Back again

Hi. Hello. It’s me again.

Happy Lunar New Year and happy first day of February!

A quick, vague recap: My world fell apart sometime last February. The grief-recovery was a brutal blur and it cast a shadow on almost the entire year. Hence the lack of online presence. Anyhow, I’m on the other side of all that. (!) My motivation and enthusiasm are back. It’s a new year and I’m ready to harness the fresh start energy, to move forward, to try something “new” which is––I think I’d like to start a blog.

“But isn’t this your blog?”

Right.

I’ve always thought of blog posts as fast food. Quickly produced sound bytes; pun intended. Somewhere along the way I let Ego convince me not to share that stuff here. Instead, everything I posted had to be polished and (overly) thought out. But I don’t have the time or energy for that kind of pressure anymore.

Yesterday I revisited this illustrated version of “The Gap” by Ira Glass. It’s a 2 minute pep talk from NPR legend, Ira Glass, validating the frustrations of the creative process and articulating the difference between taste and talent. Although we might have an eye for aesthetics, and/or are able to recognize remarkable work, many of us fall short in technical talent to create outstanding work ourselves. That’s the gap. And it’s the gospel truth for creatives. And it’s infuriating.

He concludes by giving us the secret recipe for success:

“It’s only by [producing a large] volume of work that you’re actually going to catch up and close that gap. Then the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions. …It’s going to take awhile. You just have to fight your way through that…”

I’m an impatient perfectionist so I hate that advice. I’m willing to give it a try though. Why the heck not. For the next month-ish I’m just going to throw a ridiculous amount of “work*” at the blog-wall and see if anything sticks. Quantity over quality. At the very least it will be an entertaining experiment for all of us.

*I’m not exactly sure what I’ll bring to show and tell, but I’m predicting half-baked ramblings and lots of poorly drawn illustrations.

Can’t wait.
See ya tomorrow.