At least what seems to be the starting of a story. It was so painful. The writing, and the drawing. I just gave it a days gap (in that I read Patrick Rothfuss's majorly hailed first of a trilogy, The Name of The Wind. More on this later) and when I read it on the site a an hour ago, I cringe. Its incoherent. to say the least. I wouldn't be surprised to find that its been dismissed as rubbish. The art too is nothing to call home about. And the thing is (twenty-twenty hindsight working here) editing would do make it so much better. The dialogues are huge. The language terrible. Its obvious I was trying too hard. So much was riding on me. Actually still is. But I submitted yesterday and so I feel I've closed that chapter of the project. But something I just read told me that any art that you make, will never be perfect, and Zadie Smith said, I'm paraphrasing here, that if you are an artist or a creator of any sort, be prepared for the misery of constant dissatisfaction. And its true.
Coming off this project, I have been left with a couple of very deep feelings. First, I am relieved. I am relieved to be off someone else's timeline and deadline for a project which had supposedly entirely been my own in theory. The cost of being on someone else's time has been heavy. And the work has suffered. Too much stress. Too much panic. Too much pressure to perform. To be brilliant. From what I could manage to decipher from the horrendous writing in the story, I think some of it subconsciously came out in it through opinions of the protagonist. But its to incomprehensible in its language to be understood.
Second, I need the time and the lack of pressure to go back into a project like this, some space away from the project, in order to see its fault and make it perfect. This seems like a no brainer but a diploma project will only give you maybe an hour away from it. Not an entire day. And even if you do take a day, you are still completely inhabiting the head space you had left. There is no severance in the connection to the work. Hence no perspective. And really, thinking that "Now, I will write." doesn't really produce fantastic things. And that's what happened to me this time. I had always considered my self to be a tolerable writer. But this bullshit that i have produced is possibly the worst I have ever written. Its trite, contrite and I hate it. As of now. Which brings me to my third realization.
You cannot use the design principle to produce art. Or to write. In the last few years in Srishti, I have been conditioned to the factory mode of production. Supposedly for the greater good, and the need to constantly meet the deadlines I will face if(when?) I go into the professional arena. But it cannot be applied to when you have to write. Or draw for that matter. Yes deadlines are important. But not to the extent that you are settling for bullshit in the place of ideas. You can plan everything as much as you want. Plan an outline. Plan a character. Plan every fucking thing, if it takes your fancy, but none of it will be any good if there is not spark of genuine inspiration behind it. And inspiration acquisition takes time. It needs to be a delicate balance of planning/deadline setting and inspiration. And I did not have the time here.
At the moment, I realize that my head is completely empty. All the plans I had made have slipped by the wayside. All the things I had planned to do once I had this project out of the way, seem to fail to come to mind. All I have done is develop a crack like addiction to books. I think the analogy is appropriate because books and crack are both expensive like hell and basically does the same thing. I think I have bought three books in the last month itself, and I have devoured them in an insane space of time. How much? I finished the first two books that I had ordered off flipkart (I am a flipkart virgin no longer) in a a matter of six or eight hours to the minute I bought them. A total of about four hundred pages. And today I finished Patrick Rothfuss, whose Name of the Wind, is a whopping eight hundred pages long. And I have been reading it since yesterday. I seem to be going through books in a insane rate, and cant stop feeling the urge to keep of buying books. Because I honestly can't read ebooks on the computer comfortably. My eyes hurt. The only failure in reading has been the two books I picked from the garbage- the second book of the millenium trilogy and a book by Malcolm Caldwell. Somehow that I just couldn't read.
But. Reading the Name of the Wind has been a comfort. Not because of the quality of writing. I honestly havent judged what I am feeling about the book. But I felt happy and comfortable in sitting with a book obsessively knowing that I had absolutely nothing else that needed my attention, or the fact that I was shirking no duty. That freedom was delicious. And I reveled in every little bit of it.
It's a comfort to me that I have some time now. Some time to just be without work. At least formal work. I can make things that I want to, without having to be judged, if I want to. I like the personal-ness I think this time offers me. I can do things which don't have to stand up to any one else's standards but my own. And do it on my own sweet time. Who knows? Maybe its worth doing. Maybe the efforts might be more satisfactory than that of what I produced for the school.
Anyway. I have gotten into making lists, during the project. And the white walls in my room are dotted with neon colored post its of to-do lists. I think its working for me. So might as well make a list for things I want to do for my leisure as well. I think I just will.
Also, my fears have been unfounded. People have been calling me from all over to tell me that they have received the mails that I sent them, with the super honest letters and cards. And most seemed to be super overwhelmed. The one person whose reaction I was fearing the most was very positive. So I went and posted another card to B. I hadn't before because the ass had not sent his address on time. But anyway, I feel like quite a pro with the post office now. I can take on the bloody world, as they say.
