Fantasy Stream

15 November 2025

Here, I dove deep into the artistic process, recounting some of my conversations with a fellow artist, who was then our dentist. He has since sold his practice and semi-retired, I think to pursue his art.

22 October 2012

Several years ago, early on a Monday morning, I was led back to a leather chair surrounded by small but fiendish implements. As I sat waiting for the impending poking and prodding of my teeth and gums, I contemplated the huge oil painting of a jungle waterfall, painted by our dentist, Dr. Christopher Lim. His office is filled with his paintings, for he is not only a dentist but also a painter. The paintings in his office are idyllic beach scenes and pastoral jungles, all straight out of the good doctor’s imagination. On this day, I was struck by this jungle waterfall as I had written a poem sometime before that moment titled “The Waterfall” (currently published in The Broiler Pit). My poem recounts a childhood memory of standing at the edge of a small waterfall on Asotin Creek (maybe a foot or two high), much to the chagrin of my mother, grandmother, & aunts, but in my young mind I imagined myself standing at the edge of a tall, jungle waterfall about to dive. I mentioned this fact to our dentist and asked about the painting–what had inspired him to paint that particular scene. The next time I came in, a few weeks later, I brought him a copy of the poem, which he read, asked a few questions, and began our ongoing conversation about artistic creativity.

A couple of weeks back, when I was at the dentist for periodic cleaning and check, the doctor came in, sat, and asked if I ever had trouble finishing a project. I chuckled sardonically, since I had been stuck in Chapter 8 of Book 7 for over a year. He went on to relate that he had two paintings in his studio, over a year old, that he had been unable to finish–every time he went in and faced these unfinished works, he felt that he shouldn’t be there, that he was being a bad father by spending time in his studio rather than with his children & wife, or that he was being a poor professional by spending time painting instead of studying the latest in dentistry. He said he’d leave his studio and feel guilty because he wasn’t finishing those two paintings. I related my own story and suggested that the problem might be focus, and the ability to shut-out those other concerns in favor of the creative project. This problem the non-artist calls ‘writer’s block.’

In my experience, writer’s block in the sense meant by those who have labeled it as lack of inspiration, or not knowing what to do next, doesn’t really exist. The problem is never lack of inspiration or not knowing what to do next, but the problem is choosing what to do next among a myriad of possibilities, and this is why I suggested our problem was with focus. For myself, because of deteriorating health and the effects of the ‘shamans’ potions’ meant to improve my health, I lack mental & physical energy sufficient for the task of choosing among possibilities. People who are not artists (or thinkers) do not realize how much energy is required to create, much more than most physical jobs, and the recovery of this mental energy is slow, much slower than recovering physical energy. As a writer, each choice I make determines the direction of the narrative from that point forward, even changing what has already happened (been written). Granted, most of these choices are small ones, but in a long narrative (like epic fantasy), even a small change can have serious ramifications later in the narrative. This action is what takes all the mental energy, making choices based on future narrative lines.

Take for example the difficult stream of consciousness sections in Book 1. The Klaybear chapter that includes this literary device was the first written post-doctorate, the first of my re-visions of the entire narrative. Most of what ‘happens’ in Klaybear’s corrupted vision, happens much later in the epic, books later. At the time, I had only a foggy view of those later narrative moments. Using Rokwolf’s two narrative moments, which do not occur until the end of Books 4 & 5, I had no clear idea of what would happen in either case, until the end of Book 3, when we discovered his weapons & armor, nor did I have any clear picture of who this aperu (dragon) was and her relationship to the cosmology of the story. Once I had drafted to these points in the narrative, I had to return to the chapter in Book 1 and alter each mention of these incidents to fit their actual reality. (Notice how careful & unspecific I’m being here, so as not to give anything away and ruin the story ahead of time!) The same was also true for what Thal sees in his vukeetu, and what Rokwolf saw in the methaghi’s vukeetu in Chapter 1: each had to be revised to fit the actual narrative.

This is what I mean by a multitude of choices–every possible event & turn in the narrative has implications for the rest of the story; too many sloppy choices along the way can lead to very different ends, not all of them serving the needs of the story. And this is why I suggested that our similar problem was one of focus and mental energy, which enables the painter or novelist to make the correct choices leading directly to finished art.