I have been documenting my album journey for the past months. In a weekly format discussing the ups & downs of my attempts in producing an album. As I felt I written all about it I put an end to that series.
But I enjoy rambling about the creative proces a lot, as I do on other topics. I haven’t decided on a format yet, other than the weekly occurrence. I will just let my mind wonder around and see what topic springs to mind.
I am thinking about creative processes for some time now and I found them in almost everything I do, making music, writing software, researching things, cooking. All these things have a few things in common. On the surface its all about the end result, a program has too work, a song finished and a meal eaten. But when you look a little closer, it has everything to do with creativity as well, balancing the ingredients into something beautiful.
Most of these processes are defining the boundaries of the project, or problem you want too solve, searching for the right ingredients and make them work together. And a lot of attempts fail. Is that a bad thing ?
Failure is learning, as with anything you learn by doing. In a society were only succes gets shared it might seem that only talent is needed and the rest is inspiration. And then as some sort of magical cocktail the end result is there.
I know that this is not the case, I have made countless mistakes in my coding, investing, running and musical adventures. The only failure is quitting.
This is not just some bolstered never quit anything mantra. Sometimes things are not meant to be, a chosen field just doesn’t fit, and giving those up for thing better suiting is a smart thing to do. But if its something you really feel you want too achieve just keep going. Because after the initial joy and energy boost of a new endeavor, the energy levels drop whenever things get hard. The results are not what you envisioned, the problem seems unsolvable and so on.
Remember that the passion and the inspiration are the beginning and the end of a circle the rest of the circle is hard work and showing up. Next week I will go into the showing up part and how to create habits that benefit your progress.