I’ve been looking through a fair amount of journal articles describing the process through which people successful in their fields become such. The biggest point was simply that they did their one thing over and over again – success never came at first, and it was through failure and repetition and failure again that finally something half decent got created. I think their advice really is about mindset more than practice, and even with that mindset the majority do not succeed. That being said, one would never get anywhere at all if they did not put in the effort.
I’ve never been very good about creating projects, or working every day towards something. There are certain things I come back to occasionally, but nothing in which I’ve learned something or critically practiced something every single day – and look how far that has taken me.
It can be surprisingly difficult to create things. For music, or writing, it’s not just about the inspiration to create something, abstractly, but instead a critical idea that pops into your head for some reason and acts as the foundation for whatever it is you’ll have two days to a month from now. For me, sometimes its the very process of creation, or more accurately the etching of random jargon that flows into your mind into the metaphorical stone that can then be polished and decorated, and, breaking free of the metaphor here, edited down or up into something concrete (no pun intended).
To be completely honest I’m not entirely sure this is how everyone creates. Some people have an idea and plan it out ahead of time so they know what to work towards, and others are probably much more spontaneous, creating more genuine character interactions as a consequence. A friend once told me there was a difference between spontaneous and outlined literature, as such, but I’m afraid that for me the ideas very rarely come out even partially fleshed. The short story I published on this blog was inspired once at random, and then researched and built upon over a good while before written out. And even then, I found myself struggling with the details. How many characters should there be? What is the best way to demonstrate conflict or foreshadow betrayal? How should it end? Is this too explicit or too subtle? The irony really lies in the fact that simply asking all these questions did not mean the creation of really any particularly interesting piece of writing. But it’s a start, and at least I have that, instead of nothing. Surely the steps necessary to create more engaging, longer, better works requires the understanding of the challenge that awaits, and the pushing forward in spite of it. Writing, either creative or analytical or technical, will always come out rough around the edges at first. That’s what editing is for of course, but also practice. To edit, and acknowledge your mistakes, and continue to write anyways, just better the next time.
I think that a lot of my writing on this blog will be bad. So instead of trying to stroke my ego, I should probably acknowledge that and instead use this as a portfolio of, hopefully, improvement. We’ll see where it stands a few years from now.
The Scenic Climax 