Thursday! 2-44: Get There How You Get There.
V2, I44
The thing about a creative project is that, unlike Heaven, you can get there any way you want. What’s more, no one besides yourself cares a whole lot about how you get there.
Think about your favorite author. I’m sure you like knowing how they write the stories they write — their “process”, their favorite writing tools, what inspires them, and from where they unearth their stories. In the end, though, your interest in all that is a distant second to your desire that they keep on writing stories you can love1. How and where and with what and all the rest are just delicious icing on the cake2. The same is true in the other direction. The people out there who love your stories, poems, carvings, art, illustrations, jewelry, and everything else you make do not care nearly as much about how you get your work done as you do.
That means all the agonizing you do about who will like what and whether you're going about your work “the right way” is wasted time and energy. It gets you not one inch closer to finishing. In the end, it will not matter. All the time I spend fretting over whether I ought to be writing poems in established forms or poems with forms all my own gets be one one word closer to writing an actual poem. Worry about who might look askance as me because I like to write creepy stories about monsters and aliens doesn’t get any other types of stories written either.
Remember how I told you before to do your thing? Yeah. I’m telling you again.
Do. Your. Thing.
Do it rather than seeking the One True Path. Do it before you worry about who will like it. You’ll like it. For now, that’s enough. Get that next story, that next illustration, that next chapter, that next poem done any way you can, because all that really counts with creativity is making something complete, beginning to end.
After it’s done, you can worry about all that other stuff. Or you could, you know, make something else. Maybe make it the same way…or not. Remember, you can get there any way you want.
Just get there.
Cool? Cool.
That’s all I have this week. This has been on my mind in a much longer and far more tedious form for a few days and I hope it is a help to you. I admit, it’s mostly a pep talk to me — the advice I need to hear from my own head3. I'd like it to be a pep talk for you, too. Honestly, the world needs more beauty. Our art can add to that beauty, if we're willing to loosen our hold on all the hows and whys and wherefores and get our stuff done. I'd love a world made better by your work. So get there, right?
Now…shameless plug for my Patreon. I don’t love banging on about it, but I’m told it’s a thing we artists must do because there is no well-heeled bazillionaire4 ready to shower us with cash like we were some seedy PAC or hapless candidate5. You might even find yourself the happy recipient of a cool Patron surprise or three in the coming months. Now, how about it?
[I would like your support, very much. Each monthly backing of $2, $5, or $20 is a vote for my ability to write interesting and evocative stories and poems and a positive push in the direction of my impossible dream.]
What I Wrote Last Week
Within reasonable limits, of course. We’d all care if our favorite authors sacrificed a basket of puppies to their Dark God of Publishing before they started a novel. Horrible stuff notwithstanding, though, I’m pretty sure you don’t care and neither do I.
Preferably cream cheese icing. Or buttercream. Chocolate buttercream.
My own head usually acts as Harsh Critic. This new role of Encourager and Pep Talker is kind of new and, I admit, a little odd. I hope it happens a lot more.
What? This is a perfectly cromulent word.
I used to to quite a lot of political writing. You wouldn’t believe how much people people dump into political causes. Most of it goes right into the pockets of consultants and the PR and media companies run by the friends of those consultants. It’s disgusting.