The Thursday! Newsletter 2-2: Good and Good! What is Good?
Volume 2, Issue 2
Before I begin this week's newsletter in earnest, I feel it necessary to point out two things: 1) I am fighting off a case of Seasonal Crud and, as such, am not quite as clear-headed as I ought to be; 2) nevertheless, I forge on, confident that you will make good sense of whatever nonsense I write after this paragraph.
Okay. So. Last week, I wrote about first drafts and how perhaps you don't have to take the oft-repeated "ugly first drafts, hooray!" chunk of writing advice. But that led me into thinking about a couple topics that, though not exactly related to the first, live in the next door apartment and occasionally throw parties loud enough that you can't ignore them. That, in turn, led me to consider my own work because, as you'll see shortly, I couldn't very well tell you what I'd thought about until I did more than simply think about it.
Here's the first question: given that I said it's okay for you to write a "good" first draft instead of an ugly, horrid one, what constitutes "good"? I've written about this, at least in passing, a time or two before so let me shorten this part of the essay with a simple answer: you can't. No one can. "Good", when applied to a creative work, is a subjective term. Because it's subjective, you can't predict who will think your work is "good", nor can you predict what they will do with that judgment once they make it. In other words, you can't create to a specific audience. Now, that argument doesn't stand for creative works aimed at millions and millions of people because groups that large have their own "inertia". If Disney's Marvel movies only appeals to 75 percent of their total Marvel movie audience, Disney will be just fine because that 75 percent is a *ton* of people. They can make "shotgun" movies, confident they'll get a large enough audience to pay off. We aren't Disney. We can't work on a scale that large.
If we can't accurately predict who will think our work is "good", how in the world can we get better? That, it turns out, is the very question that bedeviled me for months. I need a set of standards against which to improve. I need to make a thing, measure that thing against the standards, see how it measures up, take note of what doesn't work, then adjust accordingly. I did well in school because I was very good as meeting the given standards. I do well in a conventional work environment because I'm very good at meeting (and exceeding) standards. If, however, there are no set standards, what in the world to I do? What can you do? How in the world can you get better if there's no way to know for sure what "good" and "bad" are? What do you do when the thing you've made that you love, that took hours upon hours of painstaking creation gets absolutely no enthusiasm once you let it go while the thing you tossed out on a whim gets all the love? How can *anyone* create quality art in a world that works that way?
ARRRRRRGH!
That's where I was in my creative endeavors for a couple months very recently. I have an answer. I think the answer works pretty well -- at least it's working pretty well for me so far. I'll offer it to you so that you can try it as well and let me know how it goes for you. Ready? Let's try this.
I had to ignore the results and focus on my creative process.
Sounds easy, doesn't. Don't worry about the end result? Yeah, no. Not so easy, really. But you knew that, didn't you? In order to ignore the result -- that is, the acclaim or lack thereof anything I create gets from an external audience -- I had to come to the understanding that I can't control anyone but me. I have no say how you take my poems or stories. Maybe you like them. Maybe you love them and share them with people. Maybe you don't really care. Maybe you don't like them. Maybe you like some and are lukewarm about others. I can't control any of that. I can ask you to like what I do, but the choice always remains with you. We artists can not compel love. We like to think we can sometimes. We do want to try. The truth of the world is that we all may choose what we like and what we don't, and our choices may change at any time for any reason. I may, for instance, come across a painting you've done and fall dead in love with it. A week later, I may see your next painting and think almost nothing of it. Sure, it's okay, I guess. Let me see the next one.
Let me tell you; that hurts. You know it does, and yet that's just how it is. I had to accept that. You do too. It is the only way forward to what comes next. What is that? Oh, it's better, for sure. You have to decide what constitutes "good". And by "good", I don't mean that nebulous quality that exists in counterpoint to the floating value "bad". I mean "good enough to throw right at a potential audience so they can have it". Remember the Flying Sticks of Dynamite from many Thursday! issues past? Your work are those little sticks that you toss toward an audience. Make they hit and stick and explode in a burst of joy and delight. Maybe they hit and go "pffffffffft". Maybe they veer off and never hit at all. Well, that's how it goes. Make another one. Throw that one. Then again. And again. And again. You can't guarantee success. All you can do is persevere.
