On Craft…
I’ve been watching a 19-segment, six-hour-long lecture by photography legend, Alec Soth. He talks about a lot, which has inspired plenty of newsletters. Today, I was particularly taken by him saying, “I try not to be overly intellectual when I begin.” I wrote down the quote, obviously, and started to think about how important the beginning of a project really is. I started to think about the balance between instinct and planning. So, let’s talk about how we keep our projects pure via this balance.
There needs to be room for your gut in all your projects, but especially at the beginning. When you’re just starting out and everything is fresh and exciting, don’t worry too, too much about logistics. Write down as much as you can—bottle your excitement for a rainy day when the project becomes difficult. As the project starts to take shape and you inevitably run into challenges, you’ll be thankful you had this writing to keep you on track in terms of the emotional value of the work.
There’s a natural high that comes with starting a project, and if we can preserve that in some capacity, our long-term work will always be pure. In his lecture, Soth talks of all the pivots he had to make to produce his first book, Sleeping By the Mississippi. The sheer number of transitions and misfires along the way make the book a feat, but also a great lesson for writers who want to create work over a period of time. The work will change. Sometimes wholesale, sometimes just in bits. But if you fully stray from your initial spark, the work will stop being pure and true to you.
Of course, we have to allow room for growth and learning as we embark on long-term projects. Editing, for one, will flip a project on its head. Even so, there’s an essence to your work which first came about at the onset, and that cannot be lost. To keep a project pure, you have to, in some way, define said essence without being too intellectual, as Soth says. You don’t want to spoil your project by overthinking. There is an overlap between intuition and forethought. You can think something through and also lead with your heart.
Allowing room for your natural drive to outdo your more rational side will help move the project along, and help keep you ambitious. You’ll be surprised how much you can accomplish in the early stages of a project if you just let excitement overrule everything. Remember, there’s always an editing step, and it’s better to cut down than to realize you don’t have enough. Get overly ambitious in the early stages. Be unwieldy. Be ridiculous, even. The purity of your project is dependent upon this child-like wonder you bring to it each and every time you work on it—and though that wonder wanes as you get into the throes of the thing, it doesn’t make eagerness any less important.