There’s a shadow side to magic—and that is the work behind it. Magic doesn’t start in the moment of the trick/spell/conjuring. It starts with days, weeks, months, years of training and experimentation. The same goes with artmaking. Completed work is so beautiful to behold, it’s easy to overlook the pain, isolation, disappointment, dedication, and sheer effort that brings it to life. With the full on and unrelenting responsibilities of adulthood added into the mix, any art that is made is truly a magical miracle graced by God.
As humans, I think we long for progress. We need step 1 and step 2 to lead to step 3. While this kind of progression certainly happens in artmaking, our experience of making art is anything but linear. There is the tension between the work of the artmaking (building scenes and paragraphs, plotting, brainstorming, creating a writing schedule, forcing ourselves to the page) and being in the flow, where the work just easily and joyfully pours out of us.
We can get caught in a trap feeling that if the art doesn’t FEEL good it isn’t good and if artmaking doesn’t FEEL good, then we can’t really be an artist. One irony that I have experienced is an inverse flow of magic and maturity. As I mature as an artist (and have more responsibilities as an adult), writing is less and less about the dream of self-expression and experimentation and wonder, and more about sustaining my practice in a functional way. As I bristle against the WORK of maintaining focus and productivity, I pay attention to writers who are four, five, six books in. The vast majority of them don’t say that writing is an easy and beautiful dream. They say consistency is hard to maintain.
As someone who has been knocked off her path multiple times, I’ve moved forward by finding the LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR. What can I live with? What’s the commitment that will bring me back to the page? What’s the edit that will allow this work to function the best? I don’t demand of myself that the writing sings in a harmony of perfection. I don’t demand of myself that my keystrokes be filled with glorious joy. I do the least (which is also the most that I can sustain) and then let go. In that letting go, I am allowing space for life and the work to evolve me—rather than insisting that the work itself evolve. I am trusting that the process will teach me what I need to know.
I’ve stopped tying my identity and my career to any one project. I tie everything to the process of completion, to ongoing, continuous forward motion. It’s not about the sexy dream of being an artist anymore, it’s about making myself strong enough to make space for my ideas and having enough faith to let them take root as janky and lopsided as they may be.
From the outside other people’s process can seem more joyful; their work can seem more seamless; their productivity impossible to keep up with. It can be enticing to chase the feeling of art making, it is absolutely normal to want to feel good about what you are doing when you sit down to write. But I’ve had to move the proof of satisfaction to the end game. If it doesn’t feel good when I sit down to do it, it’s okay. Does it feel good afterward? Does it feel good to get through the draft of a book? Does it feel good to complete a project and move on to the next? If it doesn’t feel good to write, does it feel good to have written?
After many dark days chasing the amazing magical feeling of writing that accompanied me in my first decade as a writer, I’ve finally accepted that it’s gone. It may come back (I believe it will come back), but I understand that life has complicated my relationship to writing. Focusing on the work instead of the magic is the only thing keeping me doing in writer. I’ve decided that it’s more important for me to keep writing than to feel good when I write. And I feel DAMN good when I get some work done and out there.
What this means to me is that I am holding space for my artist self to evolve and take me to my next stage. I’m holding space for that magic to return. I know that it likely can’t return until writing can rule my days—and I’m a long ways off from that. So I will grab an hour before work and a few after work, I will outline on the weekends, and I will do it while I’m tired. Not because this is the way it’s supposed to be, but because I know I have to keep growing and keep evolving, so that when the stars aligned and the magic alights upon me again, it does not find me slumbering. It finds me in motion, evolving, and moving myself, my craft and my dedication to the next level.
Facing the tough struggle of writing is my investment in my artist self and my artist voice. It is a difficult investment, and it takes effort and consistency—but it is a worthwhile investment. One that I am profoundly proud to make.
I hope you all are investing in yourselves in whatever way most makes sense!
Onward!