Progress and the Artist: Frenemies for Life
A tango of motion and emotion
I’m well acquainted with several writers working hard to give birth to new books. In between brief moments of exhilaration they experience long stretches of frustration, anxiety, self-doubt, confusion, and even anger.
The act of writing forces you to run the gamut of human emotions. If it doesn’t, I fear you’re not doing it right.
I’ve been there, and am there, on a regular basis, alongside the writers I’ve befriended and those I coach.
And this gets me thinking deeply about what “progress” looks like in an open-ended, creative context. And, importantly, what we should—and should not—expect from ourselves in terms of progress as we struggle to make something, anything, that makes sense.
You’ve heard the adage, progress, not perfection. That’s nice, but it doesn’t offer much relief or insight into what progress is and how it works for and against you in the heat of creative battle.
So for starters, I’m laying out some hard-won observations about the nature of progress allied to creative endeavors.
Creative Progress is Not Linear
The classic dictionary definitions of progress refer to advancement and moving onward. There’s an implicit understanding that progress moves in one direction only: toward a desired outcome and toward betterment in general. Progress often equates to more, in the sense of something gained. Western civilization is predicated on this very idea and we have absorbed it thoroughly. (Manifest Destiny, anyone?)
No wonder we expect our artistic output to proceed along these lines. It’s what we know and unconsciously assume about how the world works—how work works.
We start something. We work on it. Then we finish it. We make more, not less.
We assume that’s what progress looks like—feels like, too. Like there’s discernible momentum.
But writing a book, or making almost any kind of art, often evolves in a nonlinear fashion. We start fast. Get stuck. Go back. Start over or revise. Go forward. Get stuck again. Rethink the whole premise. And so forth. We make more and also less at any point along the way.
A published book that you sit down and read may give the impression that it is a work founded on a linear progression of developed ideas and plots and dramatic arcs. The story progresses.
But that finished product bears scant relationship to progress in the context of a book you are trying to make from scratch. There’s rarely a straight path forward. You will zig and zag.
That frustration and tension you experience with your perceived “lack of progress”? It’s because you want to create in a straight line, and you can’t. Artists usually don’t.
Progress is Often Scary
Something interesting happens when you’ve lived with a book idea for a long time, maybe jotted a few notes, and then one day, you decide to make the project real. You’re going to move from thinking about it to actually doing something in the real world, such as research (think of author Patricia Cornwell spending hours in the crime lab), conducting interviews, outlining, writing and sharing pages.
This transition from imagination to physical activity is exciting—but it’s also scary. As if the imaginary monsters living under the bed suddenly manifested as big, galumphing fur balls with bad breath.
Ironically, this transition is a key moment in the progressive life of a creative project. But—surprise!—progress doesn’t always make us happy. It can frighten us, too, which in turn leads to procrastination.
Because now, you’ve decided to commit. And shit gets real, fast.
Suddenly, progress goes from the thing you want to the thing you fear.
Progress Can be Hard to Spot
As a cheerleader for other authors, I love pointing out how far they’ve come and how much progress they’ve made, when all they can see is what’s still confounding them and still left to achieve.
In the middle of a creative project, progress can seem invisible. You don’t feel like you’ve gotten anywhere, and that leads, inevitably, to feeling discouraged and fatigued. You contemplate quitting.
But don’t!
You may not see it but I do: You began with a loose idea. Now you have an outline and a clear point. You know how your book is peopled, the core conflict, and how it all ends. Is there loads still to figure out? Sure. But don’t discount what you’ve achieved up to this point.
Just because you’ve been at this for months, and you’ve second-guessed yourself a thousand times, and you’ve lost sight of what being “done” might look like…the progress is real.
Take time to feel it, celebrate it, and accept that there will still be fits and starts and setbacks and moments when you are lost. But right this minute? You are…actually…making [nonlinear] progress!
Re-set Your Relationship to Progress
I’m guessing that a big reason a writer quits during the drafting process is due to a perceived lack of progress. The work is slow and uncertain. You thought the first draft would be done by now, but it isn’t. You’re whiffing on word count goals and chapter outlines.
This perception of zero progress feels icky. It exacerbates self-doubt. You feel like you’re wading hip-deep through thick molasses and going nowhere.
In reality, you’re doing just fine. You’re doing you. You’re writing (or planning or thinking) at your own pace.
The culprit is your conception of progress. You want it to be linear and measurable and efficient, if not fast.
Forget about that. Let it go. For you, progress means staying in the game. Staying committed. Writing a little or a lot or not at all, depending on the day.
A writer isn’t a cotton gin or an automated assembly line or some other instrument specifically designed to progress through hard tasks as fast as possible.
Try redefining progress on your own very personal terms, not the world’s.
Order the book every self-doubting creative needs now!
WRANGLING THE DOUBT MONSTER: FIGHTING FEARS, FINDING INSPIRATION
“This accessible and reassuring book offers much-needed and actionable strategies and techniques for those experiencing a block at any point in their creative endeavors ... Many of the concepts can be applied more generally to other facets of life as well.”
—Kirkus Reviews
I feel like you are addressing me directly. So I thank you directly for the words of consolation and encouragement.