It’s easy enough for me to take a something that needs to get done at work, break it down into projects, tasks, meetings to schedule with people, questions to research, and so on. It seems like it’s exponentially more difficult — for me at least — when it’s a creative work.
Maybe that’s not a sign of a pro, as I’ve seen it described in books like “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield. When you’re a pro, maybe you don’t worry about whether you can do it or not. You just do it because you have to.
And I’ll admit, I’m the type of writer that feels like every project is my final proving ground. If this fails, I say, I’m done. Until the next idea comes along, that is. The ideas keep coming for me, and I can see the patterns that lead to completion, so I don’t know if I’m a pro or not. I just know I always fear the outcome, but keep pressing on in one way or another.
In 2006, I worked on a novel. It didn’t come to life. I could see the beginning (multiple versions of it, in fact), and I could see the end. Unfortunately, the all-important road in the middle was a lonely desert highway in my mind. So I deserted the project. Despondency ensued. A few days later, still lamenting the untimely death of my creative dreams, I found an outline for a another novel, something I had been beating around in my head for around 10 years.
All of a sudden I’m excited and energized, and so on…
By contrast, projects don’t usually die on my professional watch. At least, not because I gave up. It’s typically something else that derails momentum at work. A company reorg, a new priority, the sheeps of Wall Street baying at our doors.
While I can be ploddingly consistent at work I’m also vulnerable to the throes of impatience and emotion in my creative work. So, is there a solution in sight? I hope there is. It’s all about breaking things down. Make the insurmountable mountable. I have to remind myself that I’m on a creative project for a reason and commit. The road to becoming a pro entails commitment. I think I’ll put that up on my wall.
In the meantime, I’d like to know if others live this double life? How do you deal with it?
Me, I’m going to reread “The War of Art” (I read it over the New Year and came out with some good nuggets), and put up some graffiti over my desk.
Slightly related link: Left-Right Left-Right of Writing @ West Pier Words
Comments 5
I support my family by working a 9-5 software job. For me, it’s pointless to think in terms of ‘new ideas.’ Ideas will always come, we just need to be there to catch them. The struggle is learning how to make writing as habitual as our day jobs, learning how to sit down and type regardless if we think we have anything to say, regardless of how we feel. We need to show up when we’re feeling like crap, show up when we’re so tired our hands ache. And a ‘pro’ is the writer who welcomes seemingly impassable problems, like no beginning. A ‘pro’ stays in their chair until the problem is no longer a problem. Readers will sense a writer writing working through something difficult. And most the effort will result in better writing. We grow as writers when we write the impossible.
Posted 25 Jun 2007 at 12:22 pm ¶Repeatedly, writers report that they reach a wall in their project when the idea doesn’t seem fresh and they want to quit. It is at that point that they rely on their professionalism to get the job done, knowing from experience that a) what they write isn’t really as bad as they think, and b) the consequences of failure are worse.
There’s a quote about a NY playwright that I have squirreled away somewhere, in which a friend observes that she was able to get the job done with whatever resources were at hand. The final result wasn’t what she expected; and it may not have all the bells and whistles that she wanted, but the important thing was realize: the job was finished, and she could go on. As it turns out, the article was an obituary for her, since she wasn’t able to go on, due to dying.
Posted 25 Jun 2007 at 12:58 pm ¶A difficult thing to do is swinging away from the analytical mode and into what Robert Olen Butler calls “dreamspace,” the sort of meditative spot to make the writing a vivid dream. Sometimes, day to day, you don’t get through to that state and you just write through it. I’m not as strong an advocate of writing every day as Butler is. I really think sometimes the mind needs a break. When I’ve worked on my novel, I set aside three days a week, usually Saturday, Sunday an Monday, and wrote a couple of hours a day, or tried to, and set a minimum word goal. At the moment, as I’m letting the book cool after the second rewrite, I’ve tried to write just a little bit at least every day, and have alternated between nonfiction (blogging mostly) and fiction exercises. And sometimes just thinking about writing helps. Just keep writing. Struggle with it. Set it aside if you have to (but not too long).
Posted 25 Jun 2007 at 8:01 pm ¶wow- some great comments on this one. I really enjoyed reading them.
Armand
Posted 26 Jun 2007 at 12:39 am ¶Really great comments. Thanks everyone. Lots of stuff to think about and apply in the daily output/struggle.
Thanks.
Posted 26 Jun 2007 at 9:02 pm ¶Speak Your Mind