Dear friends,
One of the things I’ve noticed in the newsletters I follow is that all of them position themselves as a voice of authority.
I am too honest to project myself like this.
Or rather, I can’t take any artist seriously who ring-fences their doubt, insecurity and uncertainty.
That’s where the good stuff is.
I understand why people do, though.
These are uncomfortable, and discussing them publicly only heightens one's sense of vulnerability.
Yet what I am trying to do in this newsletter is to portray the reality of the arts.
And that means, in the words of Hesse, “taking the whole world into your soul, come what may”.
I have times of great strength, knowledge of my process, and wanting to share what I’ve learned.
But to be in the arts, you are always before another threshold.
You can veer from a sense of deep foundation to feeling adrift in the blink of an eye.
As the year draws closer, I seem to have lost my compass.
I’m overloaded with client projects, attempting to finish my documentary, all while trying to build the first steps of the next phase of my life.
I seesaw between feeling empowered and unattached.
Much is drawing to a close. And much is beginning.
It is a time of auditioning life and of being auditioned by life.
As such, I have been keeping a creative diary to anchor myself as different forces collide.
I share it below. Not because there is authority in it. But because the journey to a deeper authority is through the questioning itself.
I share it in the hope my see-sawing might help someone who feels alone in theirs. And if it does, that is enough for me.
To give some context, I am in a time of tying up loose ends.
I plan to simplify in 2024.
How to do it, I am still determining. But I know it means a) completing things and b) cutting something out.
It will likely mean pivoting from a freelance life to starting my own business.
Having started my Newsletter and Podcast this year, below is the first effort to build a third pillar - YouTube.
It’s a format I’ve been mulling over for the last few years.
Below are my open thoughts as I take the first step.
Have a great weekend all, and see you next week,
Jim
13th November
i.
Since I moved into my new office, I started filming my creative process.
It entails encountering my experience and recording it as things surface.
Questions emerge.
What moves me? In which ways am I blocked? Why am I struggling with this? Where the hell did that inspiration come from? Am I good enough? Do I have the courage to become what I might be? What am I gravitating towards?
Observing my process is nothing new for me.
But recording it is.
I do not yet have an artistic vision for the next stage of my life.
What I do know:
I want it to be about the process and not the product.
This rears up demons, though.
By recording your process, you highlight your demons.
There is no conversation about the creative process without engaging with the parts of it we’d rather not be there.
And which often we keep to ourselves, and for good reason.
It is the wrestling itself which interests me, though.
And so I have chosen to dance with my old two-horned friend once again.
ii.
My first observation?
One must be willing to be bad to make something good.
The only question: do you have the courage to be really bad?
Historically, my greatest trick has been to pull a Houdini over the horror and get to something releasable.
I don’t mean this as self-flagellation.
It is how I seem to work, butchering the nothingness with faith.
iii.
It feels very uncomfortable to start this process.
On the one hand, I am enjoying the filming.
I was worried it would intrude upon my process, but I found the opposite.
It keeps me active and energises me.
To formulate the thinking.
To capture the howling.
To illuminate the shadows.
iv.
On the other hand, why would you not capture yourself at your best?
For me, it is about a threshold.
I feel uncomfortable. Therefore, I want to be there.
We write about artistic process. We talk about it. We discuss it. We share ideas.
But we don’t show it.
Am I showing, or am I telling?
Am I making a fateful error?
I don’t know yet.
But it’s making my heart pulse; the act of exploring an unknown terrain.
It’s early days, and I’m scratching out a start.
That experience is deepening my self-understanding.
It amplifies the noticing.
How one hour the self-talk can be a horror. And the next, the process is light, fun and playful.
I have no idea if I will release what I’m recording. It’s still too embryonic, too vulnerable.
I’ve been curious about YouTube since the pandemic but never found a natural format.
Maybe this is the time?
And if not, so be it!
We must try to find out if it’s right for us.
And too often, we imagine it’s not right before we’ve given life a chance to decide.
My reminder to myself:
Get in the dam ring, man.
14th November
v.
Late night in Mahalla.
Leaving the office was eerie. Twenty thousand square feet of pitch-black darkness. Out of the void, the discarded residue from last week’s “Death Picnic”, which I filmed.
Skulls, totems, effigies.
Good evening, Jim.
Funny how the same space which inspires you gives you chills the next.
Completed the first video and made good headway on the next, though.
I am walking into the void.
Figuring it out as I go.
Filming stuff.
Riffing.
So far, it’s like jazz.
I know that all the advice says be intentional.
The idea is that you film with the title and thumbnail in mind. An interesting idea.
But is it a recipe for success or a tired mimicry?
I need to set about amassing some failures.
To work it out on the fly.
To make my own mistakes.
All I know now is that I want to make a creative diary and share my process.
The details will follow out of the fun of failing and the discoveries made through it.
15th November
vi.
Okay, so I have made my first video.
Made despite myself.
Out of my utter planless-ness.
To have got it made is a victory of sorts.
It’s also a lesson in the terrible amount of work mounting an attack on YouTube would take.
You need:
a) total commitment b) a repeatable format c) a niche
Is there an audience for a loose look at creative process?
I’m not sure.
As usual, I’m too busy wondering instead of doing the doing.
If you’re going to do it: commit, create, publish, learn, iterate, repeat.
Remember:
The living is in the learning.
And the meaning is in the sharing.
For now:
It’s okay to chip away.
You don’t have to get to the end before the start.
Breathe laddie.
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