Dusk

12x12 Oil

What I loved most about making music in my twenties was the process of creating and weaving harmonies into a song I’d just written. It was as if I’d created a melody just so I could see how it flew with a set of harmonic wings. To this day, the vast array of brilliant combinations of melody and harmony from a world of gifted young writers and arrangers still thrills me.

It’s the same in writing novels. You spend months on a first draft that holds itself together with all the necessary structural elements in place. You’ve created an armature upon which to prove its premise. Then the fun begins — rewriting, editing, celebrating the excitement of ah-hah moments, discovering new ways of saying things, catching your breath at unexpected flashes of insight — each of which feeds you exquisite little hits of artistic dopamine. 

Again in painting, you have an idea. You sketch it out, and create a composition that pleases you. You take a clean surface and block in the major shapes with their general colors and relational values. Then you sit back and reassess …and let the nuance begin.

The point I‘m trying to make is that for me the reward/thrill/satisfaction/fulfillment in creating art is all in the editing. If I can start something, I can make it better; if I never start something, I have nothing to work with and nothing will change.

“Dusk” did not start well. But I stuck with it and ended up with something that wasn’t there before. And I think it came out okay. I’m pleased with it.

Start. Edit. Enjoy … or at the very least, learn.