One more note about writing and creating

I worked a long day today, and noticed myself thinking and doing some things that made me reflect on the process of creativity.

I worked too long actually, without a break. I was on a roll, as they say. I wanted to finish the treatment I was writing. I did, then took two edit passes to clean it up. Then I thought, Aw, just let me finish the whole package and gather up the reference images I had around the project. That turned into another project, as I wanted to convert some old .bmp's to .jpgs.

Meanwhile I hadn't eaten much all day and was getting really hungry. But instead of just stopping, I took yet another glance at the treatment, and by then I was subconsciously pretty ticked off. Angry at myself for having neglected my own needs.

If I had been my own girlfriend let's say, I might've been bitching at myself to get the hell up and let's go out to dinner already. Or complaining why I was neglecting her and obsessing over this work that could just as well, or even better, wait until tomorrow.

But for the meantime, I saw the impact pushing my needs and my self aside created on my work. It actually made me look at my days work and see it in a worse light. With the first and second edits, I still felt good about the piece, but by the last pass, the luster was gone and I read it with a 'dry eye.' I'd written it with fun and passion, but I ended the day without fun or passion, and that's not good.

The effect I'd see that having is to make me return to worrying over it the next day. Or I'd worry, 'maybe I'm not as good as I think.' Useless thinking. When the real goal and need for the creative person is to simply create as much as possible. That is how you grow, learn and stay alive really.

Especially at the idea phase. Stay positive, hungry and happy. Work on that draft, work out that story, do an edit or two. Then put it aside. The next day, work on the next story, work on a new idea or new part of the project. Keep it limber. Keep the energy flowing and loose. Then the third day maybe, go back to the first and do another pass. Submit it or share it with someone else for a review and maybe talk out 'next steps' with them, then move on. Onward and upward.

I see how though, with the critic getting in the way, you end up 'hemming and hawing' over things, not just the work but it goes into life too - and that takes up too much time and bandwidth, even though it's this low-level thing and can almost be subconscious sometimes.

The critic belongs in the garbage. The only time to bring it out is at the end. Let it get off on cutting things up, but it has no place in the early creation process. It can guide to an extent, but needs to know its place, and that's in back, not in front.

Someday I'd like to write a story/metaphor about that.