Monday, April 11, 2016

Pursuing Dreams Part 2 - Rainy Days, and Mondays, and not Getting There (yet)

I love the Carpenter's song "Rainy Days and Mondays." I often sing it to myself on rainy days, or Mondays, or days that just feel like Mondays. Today happens to be a day that both feels like a Monday and is a Monday. Partly because I'm frustrated I'm not where I want to be, creatively speaking, yet. Today, it's hitting me that this whole pursuing dreams thing can be hard work.

It's hard sometimes to kick yourself in the pants and get back on the saddle when you get bucked off. We've been in Cowgirl mode here, for Hippo #3's eighth birthday. As I sit here, she is roping a chair in the living room with her new lariat (a rope/lasso).

Here's what I'm referring to. The graphic novel idea I was working on with a friend is a bust. It did make it to the editorial board, but won't be in print this year. Ah well. Also, in the time between submitting it and waiting to hear about it my collaborator and I decided the project had some real flaws, and wasn't coming together well enough to continue with on our own (through self-publishing), or to send out to other publishers. We each have new ideas, ideas with more promise, so that's what we are going to put our energies into.

And although creative work is energizing and interesting work, it is also frustrating to struggle to be better, and realize you just aren't there yet. It's just writing, and rewriting, and pruning, or sometimes hacking away at most of what you have. I'm glad for advice I heard prior to submitting the book proposal. It said start working on a new project as soon as you can, and don't sit around waiting to hear back. Just move ahead.That has helped a lot. When the news came that my first real literary attempt at publication was a no go, I already had another work-in-progress underway, which made me feel hopeful.

But sometimes the new ideas give you problems too. I had this whole plot worked out for the middle grade novel I'm working on, but then I realized it wasn't any good. Or at least, not good enough. It wasn't really the story I wanted to tell. It was becoming something else. It was a false start. I'm realizing that's okay too. Sometimes you take a wrong turn, the path is impassable, you back track, you go down another trail, and hope to find a better way through.

I think the "not good enough" part of creating is a tricky one. On the one hand, you have to allow a little new seed of an idea to sprout and grow. You have to protect it from harsh criticisms and people who will trample it. You have to avoid pulling it out of the ground because it might be a weed in disguise. I've been trying to tell myself to let it grow. See what it will become. Chances are there will need to be some major shaping and pruning as it gets bigger, but how can you shape something that you don't first let grow? How can you make something better until you at least let it exist.

However, that said, you also (at the right time) have to listen to that gut feeling that says, this isn't right, this isn't the direction I want to go in. And you have to listen to the part of you that says it isn't good enough, because it probably isn't. Not yet. That's the big part, not yet.

Ira Glass, who does kind of radio essays on This American Life, said it best in an interview I heard awhile back. He said being a beginner can be frustrating. There is a gap between your taste (or sense of what is good) which is usually pretty reliable and your ability to produce work that you see as good, and that you are satisfied with. Here it is:

“What nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me . . . is that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, and it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not.
But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story.
It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
Right now I'm in this stage, and it can be frustrating. I guess though, the important thing is to let yourself be a beginner. Let yourself not yet be there.

But not yet doesn't mean never.

2 comments:

  1. That's a really great quote and idea. I think I'm there now, too.

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  2. Sorry that your first effort was a no-go :(
    You have tons of talent, and I look forward to the day you announce "it is a YES go!"
    -Ingrid

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