It's something I've always struggled with. Something I'm struggling with still. Creating out of sheer spite. Desperation, and masochism rather than passion, desire, or disciplined will. Working in a frenzy and hating everything. Until there's no chewing left in your finger nails, no pacing left in your shoes. There's more questions than answers, but that's the best we can do.
How do you balance a life of imbalance? Between work and bills and art and kids. What do you do when the thing that makes you feel better becomes an aggressor and fights against you at very turn? When the muses start reenacting Mean Girls. When it turns toxic and unhealthy and depressing? How do you take a breath and walk away? I haven't found a perfect answer to any of those questions, but I'm trying to. That's the best we can do.
There's a small distance, a subtle difference, between fascination and being fixated. You feel the call, the wonderment, the grip of something pulling you in. A well turned phrase. A few good lines. A shape. A texture. How do they do it? How do I do it too? You step off the ledge into something compulsive. You're freefalling, but not in that catchy, Tom Petty kind of way. It's the chain-smoking mania, muttering in the corner of the room. It's the swings and roundabouts of being a writer, a musician, a poet, an artist. Questioning everything you do. Working without an answer or a clue. But, that's the best we can do.
There's moving fast and breaking things, sure. but where's that gotten you? Breathless and broken, curled up on the floor chanting "who is Keyser Soze?!" There's no stopping completely. I know there isn't for me. The impulse, the drive, the need, to make things, to create things, it's too strong to let you go. But rather than speed and demolition, there's a slow disassembly. It may feel like a question more than an answer, but that's the best we can do.
You can take apart your systems. Your methods. Your rituals. Your process. Your practices. You can examine them. You can look closer. You can change things. Work analog if you don't already. Use paper and pen. Do everything by hand. By physical means. Work with digital, if you don't usually. Use a keyboard, a stylus, a screen. Or in a hybrid way. Some combination of the two? It may not be the answer, but it's a question worth asking. Sometimes that's the best we can do.
If you're night owl, make something in the morning. If you're up with the sun, create with the moon. If you're desk is clear, work messy. If you love disorder, try tidying up the place. Change your direction. Your position. Your chair. The room. The view. If you're not finding any answers, start with better questions. That's the best we can do.
When you're stuck, it sucks. There's no way around it. Sometimes you can shake yourself loose. Other times, there's nothing you can do. Sometimes all it takes is doing something different. Other times, all you have is patience and relentlessness. We live in the conundrum. In the tension between the two. There's no answer to the question of how to get out of it. We just keep each other company while we're there. That's the best we can do.
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Loved the images that went along with the words, though the words were also splendid (as usual).
I would call myself a hybrid writer, analog artist. I write out my first drafts longhand, then transcribe them into Word so I can manipulate the text more easily. The art - I get into the process more fully by cutting out the images, moving them around, then gluing them down; or holding onto the pencil, laying the color down on the paper, then using an eraser to smoothe out the line. I'll keep it up until my hands, slowly stiffened by arthritis, declare, "Enough!" Because, you know...
If I'm at my desk for too many consecutive days, my writing shifts, and I'm in need of the couch. Then the couch becomes to uncomfortable because the lack of back support. So I attempt to tend to the writing earlier in the day. Night time work almost never comes out like day time work, and all work styles never seem to stay consistent. If my fingers aren't on the keyboard, the same as yesterdays writing, it affects the entire session. I post anyways, because the shit should be documented. Fuckin mess really, but hey. Bring that along also. If my feet don't nestle properly as I type I have to take repeated breaks to attempt to reframe the track I was on. I can't seem to figure my writing style out. Although I enjoy the fluidity of it all, no style is my style, BONSAI !!!!