Low moments and difficult work
Low moments and difficult work
Navigating the challenges and obstacles too few of us talk about
Hello again, friends!
Recently I started working on a new project, alongside The Dark Age, the novel I began writing during the pandemic. This new project is still very much in the planning phase, but I'm now in a curious spot: Working on two novels is a new experience for me. At the moment, these two projects seem to be proceeding smoothly. That isn't always the case for me, so I try to enjoy these happy periods while they last.
Two weeks ago, Mason Currey wrote in his newsletter, Subtle Maneuvers, about Janet Malcolm's death. (Malcolm was a longtime writer at The New Yorker.) While prowling through tributes to Malcolm's work, he came across a piece she wrote about the artist David Salle. Malcolm called the piece "Forty-one False Starts," because it's quite literally a collection of misfires.
Currey mentions that Adam Gopnik, also of The New Yorker, called Malcolm's piece "one of the most influential profiles of the past thirty or forty years." It isn't hard to see why. Malcolm embraces her process, and all of its highs and lows, by writing the piece this way. It's a vulnerable piece, one that says, Was this good? I thought it was good, but I think now I'm wrong. Let's try again. I can do better. Then she does, time after time after time.
Forty-one attempts later, she has a piece that somehow paints a complex and interesting picture of Salle, despite never making it past her opening. It's bold, and brave. Malcolm was a hell of a writer, if this piece is any indication.
The artist she's writing about, Salle, is unfamiliar to me. I liked this exchange, in which Malcolm professes envy for Salle's productivity:
But he was also a dauntingly productive artist, and one day, as I walked into the studio and caught a glimpse of his new work, I blurted out my envious feelings. In the month since we last met, he had produced four large, complex new paintings, which hung on the walls in galling aplomb—while I had written maybe ten pages I wasn’t sure I would keep.
Salle didn't take this as a compliment, though.
He spoke as if I were accusing him, rather than myself, of artistic insufficiency; it appears that his productivity is a sensitive subject. His detractors point to his large output as another sign of his light-weightness.
“They hold it up as further evidence that the work is glib and superficial,” Salle said. “If work comes easily, it is suspect.”
Salle articulates what I suspect many artists feel: That the work looks different from the inside than it is perceived by the outside world.
"But it doesn’t come easily. I find it extremely difficult. I feel like I’m beating my head against a brick wall, to use an image that my father would use. When I work, I feel that I’m doing everything wrong. I feel that it can’t be this hard for other people. I feel that everyone else has figured out a way to do it that allows him an effortless, charmed ride through life, while I have to stay in this horrible pit of a room, suffering. That’s how it feels to me. And yet I know that’s not the way it appears to others."
I think not enough artists are comfortable saying some of these things aloud. Many of us would like the world to believe that the work we create is so intentional, so carefully planned, that we're just a vehicle for something fully-formed. But that illusion obscures a reality that any artist faces: Building something where nothing existed before is challenging, exhausting, and in general, just hard work. It is for me, at least. At almost every stage, I ask myself why I thought I could pull this off, and what in the world I think I'm doing, and why it is just so...bad.
For writers, at least, embracing revision as an essential part of your process makes all of these self-doubts manageable. I am often consciously aware that what I'm writing now is not as good as it could be, or isn't very good at all. But that's mitigated by knowing that, later, I'll make it better. On the best days, that gives me permission to write crappy first drafts that are purely functional, not perfect. On the worst days, my brain tells me that nobody else has to go through this. They all get it right the first time. Why is it so hard for me?
While exploring a bunch of new-to-me blogs recently, I came across Piper Haywood's. In June, she wrote about how essential it is for people to discuss "low moments." This was triggered by a tweet written by Marleigh Culver:
Wish people talked about project failures more often.
Haywood wrote this:
We need more talk about low moments online in general, ideally, but it’s extremely hard. If it’s work related, it feels like overstepping a boundary (imaginary, or real like an NDA). Even when it isn’t work related, it can feel...messy? Messy’s not quite the right word, but something along those lines. Feelings and the way we perceive them can be so fleeting and of the moment, whereas sharing something online is just so permanent.
Sometimes being vulnerable and honest about things not working out, or not going well, is really scary. Sometimes it feels wrong, even when it isn't. Sometimes you just don't know if you can, or should, so you might not.
I had a low moment myself earlier this year, when a book I'd worked on for quite some time, and had already sold, just didn't quite land for my editor. My feelings about this are complicated. On one hand, the book in question was incredibly challenging to write. I'm unsurprised that it'll take a lot more work to get it right. On the other hand, there are all the messy personal emotions that go along with this sort of thing: I'm not good enough. They finally figured out I'm not supposed to be here.
Learning how to navigate those feelings is so important. If you don't, they can easily derail your creative work permanently. When I first read critical feedback from an editor, I know I'm going to feel completely misunderstood. But if I give those notes a couple of days, my subconscious starts to process them without that emotional lens applied. I start to sort the notes into piles: These notes make sense. I should think about the right way to take these directions. These notes aren't essential. I can disregard them. These notes are about something deep; these are superficial fixes. Only then can I put aside those initial emotions and do the actual work.
That's how we all earn our spot here. It's not because any of us is special. It's because we keep doing the work, even when we want to quit. We do it when it's hard. We do it when we don't feel it.
Think about every artist whose work you love. Every author, every musician, every actor. They've all put in time to be good at what they do. And every time they level up, there's a whole new range of things they aren't yet good at. Every one of them has experienced rejections or failures. Many of them have told the world about a new project, only to have a sinkhole open beneath that work and swallow it whole. It happens. A lot.
Too few of them talk frankly about that experience. But when they do, it helps us all understand that, when we experience those things, too...
- We aren't alone
- It's not because we're bad artists
- We can talk about them, so they'll be helpful to those coming up behind or alongside us
- We can find a way to keep moving forward, and learn from them
Humans are deeply creative. Even people who say they don't have a single artistic bone in their body have the potential to be creative, or are already doing interesting, wonderful things that they don't think of as 'creative'. Being creative means being brave enough to struggle and willing enough to fail. When a creative person overcomes the odds and makes something, we all benefit.
The work can be hard for all of us. We all have low moments. It's okay to be honest about them. It's essential that we are.
Speaking of being honest and vulnerable: Last week, in The Dark Age letters, I shared an excerpt of my novel-in-progress. It's always scary to share incomplete work, but it's a little thrilling, too.
If you haven't already subscribed to The Dark Age letters, don't miss out!
I wish you all a creative week!
✏️Until next time,
Jg
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