Blank Spacing
Tap your own genius with mono-llaboration.
If you’re a fan of my artwork, you know I have an alter ego: Frankie with a P-H.1 Today, I’ve invited that Frankie, a.k.a. Phrankie, for a conversation about the “Process” portion of my Consume-Process-Generate cycle.2 In true neurodivergent fashion, we skipped over the small talk and jumped right into it.
Phrankie (Ph): Hi. Question: How do I get better at coming up with good ideas?
Frankie (F): Lol, nice to see you, too. ;) Get into some blank space, baby.
Ph: Blank space! Right. Umm, remind me?
F: It’s like, shut off your inputs. You know that feeling when when you’re taking an unhurried shower and you have an epiphany out of nowhere? You figure out the thing? It happens because you’re not Consuming anything, not tasking yourself with Generating anything, you’re just going through your same scrubbing routine that you always do and letting your mind wander. Soft focus. Not reading, not watching. Not trying to learn. And then, voilà. Good ideas flow.
Ph: Oh I love that feeling. But dang, I do not do that often enough. Blank spacing, I mean, not showering. Lately I even put my phone on the counter right outside the shower so I can catch up on my Discover Weekly listening.
F: I hear you. Microproductivity is the modern way. It’s a smartphone thing: we can read emails in the elevator now.
PH: Shoot! I read emails at stoplights!!
F: Right? Fear not, though. You are getting blank space. This is blank space right now, literally writing down this sentence for Substack.
PH: It is?
F: Most def. We’re just wandering around on an empty page. When I opened a fresh Google Doc for the first draft, I didn’t know the exact topic. I was letting myself free write. And free writing3 is blank space.
PH: But didn’t you have an objective here?
F: Sure, I intended to write an article for Substack. I placed myself in a mental context. But I held it wide open for your input.
PH: I’m honored, then. Thank you.
F: As a creator, it’s my pleasure, babes.
PH: So then, how does blank space help us as game designers?
F: Blank space makes innovation possible. When we give ourselves permission to slow down and be with what comes up from within, we are tapping into what legendary music producer Rick Rubin refers to as the Source.4
PH: I feel that. Like, I’m an antenna, and good ideas come through me from beyond.
F: Bingo. Processing is the fine tuning work of honoring our individual radio station for the Source. Consumption has value; it’s when we welcome the panoply of existing models and tools we can employ. Generation is when we make cool sh*t with them. But blank space opens the channel for our creative ideas to come out so we can know what’s worth making.
PH: What does it look like in practice? I mean, how can we do more of this blank spacing?
F: Alright, great questions. Writing, we’ve mentioned. Journaling, basically, the exploratory kind. Walks are another, leaving our Airpods at home. Biking with nowhere to go but “out.” Driving in silence. Even leaving my phone in my pocket when I go to the bathroom. Small steps.
PH: This sounds boring. I’m constantly curious. How do I outwit my instinct to consume-consume-consume?!
F: Think of it as being curious about yourself and what you might come up with, given the opportunity. Let boredom be a portal to creativity.
PH: Okay, you’re convincing me. Got any case studies?
F: Literally BrainSpin. You created the game when we were bored in an Econ class.
PH: Truth. What else?
F: The Container Ships game from last month.5 I was a passenger in a car on Interstate 880, quietly looking out of the window instead of scrolling on my phone. You showed up, and inspiration struck. Source download. Boom.
PH: Sorry, but we’re getting a little woo here with all of this “Source” talk, aren’t we? [crinkles nose in disgust]
F: I’m a little woo, then. So be it. Mind-body-spirit, that’s the yoga perspective, and I’m not ashamed to say I go to my mat three or four times a week.6 Meditation, which is a big part of yoga, is blank space. In the analogy of making myself an antenna for the Source, it’s some of the most effective tuning work I ever do.
PH: Damn. Props for not judging (y)ourself by what other people think. 💪 Hey, is this the part where we should ask our readers what they do to make blank space in their lives? I am eager to hear some more bright spots.7 Even though that’ll technically be “Consuming.”
F: LOL. Totally.
~ Disengaging monollaboration mode. ~
~ Activating collaboration mode. ~
Gentle reader, what do you do for blank space? Better still, how do you make it actually happen? Are there activities that help you succeed in your quest to just to think? To Process? To listen to and hear your creative self? Please reply with your techniques for downloading good ideas, we wanna hear ‘em.
Many common names feature technically-unnecessary h’s: Sarah, Meghan, John, Christopher, Stephen, and Susannah, for example. Their “h” is expansive, slowing us down, inviting us to spend more time with the name (and thus, the person). By choosing the expanded “Ph” version of my name for my artist alter ego, I am embracing that worthiness.
Want more F/PH conversations? You can find the very first ones in my 2022 art book, This Is Not Precious.
I wrote about my Consume-Process-Generate cycle in Issue #4 of my art newsletter, The Phrantone.
Props to my friend Kelly Kelly for turning me onto “free writing,” a technique first promoted by Dorothea Brande in the 1930s and later popularized by Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way.
Rick Rubin’s book The Creative Act is one of my all-time favorites. He reads the audiobook in his own soothing voice. Highly recommended.
This one’s a work in progress, but it’s already hilarious. More details coming soon.
I’m a huge fan of yoga instructor Adriene Mishler and her Yoga with Adriene YouTube channel. She has hundreds of free video classes available there.
I learned the “bright spots” concept from the excellent book Switch, by Chip & Dan Heath. If you’re designing a behavior change initiative, look for “bright spots” where people with the same resources as your target audience are already achieving the target results, and figure out how to replicate what they’re doing.
I love this format, especially because it resembles one of my favorite juice-generating activities: the self-to-self interview.