Now. I promised you a look at my own creative process with all that other stuff in mind. Here it is:
1) Get a thought in my head. I've found that I get the best thoughts when I'm paying more attention to the world around me and I'm looking for cool things to share. That's when my "what if" game is strongest.
2) Let that thought percolate, mostly in the background of my mind. Occasionally, though, I think about it on purpose like a blacksmith might keep the steel buried in the coals only to bring it out once in a while to bend and shape it.
3) Write it down, revising it as I do. What I'm writing down here is the hammered and shaped first draft I already have (or mostly have) in my head. When I start writing, I have a fair idea what structure the work should have and what emotional punch I want it to carry.
4) Take what I've written down to the computer and type it up. This is the big "creative" draft, where I revise what I've written as I type it up. I read what I have aloud, to make sure it sounds good. I check names and places or meter and rhyme. I make sure the whole think looks "right" on the screen.
5) Check that last draft for spelling and punctuation errors. Read it aloud one more time, just to be sure I've gotten any awkward parts out.
6) Do whatever I want with it. Mostly, I publish it to my website but I have a few things I've not yet published that I keep in a Google Docs folder (where I pretty much do all my typed work). Sometimes I give away what I write for just one person to do with what they please.
That is my process, pretty much. I can shorten or lengthen how long each step takes according to how well the thing on which I'm working comes together. There are times when the first step happens before I even know it happens. I've written a poem or story in minutes before -- maybe 20 from first writing to publishing it to my blog (including finding a picture on Pixabay to go with it). When I'm in the creative flow, the current can run fast. It'll work that way for you, too.
The point I want to make by sharing my process is that when I finally accepted the truth that I can't control what anyone who isn't me thinks of my work, all the responsibility and power fell on me. I get to decide what I think is good and I get to refine that consistently and deliberately. In fact, I *must* improve my own discernment about my own art because that is the only way I can improve. I set my standards and then I meet then. When meeting them gets a bit too routine or easy, I change them -- raise them -- and work to the new goal. When you see a bunch of weird stuff on my site -- poems or a sort I've never done before, or the "One Crazy September" challenge. it usually means I'm chasing a new standard of "good". I can do that forever. So can you. And the very best thing is that you don't have to wait. This is self-guided improvement! You can set a standard, work to hit it reliably, decide you can do more, then do it all by yourself. You don't need anyone else's permission. You make your best art and you decide what "best" is.
Once I figure that out, all that was really left for me to fiddle with was my creative process. There is where you magic lies. There is where you go from being an occasional artist to an all the time artist. There is where you go from writing a book every decade to a book a year -- or more! There is where you put your crucible and there is where you refine your work. You see my process. I put that together to make the best use of how my creative mind works best right now and to produce my best work without having to stop and figure out what to do next. I take a step then the next then the next. I let my creative mind out to hunt the next it can but I keep it on a lead so that I know where it is and I can guide it away from pits and ruts and mudbogs when necessary.
That's not to say my creative process is on rails, though it may seem that way. Remember that I can spend as much or as little time on any step as I need to do the work in that step well. I'm producing what I think is good and nothing moves on until I say it's good enough to do so. Same for you. You not only control what "good" is for you but you also control how you get to "good" in each step of your creative process. Make a good process you can trust and you'll get more "good". It'll come more quickly each time, too. Give it a try. Why not?
Tell me how it goes, would you? I want to know!
(The title of this week's newsletter is a sci-fi geek reference. Bonus points from me if you can tell me its origin!)
And, wouldn't you know, Season Crud addled me so much I slept in today and almost forgot I have an actual, factual newsletter to send out. Sorry about that. For what it's worth, I'm feeling well.
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What I Wrote Last Week
A trio of poems that perhaps should go all together, so: "Wednesday", "Thursday", and "Friday".
"Apocalypse, No" is a poem about the end of the world except not so much.
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One Last Thing
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