I’ve been struggling to return to mindless doodling and writing; that space of pure invention; to use the physical act of mark-making to explore what I’m thinking and feeling.
I haven’t quite worked out what it is, but I think ‘publishing’, as a goal, has begun to dominate my thinking. Who will buy it? Who will be interested? What market is this for? These questions are creating barriers – second-guessing, fear of losing touch, a lack of confidence.
Over the years, I’ve known many emerging and unpublished authors describe the same questions and feelings. They all boil down to the same ultimate question, “What’s the point of making art?” And, even though I answered this for myself almost 4 years ago, it’s still difficult to prioritise it when the rest of the world is competing for my attention in so many different ways.
I used to think that self-confidence and motivation were beginner’s problems. But, as it turns out, no matter how many books are published, or awards won, this question still emerges in any artist’s mind at different stages in their career. Well, it’s been my experience, anyway.
And now that I know this is true, I have a couple of options.
I can persist with trying to answer the unsolvable questions – who will buy it, who will be interested, what market is this for – before I put pen to paper. This probably means that days, weeks, or months go by without anything physical to show for all the thinking and worrying that’s been going on.
The other option is just to put pen to paper and then worry about the rest later. By visualising something (or, anything), it’s at least a way of recording all the failures along the way. As any good scientist knows, even a negative result is still a positive one.