This is not the first time I've started this post. To be honest, I discarded the others for the same reason that brings me to write it now: fear.
You see, I had a two week creative spiral that landed me in a nasty creative meltdown/tantrum. That hasn't happened in years. Sure, I have the occasional gripe fest, but nothing like this. Nothing that made me want to throw in the towel the way this one did. I thought I'd already won the war - or at least the pivotal battle - against letting the outside world's shenanigans interfere with my creative life. Not so, my friends, not so. If I were really honest, that spiral most likely started months ago with little annoyances. First there was a (pardon the honesty here) pretty much incoherent complaint from someone who had misread an article I wrote. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and found a word I could have changed that might - MIGHT - have clarified my intent from one paragraph to the next in a better way. I wrote a clarification statement for the client to include in their next issue even though I believed that the complaint was based on a very tenuous argument that the individual had to really reach to come up with. In other words, the individual was a troll looking for a target. There's was the only complaint I was informed about. I had to read their message three times before I got the gist of what they were saying. It looked like it had been written at 2am by a six year old hyped up on energy drinks and gummy bears. I remember wondering if "write what you know" had taken an ugly turn with some very hard limits and roadblocks installed to keep writers from exploring what we don't know through our words. I thought I'd shrugged it off. I remember wondering if artists were under the same sort of strange societal restraints. I thought I'd shrugged that off, too. Evidently, I didn't shrug hard enough. All it took was a couple of articles and a two week work hunt on one of the freelancing platforms to kick off a very large earthquake in the creative ground I stand on. I had to consult with three of my closest friends. They are all creative people, and they are always honest with me - brutally honest when the situation warrants. All of them let me talk through my nightmare scenarios and then brought me back to reality. One of the many reasons these people are my friends is because they will let me freak out and then we will laugh about it together once my breathing returns to normal. If you have friends like that, hold them close and make sure you return the favor when they need you to. Now, I don't mind freaking out with my friends over ridiculous fears on my part. I've accepted that sometimes I just need the vent. What I do mind is that I broke my #1 freelancing rule in the process of this meltdown. I brought my concerns to a potential client. I do NOT do this. Any drama related to a project stays strictly between me and the cats - and the husband if you happens to overhear my rantings. That the client still wants to work with me is a miracle. Granted, I made sure to keep the discussion as professional as possible, and I only brought it to her because in the most likely nightmare vision in my brain, she would have had the backlash first. Now, you might be asking what horrible, terrible, completely out of bounds thing I was worried about? It's a fair question and one you should be asking. I mean, you don't want to end up on the side of evil incarnate, do you? I didn't think so. Well, here it is: I got caught up in the blasted adjective game that far too many people in the freelance world seem to want to play. One of mine did not match the character I have been asked to create. HOW FREAKING RIDICULOUS IS THAT?! A year ago this one small thing would not have even registered as a potential problem. Lord knows I have enough internal anxiety over drawing a human character all on my own. It's just not one of my strengths. Who needs more drama than that? Four days ago, I was in complete turmoil over it. ONE PETTY DESCRIBING WORD. A word that causes me to illustrate the individual differently than I would if I were drawing myself. ONE. WORD. One. Go ahead and ask why. Go ahead. It's because according to the ridiculous world we live in right now, that one word meant that I could not only not understand how to represent the character well but that I was stealing work from another illustrator who could. I'm not even going to tell you what the word is. See how many you can come up with in the next minute. I can give you ten off the top of my head. Why? Because I made the mistake of reading a few articles and going on a work hunt that pointed them all out. One job ad even threatened to report any applicants that didn't meet all of their five adjective related requirements. (We now pause to really let that sink in.) I'm a small fish and will probably always be a small fish in this world of art and illustration. I'm pretty darned okay with that - especially if this sort of nonsense continues. Most of my trolls only live in my own mind right now. I'd like to keep it that way. I arguably fear large-scale success in my field for this very reason. How sad is that? How sad is it that I'm not the only one thinking that same thought for the same reasons? How much beauty will never find its way into this world simply because someone who could have brought it shied away? Now that my ground has stopped shaking and I've been able to laugh in the face of my fears, I'm looking forward to balancing this project in with the ghostwriting job I was rewarded with for braving the strange lands of freelance work offerings. I'm looking forward to being a part of a project conceived out of love from one person to another and the world at large. To those of you who have been struggling to drown out the same fears, here's my hand. Take it. And take on that project the fear is doing its best to keep you from. There are always going to be trolls lurking under the bridges that lead to your next level of growth. That doesn't mean you should stay where you are. We can go together, if you like. I'm planning to dance my way across...maybe sing while I'm at it. Why not? If nothing else, it'll give the trolls a headache.
