Mini-Essay: Blabbing it down

color study for book #4

A few years ago I was at a soccer match and was impressed by how often the ball just needed to get walloped to the other side of the field. In a tense situation, when my team was too close to their opponent's goal, they just needed to get the ball as far from the opponent's goal as possible. They didn't need to be precise, they just needed to move the ball out of the danger zone. 

Sometimes in conversations, when I am feeling nervous or am struggling to express an idea, I just blab some words, throw something out there and that loosens me up so I can yammer my way to the point. That is definitely how it is in the beginning stages of a creative project, I just need to get an idea down, a loose sketch or a disjointed story, something I can work with.

It was a close match, up to the end, and every time they knocked the ball to the other end of the field it seemed pretty desperate and we in the stands were relieved when our team managed to do it.

That is how it feels in the beginning stages of a project, pretty desperate. A wild abandon, "I don't know what to do, but I have to do something." I am not sure why it feels that way. I don't have anything to lose by creating something bad. I am not in a soccer match, I am sitting alone in my studio and won't show it to anyone if I don't like it. So why panic? I suppose it is the fear that the first draft will be as good as it gets.