While sipping my coffee this morning, I stumbled across this tweet by a guy named Daniel Holland (@DannyDutch):
As far as I can tell this is the creative process for most people –
1. This is brilliant
2. This is tricky
3. This is shit
4. I am shit
5. This might be ok
6. I’m now interested in the next project more than I am this one.
Painfully true, in my case. Especially that last bit about moving on to the next project, and especially with regard to musical “ideas.” I literally have hundreds of “song ideas” – by which I mean quick, in-the-moment lo-fi recordings to capture a riff, melody, or chord progression – stretching back decades. Already, this month alone, I’ve generated at least ten of these nuggets of inspiration. I can hardly keep track of them. And I can hardly keep my attention focused on one of them long enough to drag and drop the file into the archives, and certainly not long enough to actually develop the idea and record a proper song. It’s just so much easier to move on to the next thing, await the next moment of inspiration. I must get past this!
Reminds me of a video by Ransby about “Being a better creator” that I too-quickly forgot about:
