On any given day in any given year you meet an actress and she says "I want to develop a one act play about poverty", and you meet a writer who is planning a script about what it was like growing up on a farm, and some guy goes out of his way to tell you about a project he wants to do, taking photographs of all the red phone boxes in London.
Dreams and visions and hopes live in these projects. You fast forward six months or four years and none of the projects are done.
What does it take for someone to get started? How do you stay with it through the hard stuff? What kind of person do you need to be to find your way to the finishing line?
Saying you're thinking of doing something is the easy part. If you want to be someone who finishes a project you have to be someone who finishes the project.
Don't hold out for perfection. No art is ever perfect. But creating something is always more perfect than creating nothing at all. Imperfections and problems breed your very best moments as an artist. Take risks.
Inspiring message. It came at the right time, since I have been thinking about starting such a project for a while now. Merci. Veronique (French Girl in Seattle)
ReplyDeleteI think you have to do both - finish the thing and also do the work required to do it well. For me, the discipline comes from 10 years of doing software develpment start to finish, sometimes with a team, sometimes not. There wasn't a choice not to finish or to do it badly. I have a choice with writing, but I also have the discipline to see it all the way through.
ReplyDeleteWell said and truly inspiring. Holding out for perfection is such a stumbling block that is a personal block of mine. Thank you for posting this.
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