The sun goes down, plunging the world into darkness and suddenly a light goes on in my cramped home office. For awhile the glow of the laptop screen is more than enough light to work by, until I hear the voice of my Mother in my head. “Timothy, turn the lights on or you’ll hurt your eyes.” Obeying her mental reminder, I turn on the lights and return to my wooden throne in front of my idea box on my bargain basement desk. My girlfriend stirs in bed, asleep, muttering something about turning the oven off and I disregard it as sleep talking.

I feel my most alert in these wee hours of the morning, or late hours of the day depending on your perspective. These are the hours I normally write at my best and are normally my most focused. Why is that? How did I become such a night hawk? I listen as the kookaburras laugh maniacally outside and I think about this very article. What inspires me? What drives me? What binds me so deeply to writing, it is as if I cannot imagine being without it for even a day? As I ponder these silly thoughts I wonder if other creatives consider where their muse is on a regular basis. For me my muse works overtime: evenings, weekends, holidays, and sometimes puts in a solid sixteen or more working hours in a day. It all depends on if I sleep and for how long.

But as my mind keeps coming up with ideas, sometimes it can be hard to write everything down. I bought a voice recorder with voice to text software, but I never used it sadly. But my ideas aren’t just stories and games. Those are just all I love to share with everyone. They are my passions! But creatively, I have done many things. Music, Puzzles, Movies, Building Designs, Company Ideas, Business Plans, and oh so much more. It is like I cannot go one day without thinking up some crazy idea. People probably think I’m nuts as I find myself muttering while I think.

I don’t know why I chose games as my first passion for my creativity. I love writing, but perhaps it is the way you can interact with your viewer that I find so fascinating. I especially love when a game breaks through and messes with you as a player. But I’ve spoken about those games many times. Today I want to talk about the process I have for coming up with my ideas. Not because I think it will help those of you out there reading to be more creative, but it will maybe give you a bit of the madness behind my thought processes.

Underdog. No, not the cape wearing dog from the movie nor its cartoon counter part from many years before it. I’m talking about the concept of taking an underdog of an idea and bringing it to light. It was one reason I got hooked on the Blackest Night storyline that Geoff Johns was masterminding. I loved the idea of recreating these extremely boring characters that I never cared about, into these sudden foes of unimaginable strength and effect. I hadn’t realized it until the other day, but that was where I got hooked. The line spoken by an evil undead Aquaman still makes me shiver when I think about the first time I read it. “I am still your king.” He said this as he dismantled the Atlantean Army.

Also, I like filling voids. As I researched the Australian video games industry I got more and more frustrated. Maybe I should perhaps start up a game publishing company over here and that would save companies a ton of money on shipping and save the consumer lots of money at the store right? Well, if that was the case, why hasn’t anyone done it yet? You see, even with a billion great ideas someone has to give them the green light before they go ahead. My process has two people, and the first is my harshest critic. Me. As I come up with ideas I am frequently playing devil’s advocate with myself to shoot them down. If something can make it past me, then it might just be a good idea. I’m overly critical and have probably already shot down some ideas that were original and distinct.

The spark for my creativity can come from anything: a picture, a song, reading the news, working and anything and everything in between. I remember watching the trailer for Spiderman 2 and completely tuned out as the music played. My mind went to a large battle with magician warlords casting huge spells at the other’s army and then suddenly the trailer was over and I thought to myself, I need to get that song. I also love trying to expand on current endeavours such as video game franchises, or even film franchises. I like seeing these things break their own clichés. For example I heard there is another Bond movie coming out. I would personally like to see someone shoot Bond in the head and out of a moving train. They think he’s dead, but the metal plate in his head saved him, but gave him one hell of a headache. I want the bad guy just to not take the chance. It’s as if all Bond villains know how much of a threat he is, but decide to gloat instead of just shooting the man on a tarp and leaving him in a concrete bunker to die a slow, agonizing death.

Also, like everyone else I think, I daydream. You’re at work, and you are busy but not busy enough to occupy your mind. As you sit at your desk, you watch as an earthquake begins. Your coffee vibrates off your desk and crashes to the floor, the wall of your building crumbles and fades away in a cloud of dust as the lights flicker above you. Suddenly you realize this is no earthquake, but Godzilla  is roaming the streets and he is terrorizing people in your city! He finally got sick of destroying Japan! It was only a matter of time! So you grab your conveniently placed Godzilla-Slaying sword and run to the edge of the floor where the wall collapsed away. You’ll be the hero, this time you will stop Godzilla once and for all. You will triumph where Japan could not. You are- Back at your desk. Filing paperwork. Sad but true.

I think up these kinds of things all the time. People would think I was actually insane if they stepped into my head for even an hour. My mind jumps around inspired by what I’ve seen and what I want to see. I have seen Star Wars, what I want to see is a Blind Jedi Master using the force to wield four lightsabers at once against two different enemies; Two hover with the force, and two in his hands… in Case you were wondering. I’ve read comics, but I want to see more of how these people would react under real circumstances as in Batman is faced with the foreclosure of Wayne Enterprises. What would a poor Batman do? I have played games fighting demons, but how would the world deal with an actual end of days scenario as demons spilled forth from cracks in the earth? What if everything I thought was actually my own view into an alternate universe? I feel like sometimes I might be crazy and other times, I feel like I’m not crazy enough. I guess at the end of the day, we’re all crazy in our own way.