Art requires patience. Everyone knows this.

But in a sense, I only figured this out for myself relatively recently. My lack of patience when it comes to creation is a severely limiting factor on the quality of said creations, and I can no longer pretend like that’s no big deal.

Like I have said before (I think), creativity burns inside me. Once I get the creative juices flowing, the fuse is lit and the fire is burning and I am filled with the desire for release.

So yeah. It’s a lot like sex. Or rather, masturbation.

And my problem, not to be too gross about this, is premature ejaculation. The big release doesn’t happen till I complete the thing I am working on, and this wild impatience of mine makes me all fired up to get there as soon as possible.

Hey…. fire imagery!

Obviously, such haste is inimical to quality. I get by, but no matter how you slice it, my work tends to be quite rough. Whether it’s a blog entry or a video or a minute of music, I am working against the clock.

What I really fear is the fire going out. It’s happened to me before. I have lost the fire in the middle of doing something creative and hence lost the thread, so to speak. And then I have to stop because anything else would be just going through the motions and I refuse (so far) to do that.

For me, unfelt art is not worth doing. It has to be alive and vibrant or I might as well be typing “all work and no play makes Fru a bad playwright) over and over again till I fill up the Internet.

I realize that makes me sound a tad precious, maybe even spoiled, but that’s the way it has to be. Creativity like mine comes from a deep sensitivity that acts on many levels, and some of those levels don’t necessarily make sense, but they are what they are and there’s not a lot I can do about that.

My muse, ladies and gentleman. She’s in charge. I just work here.

This burning impatience also leads to my crippling unwillingness to go back to something I have “finished” in order to make it better. My need for creative release demands acts of pure creation, not rehashing something I have completed. The very idea of going back to something after my mind has labeled it “done” makes me feel nauseous. Why would I want to go back to something old and dead when what I really want is to do things that are fresh and new!

So I end up pushing my creations out the door as soon as they are fully formed, then I lock the door from the inside.

I know how it should be. I should be able to tame that muse of mine well enough to harness those flames of creation and use them to drive an engine that can move me further and slower. And with more power.

But I don’t know if that is even possible. I’m addicted to the rapid burn. The very idea of slowing that down makes me want to weep from sheer impatience. Slower? If anything, I want it to be faster. I’m barely holding my fudge as it is!

So instead of slowing the process down, I have made it deeper and broader. More of my energies go into writing my little diary entries of mine than ever before, and I hope to eventually get to the point where it takes my all.

Maybe then I can make art that is truly worth something. Right now, I feel like I just dabble. My lack of a reverse gear means my output is brilliant but messy and I feel like it can be hard to see the shine under the sloppiness.

It’s not what I want for myself as a creator. I want to present the world with beautifully cut gems of art, not rough uncut stones still embedded in the ore.

Here’s a hunk of mud. I swear it has jewels in it somewhere, really good ones! You’ll just have to dig around for them. I couldn’t be bothered. I sure hope you don’t find that, say, incredibly insulting. That would suck, I guess.

Still… it’s your fault I’m not a rich and famous author yet! After all, you’re the one who couldn’t see my unparalleled brilliance which should be evident to all of sensate creation through the big pile of mud I dumped on your desk.

Oh, who am I kidding. It’s shit.

I can only hope that as I age, taming the muse will become easier because I will become less impatient. I’ll be able to finally slip that harness on her and ride her to where I want to go instead of helplessly trailing behind her.

The view’s better from above.

In theory, there could be a superior creative outlet for me, one I have never even thought of, which could increase the density of my output to the point where it uses all the wild horses I can rein to it. I have no idea what that would be, but who knows, maybe it’s lurking out there for me to discover it.

And maybe I am being too hard on myself. Maybe my output isn’t as intolerably sloppy as I feel it is, and it actually is good enough for some editor or other gatekeeper to see the jewels shining in the muck.

Of course, I will never learn the truth until I start sending my stuff to editors and whatnot, and just like that, we are back at where we always end up. Looking at that wall between me and the outside world, and trying to work up the nerve to build a door into it. Leave my safe little matchbox of a world long enough to at least leave one of my babies on the doorstep of someone I think will treat it well.

Or at least tell me what I need to do in order to make it adoptable.

That metaphor gut weird real fast.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow!