Throughout my quarter-century -plus of life, I've run repeatedly into the following situation: in the middle of sharing a personal "current event" from my life with a friend or family member, I suddenly can't remember whether or not I've already told them this exact story before.
This is because I typically craft a specific way of telling people about something, and I tell it close to the same way every time. Usually, I fancy myself a writer, and I offload the title of 'storyteller' onto my sometimes co-author and best friend. But even I, word-, syntax-, meaning-obsessed me, does it. I tell stories. I think we all do. It's a major mode of communication for the human race.
(That, by the way, is how I look at this art I'm trying to make: I came to the conclusion that art and literature is one of the methods that cultures use to discuss their values. If I write The Lord of the Rings, I assert that greed is evil and reaps bad consequences. If I write Twilight, then I make excuses for co-dependence. When I'm not writing with my best friend, I'm writing a very basic story that lauds heroism, bravery, love, and all those very typical things. It's been done before, but it needs to be done again, over and over, as reinforcement.)
Some of the people reading this have already heard this next story from me. I can't remember who!
Lately I've been in post-project limbo. It's past two weeks now.
If you have pursued making creative works, you probably know what I'm talking about.
It's that period that occurs right after you finish a project. Right up until that moment, you are stressing out, you are sick of your work, you can't wait until it's over. Then, it's over, and it's like post-partum. You're done, but you're actually still pretty stressed out.
What do artists love more than anything else? FEEDBACK! When you finish a project, you want your feedback now! NOW NOW NOW! You want it as a reward, or catharsis.
But where will this feedback come from? It can't come from yourself... it has to come from everybody else. And everybody else... has a life.
I figured this out pretty fast this last time. Seven people have copies of my latest project, and one person has finished and given me feedback. Believe me, that's nowhere near enough.
But, there is a silver lining in all of this. All of that anxiousness and nervous energy, which you use to check your e-mail every 5 seconds, has to go somewhere.
I've channelled it.
Rather than allow myself to go crazy, I've kept myself busy, so I don't think about the fact that I'd really like some more feedback. I started work again on something new right away. It was pretty "easy" to do that - I was going crazy sitting still!
Getting my next project where I want it to be hasn't been easy, but it never is. Drafting, ugh! The hardest part. Fixing it afterwards is much more clear-cut. Blank canvasses, not so much.
Still, I'm happy that my post-project limbo has been productive. An artist friend of mine told me that, for her, right after finishing a project could be some of the most productive time of all.
It's nice, for once, to fit the mold.
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