INKTHINK #1: Crystallize

Note: back in October 2021, I challenged myself to use the Inktober prompts to create one black-and-white piece of art each day. I would then learn how to vectorize them in Adobe Illustrator and make some cool digital art. Two things happened in the meantime: 1) Illustrator’s learning curve proved steeper than I could find time or focus for, and 2) I started writing pieces alongside them as a writing exercise. INKTHINK is a series combining the two for the next 31 days.

I confess I don’t know much about crystals. I use the term ‘crystallize’ with far more confidence than I have in understanding how the process actually works. When I started sketching out this picture, I thought about the gift of time. When my daughter was born, I assumed my writing time would evaporate, the giant Mop of Time just dabbing and sweeping and soaking up everything I once had. I gave myself the first two months of her life to just be as present as possible. To notice the little details of growth. To be nurturing. To talk back every single time she tried talking to me. And it worked, for a while. Then I became antsy.

Once my paternity leave ended and I got back into the flow of work, I found time to be even more lacking. I knew that as soon as I got home I’d have to take the baby for a walk so my wife could have a break and/or do some freelance work. What I didn’t see coming is just how valuable those walks would become to my writing process. My daughter loved being outside. She also, at this point, didn’t say much beyond a few babbles here and there, taking it all in with her wide, sleepy eyes. Often, she’d fall asleep. Always, she gave me the time to be bored so I could let my creative mind wonder.

It started with a few key story breakthroughs for a screenplay I had written ten months prior. A screenplay in which I, already feeling like a completely different person, struggled to ascertain any clear path forward towards a second draft. I knew I wanted it to better. Wanted it to be deeper. I just didn’t know quite how. But after that first week of walking, I had several ideas to play with logged in my phone’s Notes. I went from begrudgingly going through these walks to absolutely giddy at the idea of them each day. What better combo than to glance at our beautiful, growing baby while letting my mind crystalize all these long-fomenting ideas?

For some, crystals may represent perfection. Hardness. Class. For me? They represent the results of letting the mind wander and make connections. They represent allowing myself the time to be bored, to resist the ever-intrusive world begging for each nanosecond of my attention.

I said before I don’t know much about crystals. So I decided to use Google and try and get a sense of how they’re born. And surprise of all surprises: it eerily mirrors the writing process. Crystallization is a signifier of a process from chaos to perfection. Well, well, well. The nucleus of the crystal is formed, then it gains size on the outside, growing outward, the final process one of termination as growth seizes. The writing I’ve felt best about is the one that has a beating, Arthur’s Round Table center to it and everything is built out from within. The details ooze from what began as the emotional truth at the heart of the story. That ooze goes out in many different ways, building layer upon layer on the surface, before finally settling into its final form. The last part of the process – the process of termination – is just like editing. We kill our darlings. We thank them for their place in the creative process. Sometimes we find them a new home, a running document for orphans. And then we shut the door on the piece, urging it out into a world we cannot control the response of.

They are our crystals, ready to catch some light.