On the other hand, I am also feeling the need to have money of my own. I hate having to ask my father for money. And spending his. I want my money, which is my own, to guiltlessly buy books, and do things and not having to shudder at thinking of having to ask for more money to pay rent, while hating wanting to buy another book, because that would also involve asking for more money, because rent would have cleared the house out. That being said, I cannot really take time to relax too much because earning money requires getting a job. And that means getting back to work, and sprucing up the portfolio and all that running around and another round of stress. I have some serious thinking to do.
And maybe I could squeeze in a bit of relaxation also.
Coming off this project, I have been left with a couple of very deep feelings. First, I am relieved. I am relieved to be off someone else's timeline and deadline for a project which had supposedly entirely been my own in theory. The cost of being on someone else's time has been heavy. And the work has suffered. Too much stress. Too much panic. Too much pressure to perform. To be brilliant. From what I could manage to decipher from the horrendous writing in the story, I think some of it subconsciously came out in it through opinions of the protagonist. But its to incomprehensible in its language to be understood.
Second, I need the time and the lack of pressure to go back into a project like this, some space away from the project, in order to see its fault and make it perfect. This seems like a no brainer but a diploma project will only give you maybe an hour away from it. Not an entire day. And even if you do take a day, you are still completely inhabiting the head space you had left. There is no severance in the connection to the work. Hence no perspective. And really, thinking that "Now, I will write." doesn't really produce fantastic things. And that's what happened to me this time. I had always considered my self to be a tolerable writer. But this bullshit that i have produced is possibly the worst I have ever written. Its trite, contrite and I hate it. As of now. Which brings me to my third realization.
You cannot use the design principle to produce art. Or to write. In the last few years in Srishti, I have been conditioned to the factory mode of production. Supposedly for the greater good, and the need to constantly meet the deadlines I will face if(when?) I go into the professional arena. But it cannot be applied to when you have to write. Or draw for that matter. Yes deadlines are important. But not to the extent that you are settling for bullshit in the place of ideas. You can plan everything as much as you want. Plan an outline. Plan a character. Plan every fucking thing, if it takes your fancy, but none of it will be any good if there is not spark of genuine inspiration behind it. And inspiration acquisition takes time. It needs to be a delicate balance of planning/deadline setting and inspiration. And I did not have the time here.
At the moment, I realize that my head is completely empty. All the plans I had made have slipped by the wayside. All the things I had planned to do once I had this project out of the way, seem to fail to come to mind. All I have done is develop a crack like addiction to books. I think the analogy is appropriate because books and crack are both expensive like hell and basically does the same thing. I think I have bought three books in the last month itself, and I have devoured them in an insane space of time. How much? I finished the first two books that I had ordered off flipkart (I am a flipkart virgin no longer) in a a matter of six or eight hours to the minute I bought them. A total of about four hundred pages. And today I finished Patrick Rothfuss, whose Name of the Wind, is a whopping eight hundred pages long. And I have been reading it since yesterday. I seem to be going through books in a insane rate, and cant stop feeling the urge to keep of buying books. Because I honestly can't read ebooks on the computer comfortably. My eyes hurt. The only failure in reading has been the two books I picked from the garbage- the second book of the millenium trilogy and a book by Malcolm Caldwell. Somehow that I just couldn't read.
But. Reading the Name of the Wind has been a comfort. Not because of the quality of writing. I honestly havent judged what I am feeling about the book. But I felt happy and comfortable in sitting with a book obsessively knowing that I had absolutely nothing else that needed my attention, or the fact that I was shirking no duty. That freedom was delicious. And I reveled in every little bit of it.
It's a comfort to me that I have some time now. Some time to just be without work. At least formal work. I can make things that I want to, without having to be judged, if I want to. I like the personal-ness I think this time offers me. I can do things which don't have to stand up to any one else's standards but my own. And do it on my own sweet time. Who knows? Maybe its worth doing. Maybe the efforts might be more satisfactory than that of what I produced for the school.
Anyway. I have gotten into making lists, during the project. And the white walls in my room are dotted with neon colored post its of to-do lists. I think its working for me. So might as well make a list for things I want to do for my leisure as well. I think I just will.
Also, my fears have been unfounded. People have been calling me from all over to tell me that they have received the mails that I sent them, with the super honest letters and cards. And most seemed to be super overwhelmed. The one person whose reaction I was fearing the most was very positive. So I went and posted another card to B. I hadn't before because the ass had not sent his address on time. But anyway, I feel like quite a pro with the post office now. I can take on the bloody world, as they say.
On the other hand, I am also feeling the need to have money of my own. I hate having to ask my father for money. And spending his. I want my money, which is my own, to guiltlessly buy books, and do things and not having to shudder at thinking of having to ask for more money to pay rent, while hating wanting to buy another book, because that would also involve asking for more money, because rent would have cleared the house out. That being said, I cannot really take time to relax too much because earning money requires getting a job. And that means getting back to work, and sprucing up the portfolio and all that running around and another round of stress. I have some serious thinking to do.
And maybe I could squeeze in a bit of relaxation also.
