Put It Out There

There's a story that Hitler (yes, I'm writing about Hitler, bear with me) asked his arts advisor about the films made in Germany over the course of a given year. He wanted to know how many had been made. He was told, "About a hundred." He then asked, "Out of those hundred, how many were genius films?" His advisor told him, "Maybe two." Hitler then said, "Well, why don't we just make the genius films?"

Action by Jonathan Kos-Read

The first time I heard this, my response was - why not? We just have to work harder, right? But then I realized that the whole point of the story is that you can't have genius films without the non-genius films to compare them to. You have to make a hundred movies in order to realize that two of them are genius.

Which brings me to the fact that I'm scared.

Yep, ya heard me. Scared. Of writing.

Today is one of those days when it feels like writing and having people read it is one of the scariest things in the world. BUT - I'm doing it anyway. Because I need to get used to just putting shit out there. Because it doesn't matter if it doesn't exist. And not that I'm trying to hit on genius writing with my blog, but it would be nice if there was a teensy bit of value beyond the joy I get from creating it.

Getting used to putting things out there is part of expanding my creativity. My friend Virginia uses this idea as one of her personal process guidelines on her blog, acceptanceprojectnyc.blogspot.com . She calls it "quantity not quality." This is also talked about a lot in the Artist's Way.

Make a deal with your artist/creativity/god that you will take care of the quantity of things being created, as long as he/she/it takes care of the quality.  

I like to call it "Putting Shit Out There." Cause even if it's shit, it's got to go in the "created" heap or else what will you be able to compare the gems to?

Part of my "Putting Shit Out There" resolution is this blog. I'm trying to write something everyday. I don't make it everyday, but if that's what keeps me more on track to putting more shit out there, then great.

So, here I am, putting it out there. My musings on the topic of creativity may not be the most creative, but they're mine. I'm planning on putting things that I create on here as well, but...I'm in grad school, and the things I create there are extremely ephemeral. We'll see how that can all translate into one lovely, sloppy, quantity-filled blog on creativity.