Episode 3: My Creative Process
My creative process is quite simple. It’s so simple that it makes me feel like a cheat. But I’m incredibly grateful for it, and I give thanks after every piece of art I create to express this gratitude to my ancestors, as it is part of my Zulu beliefs.
It feels like it comes from outside my body and mind when the truth is, it comes from the recesses of my subconscious mind. And if I trust the process, I create with seamless ease, swiftness and without resistance. My creative process works on trusting what I see, hear, and feel in my mind and body. If I am going in the “wrong” direction, I can feel it and stop to re-evaluate the piece. But, on the other hand, if I am in flow with what I channelled from my subconscious mind, I feel euphoria.
The challenge is never a lack of good ideas. I always have pictures in my head. Whether awake or asleep, images are constantly flashing in my mind, and sounds of music or phrases in my mind’s ear. When sleeping, it continues through dreams of worlds that I can write about later on. There is an infinite well of creative content in me. It’s been flowing since I was a child. The challenge is control and time to honour these ideas so that I may manifest them on canvas, paper, or through music or spoken word.
When I lack time, control, and tools or ignore the data I receive, that is the only time I can not create. It is not due to a lack of creativity. It is always due to a refusal to start or prioritising distractions.
I dreamt the entire debut novel. I dreamt of the characters, their home planet, the villain, some dialogues, the characters, their home planet, the villain, and some conversations. I felt what they felt, saw what they saw, and understood nuances about them. If I didn’t dream certain elements, they came to me while awake, like daydreams and flashes of images.
The challenge was to make the book coherent. I had to condense my dreams into something palatable and engaging without watering down their essence. The dreams had religions, religious texts, many cultures, and billions of people, and they continued over the years, so I zeroed in on the characters my dreams said I should, the characters through whom I saw the dream.
I hope you enjoy my debut novel, "Dreamer”, named so because I dreamt it, and its protagonist starts her journey through dreams too and wades the watery world of her mind and other people’s dreams. You can pre-order the book on this website.
