(Written 2/11/08)
...or "learning how to let it go." Just some rambling. I'm not sure there's a conclusion or a point here... you tell me.
In lieu of having a romantic relationship for the past six plus months, I've married one of my own creations: it's this novel I've been writing. When I look at it now, I can see that it's got legs, but they're a bit weak. It can walk, but it does that whole head bobbing thing that babies do. Oh yeah, and it definitely drools on itself.
When I feed it, sometimes it vomits back up the nourishment, but then it smiles at me.
The act of creating artwork in any form maps decently to raising a child (where I have no experience whatsoever), but it doesn't require one to have to strain to push it through their vagina. Although, let's talk to full-time authors and I bet they'll say that it really does feel that way.
I don't like that child-raising analogy, however. Why? Because you have to let your babies go to be packaged up and sold. People with better grammar skills than you need to give it a once over (If you're writing a book, but it goes for any art form you can imagine including music.) Peers need to sniff it out. You can't hang on. Thus, while creating your baby, you must maintain *some* level of distance.
Creating artwork (without suffering) actually maps better to the act of cultivating plants. They require nourishment all the same, but they don't grow layers upon layers in body and in mind. Plants can be pruned, and that's the key point. If I don't like the way my kid is growing, I can't snip off his arms and legs and hope he'll grow it better next time. You can strengthen what you get, but you can't start over.
Because of this pruning, the core can be maintained while new little buds shoot off. In the end, you'll have "something" resembling a plant, but it's a plant heavily influenced by your editing. It requires this editing. In fact, it thrives on this editing as much as it thrives on nourishment. Example: A plant's dead shoots must be removed so the plant can grow properly. Another example: A forest fire can be prevented by taking a match to the undergrowth and burning that away.
Somehow, plants, more than people, require this destruction in order to maintain a state of natural growth. Okay? I've made my point: creating art is like raising a child, but it's healthier to see it as watering, feeding, and pruning a plant.
However.
No matter how hard you try to detach yourself from the process, so that you can "sell" your "plant-product," the emotional attachment is close to impossible to eliminate.
Here's the paradox: can I eliminate my emotional attachment to my work and still create from my soul? That's where all the good artwork comes from.
Maybe the real great ones out there know how to maintain this balance. They have a baby, raise it, and kick it out the door. Nine months later, boom. New baby, Door.... Baby. Door.
I'd call that "a precisely maintained emotional state."
So, the other day I have an anxiety attack. All this pressure is building, and i'ts not normal. I have to get out of where I am. Somebody close to me just passed away. I know it. I'm pushing people out of my way, driving home as fast as I safely can, and then walking in circles. I'm calling my parents to make sure that A) they're still alive and B) nobody else died.
I went to sleep. I stumbled through the next day and I felt a bit better. Then I go to sleep again and I'm dreaming about somebody dying. It's somebody close to me. The dream is very real, and I'm mourning, I was in a funeral.
I found that the emotional trauma I was having was a reaction to me ending the process of writing that book. I even originally split the story into three novels so I wouldn't have to let it go one day. I spent *years* creating a world that maybe gets 50 pages of description at best. Really, I'm just a little distraught. So what does all that mean? Did my spiritual side finally feel that it was time to let go? Because my logical side says... not yet.
Am I being an overprotective parent, or a thorough artist? When will I ever know that its *complete*?
I haven't quite mastered the art of "active detachment". The state where I can feel just detached enough to be objective, yet still attached enough to want to continue working on it. It's a little game, and I don't always win.
But some projects I fly though, put less energy into, and less love, and yet they are received wonderfully. Huh? The thing I half-assed is the thing you really like? Why does that happen? I think its because the natural talent you have inside is not interrupted by your incessant artistic criticisms which wear away the brilliance.
Regardless, it's a process without an end. Someone is just brave enough to say "time to pull the plug" because it's never really good enough and it's never really done.
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