This week’s edition is based in part on an Instagram post I dropped recently.
In the past few years, I’ve learned that my environment has a significant impact on my creativity. Where I live, what I see every day, and how often I venture into nature affect not only the way in which I write but the things I ultimately write about.
I’m not sure if it’s because most of my stories take place in beautiful mountainous spaces, or if certain buildings, trees, and rivers just spark new ideas that wouldn’t come to me within the confines of a roof and four walls, but when I find the right space to “be still,” a new creative endeavor almost always ensues.
This may not be the case for everyone, but it’s certainly true of me.
I’d wager that this is why so much of my work takes place in either the Pacific Northwest or the Western United States. The only other recurring location is the Midwest, where I spent my childhood, which tracks when you consider that we often write what we know. Of course, we know those things best by exposing ourselves to them regularly.
Going to California
When my wife and I moved to Los Angeles in 2021, we did so because (A) we felt that God was calling us there for a time, and (B) we knew that if we didn’t go while we were still young, we never would. With our Montana State film degrees and a truckload full of dreams, we embarked. We didn’t have the Little Miss yet, nor did we have any big financial debts or responsibilities (praise the Lord), so rather than live with a lifetime of regret, we ventured down to Southern California.
The transition was not easy.
After losing all the mountainous spaces, the proximity to national parks, and more than one of the four seasons, it was a brutal time where I had to learn how to be creatively inspired again. As I mentioned before, most of my stories take place in more rural, western locales featuring picturesque landscapes that most have only seen on Yellowstone, something there was little of in LA.
In many ways, I felt that my creativity was roadblocked, and I wasn’t sure how to get around it.
Maybe it’s because so much content already takes place in Los Angeles, or maybe I’m just uninterested in those sorts of stories (not everything needs to take place in LA or New York, after all), but however you see it, I was stuck. Looking out our window and seeing another rundown apartment building surrounded by trash cans didn’t exactly do it for me, nor did the hustle and bustle of the city.
But it wasn’t long before the Lord brought me other sources of creative inspiration, sources I might not have turned to had I not been searching.
Aside from movies and TV, podcasts like Blurry Creatures, Cultish, and eventually The Sword & Staff all challenged me spiritually and prompted me creatively. These shows planted the seeds for some pilot specs (teleplays written on speculation that someone might buy them down the line) and what would eventually become The Beast of Bear-tooth Mountain.
Without those new sources of creative input, I might’ve struggled to write anything new for years, instead returning again and again to my older stories. But with them, I was my creative self again, even divorced from the valleys and woodlands that were so instrumental to my process.
Over the Hills and Far Away
To say that I was completely uninspired in LA would be an exaggeration. There were most definitely times and places where I was. In many ways, God put me in a position where I was forced to be creative even when I didn’t feel particularly inspired, and that was an exercise worth exploring.
Sometimes, feelings can really mess things up for us creative types.
I understand that not everyone is wired the same way I am. Some are just ready to go make art wherever they are. I wish I was that way. But being inspired most when I’m surrounded by Creation itself, it makes that more difficult.
I don’t know if it has something to do with God’s creative fingerprints lingering inside His own handiwork, but when out in nature — on a walk, a hike, or just enjoying a masterful view — all I do is come up with new stories.
Most writers who make a living in Hollywood still find ways to be inspired, in fact, I have friends who thrive there (go check out my buddy Jeremy Adam’s Substack please). I have nothing but mad respect for those folks who don’t let the ugliness of LA dry up their creative juices, but, if I was being honest, even after overcoming my creative dryspell, I still yearned for “God’s country.”
I needed to get that spark back.
“You can write anywhere,” Jeremy told me after learning about our move. Of course, he was talking about having a writing career, which is especially true nowadays. Though, I eventually came to the conclusion that I personally could’ve written anywhere also, had God bid us to stay. As it turned out, I was able to write new stories in LA after all, even if the flow didn’t feel as natural.
The Song Remains The Same
Fostering creativity is a complicated and delicate matter. Not everyone is instantly imaginative, yet we all sub-create in our own way. It’s something that must be carefully curated by a complex host of variables, and God makes everyone a bit different.
For me, what I’m consuming, what I’m working through in Scripture, and my immediate surroundings all factor into the next story I’m about to tell. This has been true for a long time.
Years ago, while attending MSU’s School of Film & Photography, I co-wrote, directed, and produced a short film called Absolution. The short (which you can find on YouTube) is about a criminal who ultimately finds redemption and forgiveness. If there was one short I was supposed to make while I was at MSU, I knew this was it.
Many of my peers, and likely my professors, thought that I had made Absolution out of a place of faith. My friends thought that I was trying to prostylize, while my teachers thought I was trying to express. Ironically, one of our toughest professors adored it, which was entirely unexpected. It didn’t matter to me if people liked it, I just needed to get it out.
The truth is, Absolution wasn’t born out of a place of faith, but rather a place of doubt.
I had been “working out my own salvation with fear and trembling,” and had a need to get my own wrestling with God out on the screen. It was the only reason I pitched the project in the first place. We shot the film over a long weekend on my parent’s property where I lived, a place that had often been a source of comfort and inspiration. My co-director Seth and I had been wanting to shoot something in my barn for years, and this was the perfect time.
When we’re exposed to a certain place long enough, or maybe at just the right moment, it can start a wildfire of imagination in us.
I couldn’t tell you how many creative endeavors I’ve begun on that porch or in front of the fireplace, looking out at the mountains and trees. I couldn’t express the amount of times I’ve been on a hike or a long backcountry drive and dreamed up a new story right then and there. Or the times I’ve been listening to one of the aforementioned podcasts and birthed new ideas that I instantly tucked away for later.
Find your creative space, wherever it is, and let the Creator whisper new sub-creations to you there. Just don’t be completely reliant on that place in order to work. Challenge yourself to create even when you don’t feel creative. Trust me, you’ll become a better artist because of it.
The Beast of Bear-tooth Mountain Update
Thanks for listening to me ramble about my own wrestling with creative inspiration. It’s not an easy thing to cultivate or maintain, especially when you move away from the thing that inspires you the most. Thankfully, I’m in a more “imaginative” place now, but even if I wasn’t, I know it would be okay.
Being in Los Angeles helped me to realize that I can have more than one source of inspiration, and it was out there that I actually wrote my upcoming short story-turned-novella The Beast of Bear-tooth Mountain, yearning back for the part of the country I feel most at home.
Read what my friend (and fellow writer) Elicia Johnson had to say about my upcoming story on her Substack this past week…
“I’ve read an early version of it and it is seriously thrilling! It feels a bit supernatural, has an amazing setting (hello my dear Rocky Mountain West), follows an incredible adventure with two guy friends and hints of Christian worldview. It’s definitely not a cozy stroll up a mountain for the faint of heart. It has a fair bit of action & intensity. Perrrfect.”
If you haven’t followed my new Instagram page (here), that will be the best way you can receive immediate updates for this project, including its upcoming release date, short previews, and more. I’m working diligently on the final touches now and will announce more in the next week or so.
If you don’t have Instagram, don’t worry, I’ll update all of you here too!
This Week’s Petty Pick
Dot’s Homestyle Pretzels are to die for. Honestly, I was struggling to figure out a Petty Pick for this week since I’ve just been so busy with this Bear-tooth Mountain stuff, but then I remembered that I’ve been munching on these with the Little Miss (who just sucks the salt off since they’re too hard).
But seriously, these are so good. If you’ve seen them at the store and been on the fence, get off the fence and grab some. I don’t love all the new flavors (the original is the best), but they make a good product for sure. The Hershey Company bought them a few years ago, so hopefully that stays true.