improvement by intuition

 [Note - Currently working through a backlog of things I wrote when I was still too sheepish to share them, which has been a good opportunity to reflect on how well my ideas hold up over time. Update on progress at the end.]

During my free months between jobs, I started doing some more creative work - writing, drawing, playing music. And on the less creative side, running more and listening to a lot more music. For all but the last one, the starts felt really tender. I had this sense that if I pushed myself too hard on them, I would give up too soon. 

That happened with a previous writing experiment that I started back in October. I decided to write at least a page a day and punish myself ($10) for the days I skipped. I set up prompts ahead of time to lessen the load each time I sat down to write. It worked for a little while, but eventually the obligation and the pace drummed all the joy out of it for me. I’ve decided that’s not the point of free time, to drum the joy out of yourself. So now I’m focused more on the joyful creativity side of things than production.  

That worked out great when I first started because I was really excited to get going, I could tell myself that any effort was a good effort, and once I got over the initial hump of trying it once or twice I have had really good periods of writing and drawing and playing music just because I wanted to. Just doing something rather than nothing leads to some natural improvement, so it’s also been pretty fun to feel like I’m making progress.

Now I’m reaching a point where there are things I want to do, but I probably need to get better in order to do them.

• For drawing, I want to be able to draw faster so I can go places and sketch. Right now I sit down at a desk for an hour or so and listen to music while I stare at a picture on my phone and try to recreate it. I really enjoy that and will probably continue, but I need to think about simplifying the way I draw and drawing without a frame

• For writing, I want to write longer and in more detail. I thought I would want to write more about the science that interests me, but lately I have actually been really into reflecting on my life and how I do things and want to do things (this is a good example). I’d like to write something longer that maybe pulls together all the pieces I’ve been thinking about lately. I’d also like to write more narratively about some of the things I’ve been going through the past couple months - I had sentences flash in my head as I was wandering around feeling a lot of turmoil and I wish I’d had the presence of mind to write them down. All of this would require a much more organized effort with some sort of real goal for what I produce at the end. And editing.

• For music, I just want to make the type of music I love to listen to. At the moment, my creative process is sitting down with my guitar and putting my hands in random positions and jiggering them around until I hear something I like. Sometimes I’ll have a tune in my head and try to work it out. It’s all pretty simple, I want to do things that are more complex, but I don’t think I can picture the sounds on the guitar well enough to just push them out. 

• For running, I am going to run this long segment of the Superior Hiking Trail, at least 20 miles. I’ve never run this long before and the trail is hilly, so I need to do some serious training to actually pull it off. I have been able to go for long runs but really need to start amping it up over the next couple months on the weekends. 

All of these things I could approach in an organized way: look up the right exercises to achieve the things I want and do those things over and over until I get to the goal. (For example, look up a typical marathon training plan and just follow that). 

But I really think that will pound the joy out of it for me. 

So I’m going to try something different and lean more on my intuition about how to improve. Meaning I try different things from week to week, do what feels good, don’t worry too much about a schedule. 

I don’t know why I feel so strongly about it, but for the drawing and music in particular I have this really strong aversion to learning “the way” to do those things. It feels like ceding some of my style, and I think I would lean on it too much rather than try to really develop those things on my own. 

For running, I do have a bit of a schedule in mind to get myself up to longer runs, but I’m not going to start running more than 4ish days a week. I’ll just plan to do a long run and a long bike ride most weekends and start working up to 20 miles. I’ll do some long runs at Afton to get my ready for the hills, maybe even run some lower stretches of the SHT that aren’t too far. 

I’m not certain what to do about writing, but for now I’m just going to keep writing things down as I think about them and try to remember to hold onto my thoughts instead of just letting them float through my head and out again. 

Most importantly, when I feel like doing any of those things, I should just do them. It may mean reading (my current, main past-time) more slowly because I’m spending more time playing guitar or drawing but I think it will be worth it in the end. 

[Update: I wrote this back in April and since then I have started this blog, which is a big change, and am about 3 weeks away for doing the Superior Hiking Trail run. Less success on the artistic/musical fronts, but I have hope.]