Here is the problem:
I like making art. I get a lot of ideas for things to make. I quite like these ideas at the time; I think they’ve got some potential. Enough to flesh out, at any rate.
But when I sit down to make the art, I inevitably start to question if it’s really the best use of my time.
I question whether the art is “worth it.”
Is art “worth it”? There’s no real answer to that question. Yes, art is “worth it.” Art is what makes us human, what makes real our imagination. Is MY art “worth it?” By any easily weighed, external, practical measure, the answer is: No. And there are a lot of other things competing for my time – usually things with direct, easily explainable benefits.
Nonetheless, I sit down to make art. Then, at some point in the process, definitely before it’s finished, I’ll start to judge whether or not I could possibly get some measurable benefit from this piece of art, so I can justify the time that I’m “wasting.” Of course, there is no measurable benefit. There is no possible way at the time to judge the merit of a half-finished piece. The thing I am putting down on paper, of course, doesn’t match the thing in my head. I need some time and distance to be able to evaluate it properly. I know this, and yet I keep harboring some deep, calcified expectation that this half-formed thing I’ve just breathed on should show signs of immediate success, or it’s not “worth it.”
This, as you may have noticed, is a great form of self-sabotage.
I’ve attacked this problem from a couple angles already. First, these days, my highest priority is to be kind to myself. This means: no internal trash talk, no guilt trips over what I am/am not doing or accomplishing, no shaming or bullying to force myself to do things. It’s helped a lot. It’s given me some breathing space to figure out what it feels like to make things with as few expectations as possible.
But still, something was not quite clicking. I felt drawn to establish a routine, a practice around the work – not just a few hours here and there when I had nothing better to do and also felt like it. Some people join accountability groups for this reason, but I’ve found they don’t really work well for me. I’m not group-minded enough for it to work. That type of “accountability” is fake to me, so it doesn’t bother me when I blow past it. (If you are the type of person this group accountability works for? I am so, so happy for you. Please, take my brain.)
I thought about this accountability problem for a bit, and I realized that, much like journalists train themselves to be accountable to deadlines, there was one kind of accountability that years of freelancing has trained me to accept without question.
The accountability to a client.
This was my “A-ha!” moment. Clients that I know and love are people I will bend over backwards for. Does it matter if the work is important in the grand scheme of things? No. It’s important to the client, and that’s what matters. Does the work need to be ground-breaking? Nope. It’s usually pretty pedestrian, in fact, but that doesn’t change the fact that someone needs it done.
So this was the deal that I made with myself. If I felt that spark when I looked at an idea in its nascent form, that spark that says, Hey, pay attention, you might have something here, then I’d file it away as a project and from then on, I outsource the accountability for it. I haven’t quite reached the Jesus-take-the-wheel place where I can be completely uncritical during the art-making process, so for now, I’m going to outsource it, and then my brain doesn’t have to get in the middle anymore.
Christi, you are thinking, I have no bloody idea what you’re talking about.
In plain English — I made up two client personas: the Artist and the Author.
* J A Z Z H A N D S *
Oh, hey, did you say the Artist wants five of these color washes scanned in for background work? Sure, I can do that. Yeah, maybe it is kind of a weird idea, but it’s not my job to question that any more. I have a client who asked me to finish some work.
Don’t get me wrong! This is not a push for adding late-night grind time to my schedule. I’m not giving up any healthy work habits or boundaries; it’s just no longer my problem to judge the worthiness of the work in progress. And, it’s a little extra nudge to use my available practice time. When the work’s done, when it’s sat for a while, then I can come back and look with a critical eye. But, my dear, you have to get something done first.
The Author asked me to write a piece for the newsletter this week.
I hope you enjoyed it.
Ciao for now,
Christi
P.S. — Is there anything you’d like me to write about in the next newsletter? Reply to this email or comment below, I’m taking requests!
Department of Sunshine & Sanitation: Recommended Reading for October
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Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams, by Matthew Walker
I originally read this as an e-book that I borrowed from the library, but I’m actually going to buy my own copy. If you grew up believing that sleep was for the wicked, or in some other way irrelevant, this book will shut that sh*t down fast. It was a great book to read just before bedtime, or (ironically) when I woke up and couldn’t sleep – it made me take my sleep seriously. Sleep is no longer just a thing that makes it easier to hide my personality defects from everyone around me; it’s a brain-bathing, memory-fixing, emotion-processing experience that I have been much more religious about ever since I read the science. 10/10, will read again, some parts were a slog but overall decent for a book of this type. And the boring parts might help you fall back to sleep.
An Unkindness of Ghosts, by Rivers Solomon
Generation-ship-style science fiction. Recommended because of the visceral way it took me through an experience of slavery. I’ve been hunting for books that are an antidote to my late-teenage Gone With the Wind obsession, and its genteel way of depicting slavery, and this is one of them. An Unkindness of Ghosts is one of those stories that just shouldn’t work — the entire social structure on the ship has 18th century plantation vibes all over it, juxtaposed with advanced spaceship science and a few old and terrible mid-space disasters — but it does work, in that ineffable way that good science fiction does. Bonus points for the way the main character is written; I don’t think it’s wrong to claim they are a representative for the autistic voice. 11/10 good ending.
Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl: A Memoir, by Jeannie Vanasco
A writer interviews a former close friend who sexually assaulted her during her college years. Vanasco processes the definition of rape, how it wouldn’t have fit her assault back then, but does now due to changing definitions. The catalyst for the book is this awful thing that happened to her, and her need to know why it happened, but the book also touches on how people related to each other in high school, vs. who they are now and what became of us, and how the need to please gets girls in trouble. Permission to read it even if you aren’t a woman. 12/10 would have coffee with the author, even if I was being taped.
Bonus Book of Pure Fun: A Night in the Lonesome October, by Roger Zelazny
This book is our seasonal SFF delight; a pure pumpkin spice classic with an extra couple shots of campy cosmic horror. It’s already got a bunch of banger reviews written about it, so I’m going to quote from Tor.com here:
A Night in the Lonesome October is nuts—an enormous monster mash featuring Dracula (sorry, “The Count”), witches, Lovecraftian vicars, Sherlock Holmes, Jack the Ripper, et al as participants in a Game of mysterious significance. (No, not of Thrones.) Our first-person narrator, naturally, is Jack the Ripper’s dog, Snuff. He very much likes being a watchdog. He’s quite good at it. And, as we learn in Chapter One: he likes being a watchdog better than he liked what he used to be.
This book doesn’t have an e-book edition, but you can likely find it at your local library or through The Book Depository.
My litmus test: Am I doing this because I have to earn a living with it? No? Then there are no constraints in terms of anything. L'art pour l'art! That sounds transactional yes I agree. However the transexistential worth of the work is not decided by me or decided immediately. It might occur to you later on that you use a skill or an idea later on in for-pay work. Would be a shame not to have done or explored it...