8 Clicks from Nowhere Productions ䷀

Category: Part 6 – Clicking Deeper

And in the end, some will tell you that the only thing that matters is building a self identity and a methodical life around creative expression, putting in the hours, and learning from the effort, that this the true heart of creating stuff. They may have a point.

Chapter List

  • First Thrust

    Apparently attributable to a conversation published in a book[1] so out-of-print I couldn’t even locate one at a local library, Picasso is to have said that “In drawing, nothing is better than the first attempt.”

    His point, I think, may have had something to do with character, imperfection and what another famous painter, Bob Ross, probably would have called a “happy accident.”

    Trying to polish, correct, or refine something that emerged as beautiful from that first thrust of the pen, the initial strokes upon a keyboard or an inspired glimmer of photographic insight is, one might claim, fighting against the artistic instinct.  The rawness of the first try carries a beauty that, I might be so bold as to say that Picasso seemed to suggest, is difficult to replicate through copying the effort or nudging it with a more conscious hand.

    I find it captivating, this idea that imperfection has a beauty that transcends a glossy finish. We seem to worship the idea of factory fresh and mint-in-box and too often find ourselves chasing art that fits some commercial vibe or mechanized standardization.  

    Instead, leaning into a first try—not a try devoid of talent or skill, nor a try devoid of an experienced hand—but an attempt that is a first thrust at a new project, art without a reference draft to glance towards, that is where the richness of creativity might be truly bound.

  • Desire Paths

    There is a principle in urban design called “desire paths” wherein smart planners pave the shortcuts.

    You’d recognize this if you ever saw it. The example that comes to mind for me is the Quad in my alma mater. A big grassy field between classroom buildings existed as a place where students hung out, studied, napped, snacked, and of course, travelled between lectures. The sidewalk infrastructure was in place, but it didn’t represent the paths that students actually walked. The shortcuts wore into the grass as bare-earth trails trampled by a million footsteps. So, when the space was renovated, those exact paths were paved with proper sidewalks, voted on by countless students just existing.

    Noticing where shortcuts emerge and making those paths formal and proper, then, is something of a smart move. It is an act of recognition that the subconscious of many (or even just one) can tell us something we didn’t overtly consider.

    Recognizing your own shortcuts to creative expression is a similar act of finding the desire paths leading you towards creative fulfillment. Understanding that no matter what you do, your subconscious may be looking for the shortcuts between idea and product, between notion and outcome. 

    Forcing formality on your creative process or trying to follow a path that you “designed” based on your conscious consideration, may neither be the best way to get there, or the shortest, cleanest route.

    Instead, noticing the habits, being aware of the hacks, and catching those tricks you’ve stumbled on to get words on the page, ink on paper, or notes into the universe are the shortcuts that you should mix up some mental concrete and pave them straight through to your destination.

  • Gold Pans

    I was out for a walk near the river recently when I came across a guy sitting on a stool panning for gold. He had a small wagon-load of equipment, but he hailed me closer and talked me through the effort while he showed me the flecks of gold he’d dredged from the sand. They were right there reflecting off the bottom of his plastic pan.

    It was an encounter that was compelling enough that for a day or two I actually considered going to the local outdoor store and buying my own gold panning pan. I haven’t yet, but as I’m often wont to do my brain turned his hobby in an apt metaphor for the creative process in general.

    Creativity is after all sifting through a lot of worthless crud to find flecks of something more valuable.

    We often see the final product, but neglect to notice the heaps of debris remaining from the process itself.

    My gold panning friend told it me took five shovelfuls of riverbed muck and a couple hours worth of effort to reveal that dim constellation of golden specks on the bottom of his pan. Were they not clinging to the pan by hydrostatic forces they would have fluttered away in a stiff breeze. The heap of rocky mud at his feet was orders of magnitude larger.

    How many words does a writer need to write before the best distillation and clearest ideas of value form on her page?

    How much paint does an artist need to brush onto paper before something beautiful emerges from the colours?

    How many notes are lost to practice and rehearsal and noodling towards refined skill before a musician performs or records a hit?

    We’re all panning for gold, in our way, and the yields seem microscopic when viewed from the perspective of effort. But too, they are just as likely to glitter in the eyes of a random passerby who we call over to look at what we’ve made.

  • Write Always

    Don’t stop.

    You want to be better at anything? Keep plugging away and don’t ever stop practicing, and that goes doubly so for writing. Why? It just does—filled as it is with nuance and expectation and alive right there in the heart of everything we do, say, hear, and make.

    Writers write.

    They just do. And you are almost certainly only a writer when you are writing: actively penning words onto the page, typing characters into a keyboard or brewing the thoughts in your brain for your next opportunity to do more writing. 

    Writing can be messy. It can be scattered. It can be long or short, formal or stylistically chaotic. Writing can be words strung together in a notepad app, or traced with a lusciously thick felt-tipped marker on a wall. Writing can be private scribbles in a journal or annoying daily posts in a public website launched into the universe with no clear destination or audience.

    Whatever it ultimately becomes, the writing itself is an action. To write is a verb. 

    Writing is the act of filling the gaps between words. Writing is temporary and temporal. 

    And you need to write always. Why?  If you need to ask then you are not one of us.

    Because writers write.

  • Every Day

    Routinely, I drop myself headfirst into a daily challenge.

    There is an art to it.

    There is a goal embedded within.

    There is a entrenched motivation.

    Why? Well…

    As an example, imagine you want to be better at drawing hands. Hands are notoriously difficult to sketch. They are both familiar and complex. They are easy to draw poorly. So, what you opt to do is practice every day: each day, you tell yourself, you will draw hands. They will never be the same hands. The hands will be drawn from different perspectives in different poses and perhaps even in different media or styles.  But you will draw at least one hand every single day. Period.

    You’ve just crafted a simple daily challenge for yourself.

    No spreadsheets. No written reports. No accountability to anyone but yourself. You simply know that sometime each day you need to set aside a small chunk of time to sketch hands.

    And you’ll do this challenge for a month. Or maybe two months. Or, if you’re incredibly dedicated to learning to draw hands, you’ll challenge yourself for a whole year.

    At the end of the challenge what do you think the result will be? Yeah, you’ll be happy to take a few days off from drawing hands, but I can almost guarantee that the daily practice, the grind, the iterative epic learning will have improved your skills by a measurable amount.

    Challenge yourself to do something every day.  And then give yourself a hand.