I find this applicable to most (all?) of my endeavors, both art (screenwriting) and craft (software development):
The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot -albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.
Unfortunately, I find myself all too often in the perfectionist camp, holding not dead clay but detailed sketches of ideas never pursued. I highly recommend reading more excerpts from Art & Fear. It sounds like good advice for life in general.
Interesting concept. I definitely fall into the same category as you. As an artist, it makes a lot of sense. The best illustrators and designers (speaking of colleagues of mine) are the ones who literally FORCE themselves to create something new every day.
Of course, if I was doing detailed sketches like you mentioned, I’d actually be on the right track. 🙂 Thanks for the link!
On the subject of forcing yourself to start every day, I recommend The War of Art (which I think I loaned to you 🙂 )
http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/0446691437/
For more practical endeavors (software, business, etc.) I recommend The Art of the Start:
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Start-Time-Tested-Battle-Hardened-Starting/dp/1591840562/
I own and have read both, and both were motivating and insightful. I think the trick is rereading them when you’re in a slump.
Yes, most writers agree (sounds like that stupid sound bite: 4 out of 5 doctors agree) that you have to force yourself to write everyday, even if you are putting out crap as a by-product. The best antidote to writer’s block is to write crap, and lots of it. Once the pump is primed, hopefully something of better quality comes out.
This is another reason that you should carry a personal recorder on you at all times: record your thoughts in as coherent a fashion as possible, then put them down on paper. You’ll be training your inner voice to represent itself in a manner that should be duplicated in your writing. The best writing is just an expression of your personality as defined by your thought-stream, anyway. Think Dave Barry.
Okay, that’s two more titles for the book list. 🙂 Writing every day does help, even if it is crap (I’ve got a few months’ worth of crap up for public consumption; I should know)… it becomes a bit less crappy as you go, ’til you’re competent or even halfway decent.
I think, too, that the best way of beating a block–no matter what it is you do–is just by doing something. Maybe the ideas aren’t coming on what you’d like to do; no matter. Do something else. If you wanted to write an essay on the gross national product of Namibia but can’t think of a darned thing to say (plausible, so far), then do something autobiographical, or write about hornets instead or something.
And the other problem is when you start thinking of what you’re doing as Art. At that point, you start putting expectations on yourself and on what you’re doing that neither you or your work can generally stand up under. I think that too many people want the Art–the awe-inspiring, epic end product–but don’t respect the craft. Just my $.02 worth, mind you.