Henriette- fun read and I’m starting to support writers and other artists directly vs. organizations or businesses. This is not for some abstract notion, but to see if the direct support yields more enjoyable writing or art for me.
Mark, thanks for the comment. And thank you for your mission to support artists directly! I will be interested to hear how the experiment works out for you.
Thank you, thank you! Having spent the weekend writing blogs about ChatGTP (my remorseless copywriting predator) and the "thrilling potential" of Artificial Intelligence, I need a way back to fiction. I'll try to follow at least a bit of your path.
Yes! Yes! Yes! I feel like as a society--artistic and otherwise--we put too much focus on the ending and forget about beginnings. I'd say it's a chicken and the egg problem, but it's not--you can't have an ending without a beginning. And if you put to much stock on ending you forget that an end is just the step before beginning again.
May 22, 2023·edited May 22, 2023Liked by Henriette Lazaridis
Yes! I'm working on an essay about tenacity and I'm becoming so frustrated that most tenacity tales end in a triumph, as if the triumph is the only reason to do a thing. I'm more interested in the tenacity of beginning. I'm planning a whole series on Tenacity Tales.
That's awesome! Of course there is the other side to this--that beginning something doesn't take as much determination/tenacity/effort as sustaining it. But there again, there's the distinction between sustaining and completing. One could sustain something for a long time and maybe not complete it in any perfect fashion (delays, revisions, etc) and that would be an achievement. I'm not a fan of just starting shit that you don't follow through on, though. It's all about the follow-through.
I agree, start dates deserve at least as much reverence and respect as deadlines, if not more. What I read between the lines is honoring your start time helps you be more present for the journey. This worked for me when I wrote my book. I celebrated many starts - the outline, the additional research I realized I needed, the first draft, both major revisions. Those celebrations and that focus helped when my unrealistic notions of how long each stage would take pushed my deadlines out more times than I'd like to count.
Ooh, yes, that too: the way that establishing a deadline and then failing to meet it can feel like, well, failure. When it doesn't have to be that at all. Pushing out a deadline could well mean that you've found deeper elements in the work, or you've realized you need to push yourself more to make the work better. So, yes, I'm being very wary of deadlines that seem to have gotten all the good PR. It's time for start dates to get some good press!
Wait, that's not true. I'm pretty sure there's at least three of us who are really really really interested in reading that revision. Maybe we should be the ones giving you the deadline? ;p
Though I'm a big believer, of course, in the power of a looming deadline, I agree that setting an intention at the beginning--and then sticking with it--is often overlooked. There's something less onerous and more hopeful about it. (Also, I loved your use of footnotes!)
Oh, I'm very glad the newsletter was timely! and Atomic Habits sounds like a very interesting book. I've been coming across a lot of articles/essays on the subject of time--sometimes time management but often just . . . time. Then there's the International Booker Prize winner, Time Shelter, by Georgi Gospodinov, which sounds like an interesting exploration of memory and the past. Time, as a subject, is in the air these days!
The pull of the deadline is so strong, though, isn't it? I'm finding that even this week as I set a very loose goal--thanks to a piece on my friend's HIBOU Substack (https://hibou.substack.com/p/writing-accountability-experiment)--I couldn't help tallying up how much work I could get done and then projecting a date when I'd be finished. Even as I'm telling myself not to rush the project! aargh.
Henriette- fun read and I’m starting to support writers and other artists directly vs. organizations or businesses. This is not for some abstract notion, but to see if the direct support yields more enjoyable writing or art for me.
Mark, thanks for the comment. And thank you for your mission to support artists directly! I will be interested to hear how the experiment works out for you.
So far so good if my support of you is any indication of the rewards of direct support.
Thank you, thank you! Having spent the weekend writing blogs about ChatGTP (my remorseless copywriting predator) and the "thrilling potential" of Artificial Intelligence, I need a way back to fiction. I'll try to follow at least a bit of your path.
Excellent! Happy to have helped!
Yes! Yes! Yes! I feel like as a society--artistic and otherwise--we put too much focus on the ending and forget about beginnings. I'd say it's a chicken and the egg problem, but it's not--you can't have an ending without a beginning. And if you put to much stock on ending you forget that an end is just the step before beginning again.
And it's really all about beginning. Again.
Yes! I'm working on an essay about tenacity and I'm becoming so frustrated that most tenacity tales end in a triumph, as if the triumph is the only reason to do a thing. I'm more interested in the tenacity of beginning. I'm planning a whole series on Tenacity Tales.
That's awesome! Of course there is the other side to this--that beginning something doesn't take as much determination/tenacity/effort as sustaining it. But there again, there's the distinction between sustaining and completing. One could sustain something for a long time and maybe not complete it in any perfect fashion (delays, revisions, etc) and that would be an achievement. I'm not a fan of just starting shit that you don't follow through on, though. It's all about the follow-through.
I agree, start dates deserve at least as much reverence and respect as deadlines, if not more. What I read between the lines is honoring your start time helps you be more present for the journey. This worked for me when I wrote my book. I celebrated many starts - the outline, the additional research I realized I needed, the first draft, both major revisions. Those celebrations and that focus helped when my unrealistic notions of how long each stage would take pushed my deadlines out more times than I'd like to count.
Ooh, yes, that too: the way that establishing a deadline and then failing to meet it can feel like, well, failure. When it doesn't have to be that at all. Pushing out a deadline could well mean that you've found deeper elements in the work, or you've realized you need to push yourself more to make the work better. So, yes, I'm being very wary of deadlines that seem to have gotten all the good PR. It's time for start dates to get some good press!
Wise words! Thanks for this thoughtful post, Henriette!
Wait, that's not true. I'm pretty sure there's at least three of us who are really really really interested in reading that revision. Maybe we should be the ones giving you the deadline? ;p
Ha! OK, for -you- I'll do it :-)
Though I'm a big believer, of course, in the power of a looming deadline, I agree that setting an intention at the beginning--and then sticking with it--is often overlooked. There's something less onerous and more hopeful about it. (Also, I loved your use of footnotes!)
I've been inspired by Cathy Elcik's footnote use over on HIBOU :-)
Oh, I'm very glad the newsletter was timely! and Atomic Habits sounds like a very interesting book. I've been coming across a lot of articles/essays on the subject of time--sometimes time management but often just . . . time. Then there's the International Booker Prize winner, Time Shelter, by Georgi Gospodinov, which sounds like an interesting exploration of memory and the past. Time, as a subject, is in the air these days!
The pull of the deadline is so strong, though, isn't it? I'm finding that even this week as I set a very loose goal--thanks to a piece on my friend's HIBOU Substack (https://hibou.substack.com/p/writing-accountability-experiment)--I couldn't help tallying up how much work I could get done and then projecting a date when I'd be finished. Even as I'm telling myself not to rush the project! aargh.