A Creative Road Trip
Image Description: Tire treads in the sand. Photo by Andrew Martin from Pixabay
The creative process can feel a bit like a road trip. The promise of freedom, beautiful vistas, and adventures en route to new and exciting destinations. It can also be full of potholes, detours, flat tires, traffic jams, and long, boring stretches. Some roadside attractions will delight and inspire. Others may be mere distractions or money pits.
While taking on such a trip, we all may travel in different ways. For some, this may mean months of planning through online research, picking up guidebooks, and studiously reviewing maps. For others, we may get a few recommendations from friends, but prefer to just go and leave a lot of it up to serendipity.
This can feel a bit like the extremes of the creative process too. Sometimes we may jump into a new project or medium without much preparation, only to encounter messiness, potential backsteps, failures, and the unknown. Other times we are so overly focused on the preparation that we lose the joy, wonder, and discovery of actually making the art.
I think of this a lot when I think about documentary filmmaking, though it can certainly apply to many art forms. Film is an art where the medium itself has evolved in such a way that it has impacted the creative process. In the days when everything had to be shot on actual film with large, expensive and not terribly mobile cameras, a lot of planning had to go into the process, often with a relatively small ratio of filmed footage to edited footage (what is often known as a “shooting ratio.”). Since the advent of video, lighter weight cameras, less expensive editing systems, and improved video quality of Smart Phones, shooting ratios have increased significantly. Similarly the move from linear film editing to non-linear video editing systems has allowed filmmakers to think about structure in different ways. While these technological advances have been largely helpful to being able to access stories, reduce the size of crews to allow greater access, and find creative ways to tell stories, they also increase the prospects of poor planning. Without thinking about the edit while filming, you can end up with lots and lots of footage but not the coverage or soundbite you need to actually create quality scenes that move your story forward. Water water all around and not a drop to drink!
On the flip side, there are people who spend so much time in development on both their projects and themselves as artists. They may dip a toe into that proverbial lake they stop to admire on their road trip, but they can’t quite bring themselves to jump in. This overzealousness towards learning all the things can actually have the effect that a project stalls in the process or never quite gets off the ground.
I admit I have been at both ends of this extreme of the creative process. I can get so excited about a new project that I just want to go full force into it, only to see that my impatience results in unnecessary do-overs. I had painted for many years in acrylic and decided to try watercolor, only to be frustrated by the fact that I didn’t have a handle on the medium. I got stuck in the muddiness, a victim of my own impatience.
Other times, I spend so much time reading and studying and learning that I am overwhelmed by the process and lose steam before I really even start. Recently, while cleaning out some old files, I discovered a treasure trove of travel writings from a class I had taken many years ago. The writing was quite strong and entertaining and made me want to revisit these places I had documented.
In one of those lost travel articles, I wrote about my very first road trip in my 20s.. I had two weeks to drive from San Diego to various places in Arizona and back again. I took off without reservations – both literally and figuratively. On the first day of the trip, I was so excited that I clocked nearly 500 miles before tiring. It was already dark and I needed a place to stay. I saw a sign for Historic Route 66 and took a chance there would be some cheap motel off the exit. Instead I ended up on a desolate stretch that wound up a mountain and passed through a ghost town. When I finally saw lights in the valley that indicated a larger city, I had to coast slowly down the switchbacks, as my gas gauge got perilously low. I made it to safety and had a story to tell that was maybe more exciting in the rear view mirror.
While I was impressed by the quality of the writing, I also felt some regret that the article never saw the light of day outside of that class.
When we are on the road trip of our creative process, we are constantly facing decisions about process and product. It is fine to engage in creative activities merely for enjoyment and personal growth. It is also fine to engage in them with a larger purpose - whether that is to market your work, impact the world, or garner your own definition of success. Sometimes our purpose may change - a seemingly wrong turn can lead to a more interesting destination.
Originally, when I was thinking about what to write in this post, I wanted to focus on the dangers of gurus. Even as I am often solicited for consultation on creative projects, I believe everyone has to ultimately find their own path. As I write a book and blog about creative resilience, I am always wary of making my readers hang on my recommendations as though they were the only truth. Some advice may work for you. Some may not. As you explore your own creative path, my hope is that these writings spark in readers a deeper consideration of what could be the best path for you. Just as the travel advice you receive can be helpful, it can also overwhelm you from exploring on your own and discovering your own path.
As I’ve read and re-read and edited and re-edited this post, I have come to the conclusion that it is a bit of a ramble. It has sat in my computer drafts for weeks. Yet I want to post it in its current form since my own purpose is not just to let it get revamped into perfection on the page, but to be shared in all its messy meandering. Thanks for sticking with it and hope it sparks some ideas in you for your own creative journey. Happy travels!
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