fantasticate
[fan-tas-ti-keyt]
verb (used with object)
to make or render fantastic.
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James looked over the sketches. Dozens of them littered his desk. And none of them was enough. All he had drawn so far was a few dresses and skirts. Good, yes. But not what he needed. The people expected more of him than a few common outfits. His works needed to be more.
He needed to really Wow the people. Give them something exciting. Something truly fantastic. What he was making needed to go beyond mere fashion. But at the same time, his designs needed to actually be wearable. Those ridiculous clown outfits his contemporaries made were beyond him.
But he had hit a stumbling block. All the best ideas had already been done. It was the struggle all creatives went though. There truly was nothing new under the sun. So how did he make something amazing? Something that was not just sticking random bits of cloth or, heaven forbid, plastic to a model and calling it an outfit had no appeal to him.
As James poured over his drawings, his eyes landed on one. Not one that he had drawn that day, or even that week. It was one of the first sketches he had ever made. One that he kept on hand as a reminder of where he started and where he was now. It was of a plain, simple affair. Just a blouse and skirt. The kind one could find anywhere. Boring, really.
But something about it tugged at his mind. It was such a simple design, but could he not work with that? Build off the most basic of basics. Elevate the mundane to the fantastic. Turn the boring into the extraordinary. Yes. Yes, that was what he needed to do. That was the key to his next great work.
It would not be easy, of course. Such a simple design had been used for all manner of designs. But James was not stranger to hard work. He drew a slightly elevated version of his first sketch. It was nothing, really. But it was a start. The first of many. He would iterate. He would alter and innovate. He would push the limits of what could be done with a simple blouse and skirt.
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He needed to clear his mind of all the ideas that had come before. Everything he had done so far would be tossed out of his mind. Only the newest would exist there. Once that was done, James picked up his pencil, opened his eyes, and drew.
He quickly lost track of time. He stopped counting how many drawings he made. Each one having tiny alterations. Small changes that would add up over time. Some were rejected, others improved upon. Each one closing in on his glorious vision. After who knew how many sketches, James stopped.
He looked at the latest iteration of his design. There was something about this one. It spoke to him. On the surface, nothing about it was special. But there was something about it. Something that told James he was on the right track. That he was getting closer than he had ever dreamed. But nothing he thought of could improve this one design. Was this it? Was this what he wanted? No. It was not there yet. He was just getting tired of the day’s work.
Yes, that was it. James stood. When he did, he felt the exhaustion wash over him. He was tired. He would rest. He would dream. And tomorrow, he would create something truly remarkable.
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