I’ve been working with creative and performing artists as, first, a therapist, and then for the last thirty-five years as a creativity coach. I’ve learned from my clients just how hard they find completing their creative work. Many creatives have trouble getting started; many have trouble working regularly; but almost all have special problems near the end, when the finish line is in sight. In this series, I want to spell out twelve reasons why completing creative work is so darn hard.
I’m framing this series from the point of view of a painter’s challenges, but the points apply to someone working in any creative field, from writing novels to game designing, from filmmaking to app development. I’m sure you’ll be able to easily translate the points I’m making to the medium in which you work. If you’d like additional resources, let me recommend three of my recent books: Redesign Your Mind, The Power of Daily Practice, and The Great Book of Journaling. Together they can provide you with a clear picture of how to get your creative work done through right thinking, good daily habits, and the self-awareness that journaling provides.
Here is challenge number 2.
The hard bits won’t come.
Even if you successfully complete 99% of your work of art, if 1% remains that still isn’t working or that doesn’t satisfy you then that work of art remains incomplete in your own estimation.
What do artists try to do in this situation?
+ Some have the happy experience of returning to that 1% and the solution suddenly presents itself.
+ Some decide to “keep fussing with” the troubled area, maybe finally bringing it to completion or maybe making a mess of the whole thing.
+ Some decide to call the work of art “finished for now” and put it out in the world with that nagging 1% still lacking.
+ Some decide to step away from the work of art for a period of time, either in the hopes that when they come back to it they will know what to do or that when they come back to it the problem will have vanished of its own accord.
+ Some abandon the work altogether and number it among those creative efforts that didn’t quite pan out.
There is no perfect solution to this natural dilemma. It is simply the case that sometimes a part of the thing we are working on isn’t coming around. Because this is true so often, many of our creative efforts are held hostage to this problem. When your work of art is 99% done and 1% remains recalcitrant and intractable, what tactics will you employ to get to the end?
More to come!
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