Ben S Reeder, Author
  • Home
  • Books
  • Blog
  • About
  • Extras
  • Contact

Art is messy

12/12/2016

0 Comments

 
​Not long ago, I ran across some comments about how writers just had to let the process flow, that if you worked too hard at it, you were going to start killing the process. You’d sound like a Harlequin romance.  
“I can tell when a writer is forcing it in the first paragraph and I’ll put the book right down!”
 
“Never force your writing. That just makes for bad writing.”
 
All of this seems to point to an idea that art should come easily. That, if you’re “talented” enough, it just falls neatly onto the page, like Venus springing fully formed from the foamy brine because the Muse channels it magically through your enchanted self. I did my first take on my first novel like that. The result was something that had promise and failed utterly to deliver on it. Two years of queries, partial and full manuscript requests, and rejections later and I was ready to give up. Finally, someone pointed out the REAL problem with the whole thing, and convinced me to tear it down and start from word one. The finished product is vastly different from the rainbow colored, glitter-filled pile of crap I did the first time.
 
Art is hard. It’s messy and complicated and uncooperative. And like most things we do in life, it almost never turns out right the first time. And limiting ourselves to what we first throw down on the page, I think, is the opposite of letting art “flow.” I think we have created this perception of creativity being like water, that it just gushes forth freely. But maybe….maybe it’s more like wet, sticky clay. It just sits there until we reach in and start squishing it and mashing it and shaping it and getting our hands dirty, then reshaping it and refining it until we have something beautiful.
 
And make no mistake, for some of us, it isn’t the finished product that is the end goal. Sometimes, act of making art itself is what we’re after. For a lot of writers, just creating worlds and watching the characters’ stories unfold is the entirety of what our art is for. Storytelling is our therapy, our escape. It’s where we find God, serenity or our Zen space. Calling it a hobby falls far short, and calling those writers amateurs feels like a disservice to me, even if the terms are technically correct. When you’re creating art for yourself, writing stories to your own standards, you’re going to write the work you want to read, generally, and you’re usually going to get it right or close to right the first time.
 
It’s when we start trying to make art that speaks to others that it gets hard. We have to see things from  our own perspective, and that of our audience, and bridge the two, so that our audience can see what we see.
 
Like I said, messy and complicated.
 
The following two videos are a great example of how the finished product can be so very different where we start from, and the magic of trying out different approaches, instead of expecting it to just fall from our pens fully formed.

The first one shows the process inthe studio, and the second is the finished product. The difference is enlightening.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Newsletter
    Picture
    Ben Reeder
    Author of the Zompoc Survivor and The Demon's Apprentice series. Occasional wit. Constant smart ass.

    RSS Feed

    Vertical Divider

    Archives

    January 2020
    January 2019
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    July 2017
    May 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    October 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014


    Categories

    All
    Author Lifestyle
    Author Resources
    Community
    Cover
    Demon's Apprentice
    Editor
    Inspiration
    Mindset
    My Team
    Professional Network
    Publishing Industry
    Survival Gear
    Upcoming Release
    Work In Progress
    Zombie Tools
    Zompoc

    The Books

      Books By Ben Reeder: 
         The Demon's Apprentice         The Page of Swords
          Vision Quest
          Charm School ​

          In Absentia 
         The Verge Walker:Book 1
    Zombies by Ben Reeder:
        Zompoc Survivor:  Exodus
        Zompoc Survivor : Inferno
        Zompoc Survivor:  Odyssey
         Ash Fall
        The Gathering Horde
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Books
  • Blog
  • About
  • Extras
  • Contact