I recently read through a biography on J.R.R. Tolkien, authored by Humphrey Carpenter. Tolkien's valorous and imaginative tales have always been a source of inspiration for me ever since I was young. I got lost in his stories. Countless times I have wished that I were a hobbit from The Shire. In my mind's eye, I still meander to those other worlds from a different time formed by the boundless landscapes of a childlike imagination.
I am on the path that the art paves for me and am set to learn how to wade through its capricious ebbs and flow, even if it progresses ever so slowly and is full of tribulations and self-doubts. Here is how Tolkien describes the process of creating:
"One writes such a story not out of the leaves of trees still to be observed, nor by means of botany and soil-science; but it grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mould of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps. No doubt there is much selection, as with a gardener: what one throws on one's personal compost heap; and my mould is evidently made largely of linguistic matter."
The creative process is about being aware to your tendencies. What do you pay attention to? What's already inside of you? What always captures your attention?
My personal compost heap perhaps is made up of empty paint tubes and the overgrown, but ever present, memories of perfect sunsets over a true horizon line. Perhaps the real matter of what's in my mould will be revealed with a little more time and water. Even though I can't see them all, I know there are some really good seeds of imagination there to cultivate and watch grow.