I’ve been writing away on my latest projects and it’s that steadfast problem that every ‘one man band’ has to consider is the utter lack of time to get everything done.
We all know the feeling of there never being enough time to finally complete all of the odds and sods that we have on our plate. It doesn’t matter what profession you’re in or what your life gives you, there’ll always be a time when you don’t have enough day to cover all of the tasks.
So what to do?
Get some help.
If you can find a way to offload some of the things that you have to do, say getting a trusted helper to look after all of the communications you get, it can give you more time to get down to the big creative stuff. All so simple.
Now what happens if the number of voices involved grows and grows?
A publisher could want to have a chunky say in how any narrative unfolds, telling the author what they want said. Film directors are regularly told by ‘the studio’ that certain creative choices have to happen or others have to not. Pop music can appear to be a merciless production line where the artist’s clothes, hair, attitude, and whole skill set are wedged into the mould of what the ‘top brass’ want to see and the central creative core of who the artist is gets buried deep down in favour of the expected.
Now this isn’t to suggest that all creative people are somehow being chained to work they don’t want to produce by cadres of brutal executives who are looking to wield their cookie cutter on everyone they see. It’s more of a way to consider that the media we all consume is very often the result of choices made by vastly more people than we think.
I’m a big fan of examining the work of others to see if they’re doing something which I can use. Years ago I went on more than one trip across the country to different sites in the company I was working in to see for myself what they were doing that allowed them to deliver better results in a certain metric than I was. I learned a lot. There were ideas that I thought were positive so I used what I could. In my writing, I listen to my wife, Jo, when she beta reads my stuff because she can suggest things that i may not have thought of, not seeing the wood for the trees.
But if the number of people giving their opinion just grows and grows, the meaning and heart of the work can end up being degraded by the sheer volume. If you add in the idea that some of those suggestions then can’t be ignored, regardless of their value or lack there of, the story is taken from the original creator and instead handed to a committee who will no doubt disagree on almost everything.
The creative process is tough to navigate at the best of times but having billions of voices crying out for their version of the thing to be the one to take precedence will ultimately leave a jumbled mess which just doesn’t work.
I’ll keep on creating stuff, and I’ll continue to have a smaller number of people who give me input to shape what I’m saying because I want to always make sure that my message doesn’t get lost.
I’m not a committee, you know.
Stay safe all.
Owen Elgie 