Are you supposed to make resolutions for the new year? I don’t really do that. I haven’t done that since I was a kid. I don’t really see the point.
To be clear, it’s not the resolutions, or the idea of making a promise to yourself and sticking to it. I love that sort of thing. I just don’t understand the timing.
This blog was a resolution of sorts. I wanted to write. I wanted to get better at writing. I decided that if, at the very least, I wrote one small thing every week, that would be good enough. I have continued to write, at least once a week, for ten years.
Has it made me a better writer? Difficult to say. It has done this though. Now, I can write on demand. I can sit down and start writing. I don’t have any delusions that the muses will work through me, or that I need to wait for inspiration. Writing, like drawing, is a practice of work. It’s a thing you do and a process for doing it. The piece of writing you have at the end of that practice may or may not be good, but making something good instantly, and without revision, isn’t the point. That’s not writing.
Drawing is a process of building up lines, finding the best lines in the noise, and refining those. 3D modeling is a process of building up forms, finding the best shapes in the noise, and refining those. There is a process for these practices that moves from undefined to precise in both of those arts. The only way to know how to select the precise shapes from the noise is by practicing. Moving through the process over and over and over again.
Writing, it would seem, is much the same. You do it over and over and over and you get used to finding forms in the noise. The only way to do that is practice. Moving through the process. You resolve to do it. It’s not a goal. It’s a constant and unending practice.
It doesn’t matter when you start, but there is no end. That’s a resolution, at least for me. So, for this year, I think I will continue to do what I have been doing.
Maybe I will draw a little more.
To be clear, it’s not the resolutions, or the idea of making a promise to yourself and sticking to it. I love that sort of thing. I just don’t understand the timing.
This blog was a resolution of sorts. I wanted to write. I wanted to get better at writing. I decided that if, at the very least, I wrote one small thing every week, that would be good enough. I have continued to write, at least once a week, for ten years.
Has it made me a better writer? Difficult to say. It has done this though. Now, I can write on demand. I can sit down and start writing. I don’t have any delusions that the muses will work through me, or that I need to wait for inspiration. Writing, like drawing, is a practice of work. It’s a thing you do and a process for doing it. The piece of writing you have at the end of that practice may or may not be good, but making something good instantly, and without revision, isn’t the point. That’s not writing.
Drawing is a process of building up lines, finding the best lines in the noise, and refining those. 3D modeling is a process of building up forms, finding the best shapes in the noise, and refining those. There is a process for these practices that moves from undefined to precise in both of those arts. The only way to know how to select the precise shapes from the noise is by practicing. Moving through the process over and over and over again.
Writing, it would seem, is much the same. You do it over and over and over and you get used to finding forms in the noise. The only way to do that is practice. Moving through the process. You resolve to do it. It’s not a goal. It’s a constant and unending practice.
It doesn’t matter when you start, but there is no end. That’s a resolution, at least for me. So, for this year, I think I will continue to do what I have been doing.
Maybe I will draw a little more.