uno nostos
Who dares despise the day of small things...?
I’m doing The Artist’s Way, again, this time with W_. We were recently surprised to discover Julia Cameron does not assign routinely sharing / publishing any of the creative work you do over the course of the course. My friend J_ attributes his success in Hollywood to reps. He writes, directs, shoots, shares, gets feedback, and starts again. Immediately. He says it’s all in the cycle.
This is my very first rep in a long, long time. Right now you’re reading a fourth draft. The first draft was mostly me whining, internally tormented about the relationship between my finances and my health, me digging around for bullshit in the stories I tell myself. It’s not that that’s not a worthy a topic, it’s just that it’s a complicated one, and in writhing around on the page for 2000 words, I more or less discovered what I’m actually trying to do here: I’m trying to get in the minimum viable rep, and see what happens.
I’m doing the rep because W_ suggested that there may be symbolic power in sharing your art. It may help with energetic flow. I think she’s right. I make art every day now, but I mostly work on bigger projects that won’t be deliverables anytime soon. And rather than flog myself into finishing the next screenplay or novel, it makes a lot of sense to experiment with a small rep.
So the point of this post is not to make some grand decree I’m not going to stick to. It’s to share for the sake of sharing. To do some thinking on the page and put the page out there. It’s an experiment, It’s play. So I’m only committing to this one post for now. I think it’s very likely I’ll come back next week, and probably the week after that. I think it’s likely I come back again tomorrow. It’s been an interesting week. Only committing to one post is among the most courageous things I can do.
I started a novel last week. It’s narrated by an upper-middle-class reactionary and it involves an evangelical missionary, a taxidermy emperor penguin and a car accident. This week I wrote at least 1000 words a day. Mornings have been characteristically rough, although I’m generally functional by noon. I want to finish my graphite portrait of Einstein this week. I threw out my hip. I am in Kenya. My hip recovered. It has been one of the most important weeks of my life. It has been somewhat uneventful.
One.