Now that I’m looking at this from a potential business angle, I’ve become a bit more industrious but no less disorganized in the way that I actually work. The backend stuff is coming along fine; the biggest hold-up there is the need to change my name on an account that never got changed (well, and get that card below the limit, lol, because it’s been that kind of month). Making paperwork behave is a big part of what I used to do for a living, and apart from my lack of love for interacting with bureaucracy (and really, does anyone love it?), I’m pretty good at it. So no disorganization worries there.
The actual work/creative/whatever process, though, is not so organized. And I’m not sure I can make it organized. I need to be able to see what I’m creating in my head, and some days that’s there and some days no matter what I do I can’t make it be. I’m certainly feeling more steadily creative as I consistently spend time at it, but I’m finding that my “disorganization” is really to my benefit in that I have many pieces in progress at any given time, and if I can’t figure where to go next with what I’m trying to design, I have another design–or even better, a traditional project–to fall back on while the back of my mind works it out.
I feel awfully silly sometimes talking about this process in such a highfalutin’ sort of way, considering that the patterns I’m working out are fairly simple, but it’s a certain type of process even if it’s resulting in simple things. It feels a little like writing, and the point I’m trying to make is something like the difference between James Patterson and, say, Michael Connelly. Just because Patterson turns out short snappy sentences and short snappy chapters instead of long, dense, dark ones doesn’t mean he doesn’t sit down and write the book, you know? Or for you science fiction fans, take John Scalzi and, say, Kim Stanley Robinson. Totally different styles, but one isn’t creative and the other not.
In any case, there’s something, no matter how ill-defined, that needs to happen for work to happen, and I’m learning to coax it along though I’m not always successful. And that’s fine. This can’t be a full-time job for me, and so the more natural the arrangement that getting the work done falls into, the more will get done. And that’s a good thing.
All of that as a prelude to announcing my happiness at finishing a couple of projects last night. One was a card wallet that’s been sitting there waiting for a button for about a week. Another was the project I’m working on that I’m hoping to make a pattern from in addition to a finished item or three. I also finished the main parts of 2 more things, both of which are now just waiting for their finishing touches.
Which is why I love having so many things going at so many different stages. When I need the triumph of finishing something, I have something close enough to finish. When I need something tamer, I’ve got that too. And all of these things cross-fertilize each other.
Pictures later, at least for some. And I apologize for all of the vagueness, but I hate sharing works-in-progress. At least of the “creative” type, as opposed to a traditional item like the monster granny creature over there in my flickr. It’s just a thing with me. *shrug* The mantra here is, whatever works, and that works for me.
