There are times a person working on a project (whether writing, art, w/e) may think to themselves, "Oh, I work best burning the late night oil." Working late has it's moments, and the evening hours are known to not have too many distractions (well, usually). So working late has its allure, and yet when the morning comes and you look at last night's evidence you'll see just as many errors as if it was done in the day. That's part of creating, so really the word of advice is to not be pinned to the idea of 'only being able to work at x times', really it's about the time you set aside to work on the thing. Heard it before? It's good advice. Sounds silly or strange to you? Like anything, each person has their own methods, but I have a rather strong gut feeling that this is one of those maxims that are universal.
Take for instance the post I threw up here called, "It costs a heart." It was done in April 1, 2014. The length in time between that post, this one, and all my posts should indicate either two things.
1) I'm doing nothing.
2) I'm doing something.
Generally as a reader one would think the former not the latter. Rest assured I have been doing things, just not things here. Back on topic, 'It costs a heart' (icah) is a great example of something done late at night, thrown up on the net and in my opinion...
Any kind of competent reader should be able to determine that whatever icah is doesn't convey intent very well. Its tense (past/present) is a mess at times, its clarity of topic is obscured, and its rambling trail of tangent discussions go on and on and on...
The magical time of it being done late at night (or late relative to any sleeping schedule) has been shown to be a fallacy we can all ignore.
That mysticism successfully shot down, we can now look at what my probable intent was for that piece. In short it is about writing. In defined terms that was a topic piece on the concept of value for words, writing, the written word, writers, and so on. Motivation was based off of a lot of pieces I came across and a bunch of frustrations I had at the time. Its humorous to note how some people might find the frustrations of the creative turned into something 'art' and how it may get praise... Even so, to be honest, there's a limit people have even to that flexible title of 'art'. What was posted was at best a draft. A lot of my drafts look like this. If I were to rewrite it I'd probably cut half of it out and rewrite what remained.
What advice can I give then from that experience? Well if anyone wants to know about writing or doing anything creative, they'll have to get comfortable with editing. It's often called criticism and though that is technically correct, it's only part of the chopping block. You need to get comfortable with editing and you need to hone your 'eye for quality'. You might think to yourself, "Hmph, as a Reader I know good stories when I see one." You might even think to yourself, "I could do something better than this trash!" Good! That's the spirit! Give it a whirl! If you find it a little more difficult than you thought it'd be (or a lot, I'm not judging), then congrats, you're on the way to becoming one of us. Honing the mind's eye for quality is a lot like watching an athlete perform. They work at their profession for hours and try to achieve a combination of what they imagine in the mind with what they wish to do with their body. It's the same for drawing, painting, building, writing, making music, whatever. You need to put in the time, the effort, but also the correcting. It hurts to have things chopped apart and sliced, and for writers or artists it can be like getting stabbed in the chest. It is a visceral feeling. Not all chopping is good, but over time you'll come to discover what you can use and not use; from your own eye and from other's critiques.
You know what it's like to receive a critique..?
You like to image yourself to be the potter right? The one who sculpts the clay, the one in control? You look at the pile of words on empty space or the lines and brush strokes put on the page and like the potter manipulating clay you think to yourself, "Yes, my vision is coming together!"
Writing is like being the potter or the statue maker. You feel like you're the builder.
But when it's time for the critique there's something you have to realize. When you receive a critique, the reason why it hurts is because you are the clay. You are the one getting chopped. You are the one having parts of you removed. The image that you had is interpreted through another's brain, their filter is different and so you witness that soft clay construct you lovely made, a mirror to your own vulnerable inside get crushed. And it hurts. And it will hurt.
You might hear a lot of people say, "Oh you'll get used to it," or try to comfort you on 'getting used to it', but sometimes no matter the toughness of the skin you make, there'll be a knife that'll cut through to your heart. My advice to give, which is advice I stumbled upon that changed my perspective so much, is to realize that criticism is all about "how I see myself", not you as the maker, but as the person critiquing. My suggestion is that you try to turn the knife around and change its shape, so that you don't feel like it's an attack on you, but that it is a finger pointing at the parts of what you made that stand out. Based off good criticism you can determine what parts are rough, what parts don't deliver the intended vision, what parts have holes and so on. You won't stop all the knives, but you'll parry enough of them to hammer the thing you're working on into something better.
Practice makes perfect. Perfection is an ideal, attempting to achieve it is mastery. Mastery is a life time endeavor and so it is inevitable that everyone makes mistakes. You ever hear a person say, "Ah the thing I made is shit" and you think to yourself, "Are you kidding this is great?" Well, the eye for detail may be different, the taste may be different, but more importantly... as a creator that knows what they were trying to achieve, they may have realized the faults/mistakes in their work and thus have difficulty overcoming that. In some cases, honestly, I feel that there's always the chance of someone being too hard on themselves and not realizing anything good about what they did. On the other scale you'll have the person who believes what they did is perfect despite lots of obvious flaws. All I can say is do your best, try not to get too discouraged, and try not to hold your nose too high when you think it's perfect. Your mileage will vary.
So we've covered a few basics about writing and creative projects in general:
Setting time for yourself.
Drafting feels magical, in the morning you'll see the monster that it is.
Don't be afraid of the chopping block of editing and criticism, learn to master this just as well.
Perspective is important, here just as it is anywhere.
Pro's make the hard thing look easy cause they put the time into it.
It takes time and effort to improve on anything, and we all have different values of what one wishes they had (or wish to improve on).
Keep at it and strive to try if you wish to thrive.
That's it for late night basics.
