Staying focussed on creative work – one project at a time – is difficult. In fact, it’s probably one of the hardest things to do in the new attention economy we live in. We’re exposed to millions of snippets, moments, and ideas every day – each one is a thread on which the creative brain can pull in order to invent a new piece of art.
So how does one prioritise? Well, deadlines help. Once you have that elusive ‘contract’ with a publisher, you’re obliged to deliver against it. The problem is contracts are elusive. Having someone care about your work, at all, is elusive. So, if those two external motivations don’t exist, what’s left? The only answer is the artist themselves.
What questions are you trying to answer?
The drive to make things (art, performance, software) comes from our need to answer the questions that percolate in our minds. For me, I use the medium of pencil and watercolour, words and pictures, to play through scenarios and what-ifs? For example, Queen Celine (before she was a book) was attempting to answer the question, “What if our national borders closed for good? What if nothing – the people, the things we produce in a society – never change? Is change good and necessary? Are we better off because of it?” I prioritised her because, for me, I wanted to know the answer to that question.
Pip and Pop, my webcomic that isn’t published by a traditional publisher, was and remains important. The question about how we resolve intergenerational communication and the growing divide between the old and young created a burning need in me to work through the pros and cons of each generation’s perspective on things. What I’m learning from that simple comic is that there’s a lot to learn from one another.
Perhaps, instead of thinking about all those creative projects that are drawing our interest, we can reflect, rather, on the questions we seek to answer for ourselves and prioritise answering those in whatever medium helps us work through it. We may even find (like I did with Queen Celine) that there are enough people trying to answer the same question such that someone in a position of influence thinks it’s worth re-producing 10,000 times with that elusive contract after all. And if not, at least you’re answering the questions in life that are important to you – you’re finding the answers you seek.