While I try to keep what lands in the inbox to a minimum (ha!), dispatches like this, from George Saunders’ newsletter, are well worth the extra emails (and definitely worth the subscription price). For those grappling with one of the many dubious points in the creative process, here he is on that topic from a recent post:
The biggest thing I’ve learned over the years has to do with where to look for satisfaction in writing. There’s a very samsara-esque quality to this endeavor (well, to all endeavors, but). That is, there’s a predictable & cyclic quality to it all, that goes like this (and I’m sure this will be familiar to many of you): First, the feeling that I’ve got no ideas, and despair over that (“I’ve lost it! I’m finished!”). Then, an idea comes, or at least a place to start. Is it good? Months of work to find out, and: Yes, it is, or could be. Work, work, work. Finally I finish it, feeling good. Send it out. Maybe it’s accepted. Yay, it is! Ugh, I hope I don’t mess up the edits. But no: the editing process goes great. And now the story is coming out! Will people like it? Some do. Hooray! But wait: I’ve got no ideas.
Then it all starts over again, over and over, until I die at 120, busily enacting one of those phases described above.
So, there’s actually no settled place of fulfillment. And maybe that’s as it should be. What’s happened over the years is that, aware of the above, I’ve gotten marginally better at being content/happy during any/all of those phases, kind of like, “Oh, I’m in that phase now. That’s fun.” It’s still frustrating, scary, sometimes euphoric…but less so, or more controllably so - I can be in a certain phase of the creative process, struggling to move out of it, even as I’m looking over at myself struggling, slightly amused by the whole thing.