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So, I just celebrated my half-century birthday. I know, I know, it's a big one...maybe THE big one. Weird isn't it? Let's face it, if you live to see that number and then continue living beyond, it really is just another trip around the sun under your belt the same as the last forty-nine or the next. Nothing new. Nothing different. But for some reason it has an extra weight in everyone's mind that causes more meltdowns than it does celebrations. Me? Sorry, it's not the number that stirs the chaos. I was very happy to eat cake and have a great day. And yet...there is still mental mayhem afoot. It's the tradition my brain has of scheduling an employee assessment type of thing during this anniversary week...and there is are always a lot of not so great notes in the margins of that report.
Most years I get to simply do the annual check in: Were my goals reached? If not, why not. Was I a decent human in the many and varied roles I play in this world? Yes/No? Explain. Did I learn from my mistakes? Give examples. You know, that type of thing. On the fives, I rehash the ten year midterm. Decades get a second look at how I've progressed since the last one's place was reset. Twenty-five was an interesting evaluation that led from my first breath to that milestone of adulthood. You get the picture. So, here I am at fifty now. My brain is engaged in the forensic audit of my life to date before it decides what it needs to address going forward. It's already issued its first verbal warning in the form of hauling out what I am "affectionately" calling The Bitterness List. Not a pretty thing, that list...and it's got quite a bit scrawled out in shaky letters penned in mental blood and tears. Maybe you have one, too? Don't worry. I won't tell - and I'm sure not going to judge you. That would mean having to show you mine so we could compare their specific gravity and determine which is worse. No thank you. This is what I AM going to do. I'm going to make a suggestion that I hope I will follow as well. As writers (and if you aren't, this is a good time to pick up the cruel little habit) I suggest that we use said list in our stories. Change the names and the events of course - innocent or not, there are protections for everyone in those hidden truths - but write that crap right out of your system. Purge it. Deal with it. (No, I mean ACTUALLY deal with it.) Then let it go! It might grow back, sure. New things to snarl about will show up because they always do. That's a given. But that nasty little monster that keeps nipping at your heals from the past? Yeah, that one can be expelled, exorcised, and laid to rest in your writing. Will it be a pretty process? Only if you consider pretty to look like a bad case of the flu. Will it give you a marketable book that is the next hot read of every book club out there? Maybe...maybe not. You are asking the wrong person here judging by my solid case of marketing leprosy (see...that's bitterness right there. Did you catch it?). If nothing else, it'll be a great addition to your campfire this summer. And it will be is worthwhile for you and those around you. Just think of how much lighter you will feel without lugging all that long-ago crap around. Plus, the world is going to look a whole lot different once you stop seeing it through the fog of past hurts. How can that not be a good thing? Best of all, once you lance that boil festering in your heart, you'll look back and see that your life has been a far more beautiful thing that you gave it credit for. Then you'll be able to look forward with a far better outlook. Chances are, next time you check your own Bitterness List, you'll find that far fewer things have taken up residence on it because you let the others go. Anyone with me on this journey? We'll regroup in the blankie fort as needed. I've got chocolate, and I make my own wine. Just sayin'. |
AuthorJosie Dorans Archives
June 2022
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