7/1/05-
Okay, I’ve got a blog to do, and not much time to do it. I’ve given myself a 30 minute time limit, so we’ll see just how much tap-dancing I can do in that time.
I’m amazed at the way so many people are capable of updating these things on a daily basis – some of them with some seriously polished writing, too. I guess what I’m really amazed by is the characteristic of discipline, which is something that I seem to be seriously lacking in. Someone with discipline can will themselves to overcome ennui and just get to work. Me and ennui, though, we’re real tight.
I’ve been reading a lot of Isaac Asimov’s science essays – he used to write a monthly column for Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine – and he actually wrote an essay on the subject of prolificacy. Basically, you’ve just got to sit down, and put your fingers on the keys, and stuff will spill out.
It makes a certain amount of sense – my mild A.D.D. ensures that there’s always something going on in my brain that I can vomit out on to the page with little or no effort. But I’m always stopped (as I suspect many of us are) by the feeling that (say it with me), “I’m just not good enough.”
What is that? Sure, the desire to strive for quality is important, but what happens when you’re so incapable of meeting you own perverse and elusive watermark of quality that you can’t even put two words together in a sentence?
I have a friend who’s been writing the same novel for the last ten years, and it’s not even a particularly long novel – maybe the final count will be 300 pages.
When did this particular instinct enter human consciousness? At what point in our evolution as a species did Mother Nature think it was a good idea to provide us with the urge to self-criticism? Did it come before or after the development of the desire to create art? Was it somehow a useful tool during our hunter/gatherer days? Did the huntsmen not go out to get that Mastodon unless they were all in agreement that it was going to be the coolest and most original hunt EVER?!?
Is the urge to produce only things that are perfect part of the mating instinct? Or is it even at the instinctual level – perhaps it’s more of a meme. Maybe we needed it to prevent too much bad art from flooding the world. If that’s the case, then it didn’t work. Peter Max is a multimillionaire and Emily Dickinson was so doubtful about her abilities that she remained unknown during her lifetime by her own choice.
I guess we’re all better off if we can find that happy medium – ignore the inner critic for long enough to get done what you want to get done, but don’t flood the world with crap. For example: Jewel is nice to look at and can concoct some pretty songs. But she should have demurred when someone gave her a contract to publish volumes of her poetry.
Have you ever read any of Jewel’s poetry? Abysmal. I think it’s been outlawed under the terms of the Geneva Convention.
(I wish I could remember who coined the idea of the ‘meme,’ - my guess is Richard Dawkins - but it’s the mental version of a gene. It’s a self-perpetuating idea that stays alive in human thought by being particularly seductive.)
-Dave
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Note: this one’s going up unedited, so forgive any major abuses of the English language.