Why Is It So Hard to Finish Creative Projects?
I blame The Soggy Middle! Let's talk about the life of a project and peruse part 2 of my mini sketchbook tour.
Last week I shared Part 1 of my mini sketchbook tour and talked about the life of a project having 3 stages. Today we’re going to talk about Stage 2: The soggy middle.
I call it the soggy middle because the initial excitement of a shiny new project idea has worn off and all of the sudden I feel like I’m stuck in molasses junction. Everything is taking waaaaay longer than I imagined, which makes me question everything… Is any of this any good? Why am I spending so much time on this? Basically I feel like I’m trudging through muck.
For a large project, like illustrating an entire book, I’ve found this soggy middle feeling shows up multiple times. I’ll hit my stride, and then a tough page will come up and somehow I’ve redrawn a character’s arm 20 times and it still looks like total garbage. On the bright side, the soggy middle tends to be broken up by sprinkles of “Oo! This actually turned out how I wanted it!” Or “Oh yeah, this is why I’m making this thing!”
Fortunately, this mini sketchbook project was exactly that—mini. This meant the soggy middle was pretty limited! (Phew!) Toward the middle my ideas felt a little sluggish and lackluster, but by the end I was getting excited about new ideas again and explored some more unique shapes.
Here is the middle section of my matchbook sketchbook. I didn’t feel like I was in the soggy middle during all of these drawings, but there are a couple oddballs in there!
I think the middle of projects is always the hardest, and sometimes you will come across good reasons to abandon ship. But in the case of this tiny sketchbook, I’m glad I saw it through until the final page. By pushing myself to the end, I came up with ideas I never would have if I would have given up after a few pages. I can’t wait to share the final installment of this sketchbook with you next week!
Thanks for reading!
Thanks for being here! It truly means the world to me. In case you missed it, last week I shared a free art print download with ALL subscribers. Check it out here. And next week, I’ll share Part 3 of my sketchbook tour!
This week, paid subscribers get another art print in the series that looks like this:
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