is a mysterious force of energy behind sunglasses and a pink mask. He is also an anonymous author of romance, horror, and fantasy. Chuck was born in Home of Truth, Utah, and now splits time between Billings, Montana and Los Angeles, California. Chuck writes to prove love is real, because love is the most important tool we have when resisting the endless cosmic void. Not everything people say about Chuck is true, but the important parts are.
