When to quit: ABANDONMENT
/Before I get down to the business of the day, here’s your reminder that a whole passel of source material is now available to you to STEAL FROM THE BEST.
A couple of weeks ago I shared a piece from Ross Gordon’s Gridology blog, and this week he returned from a break with this piece on when to quit, i.e., ABANDONMENT.
The grid and accompanying essay are a great examination of why and when we should just cut our losses and stop engaging with unsatisfactory situations, whether they be a job or a hobby or a relationship. I encourage you to read it.
My original thought was to illustrate the concept by showing how I would have used this grid to make the decision to ABANDON my untitled children’s picture book last fall, but… it doesn’t quite work in this situation.
For example, the Healthy <—> Harmful axis simply isn’t applicable, is it? And while I was frustrated that the book wasn’t resonating with anyone I showed it to, the story certainly was not a Nuisance.
I’ve given it some thought, and I think this might be more in line with what we do as Lichtenbergians:
Let’s see if I can make this make sense.
Growth & Exploration <—> Rote/Rut:
Are you still discovering new things about your work, or are you just repeating what you’ve done before? I keep thinking about those artists who have found a marketable shtick and who just keep doing it because it sells. They can whip out that painting of a cow or a coffee mug without even thinking about it. Or maybe you’re repeating yourself because you’ve stalled out and don’t know what else to do.
If you’re ever in Venice, you’ll be invited to go out to the island of Murano to see the glassblowers. In our case, we were treated to an artisan who crafted a wild stallion while we watched — and that’s where it hit me that although all the pieces at that establishment were certainly handmade by skilled artisans, they were nevertheless mass-produced. No one was exploring their craft; they were just making another goblet or vase like the scores they had made before.
Next Step <—> Dead End
Is there more work to be done, or are you through? Can you not see what to do next? Or is the work simply not finish-able?
So…
How might this grid inform the decisions we make about our creative process?
Growth & Exploration/Next Step: This is where we want to be, of course. If we are still able to explore the work and have some options to keep going, it never occurs to us to ABANDON the work. We just continue.
Growth & Exploration/Dead End: The work still interests us, but we don’t know what to do next with it. This is where we hit the pause button and practice a little TASK AVOIDANCE until our brains figure out a solution without us. (Pausing is a form of ABANDONMENT, as covered in the book.)
Rote/Rut//Next Step: You know what the next step is because it’s the same next step you’ve taken a thousand times before. Nothing new to learn, nothing dangerous, nothing to be curious about. It’s time to step back and refocus on what we’re about, a kind of meta-GESTALT of our whole output. Find new approaches to explore.
Rote/Rut//Dead End: Finally, we’re just going through the motions and unable to see any way forward. Quit. Just stop.
Let’s see how my children’s book deals with this system. First of all, without editorial assistance (or an agent), the book is at a Dead End. It’s finished, it’s done, it’s joined the choir eternal.
So are we looking at pause or quit? Here’s one place where I think the grid is not comprehensive. It’s not that the story doesn’t interest me or, conversely, I’m in a rut; that part of the process is over. Now I think we’d have to look at the next phase after completion, and that is finding the AUDIENCE. As it became clear that no one was interested in the book, I lost interest in promoting it and so ABANDONED it in a blog post here.
At the moment, then, I have quit. (Trust me, if tomorrow an illustrator I approved of or a literary agent emailed me expressing interest, my interest would be rekindled like flash powder and I would unpause that sucker without a second thought.)
Like Mr. Gordon does on his website, I can point out some weaknesses with the grid:
entrepreneurial spirit: The patience and skill to push your work into an audience’s frame of attention isn’t something that everyone has. Van Gogh didn’t; thank goodness his brother Theo (and Theo’s wife Johanna) did. I don’t have it. I reached out to people who know me, but beyond that I would simply rather not.
quality of work: There’s always the chance that the work simply sucks. I’m always willing to listen to reasons why the book isn’t worth dealing with, but so far no one has had the kindness to talk to me about it. (In theatre, that’s how you know the show was bad: your friends simply don’t talk about it.)
ability/skills/knowledge: Where does my lack of ability to illustrate this thing myself come into play? Does it matter that Seven Dreams of Falling is unfinished (and likely to remain so) because of my lack of compositional training? (In other words, if I didn’t have to hammer my way through every score but could simply sit down and write, I would no doubt be on my fourth or fifth opera at this point. But does that impact the decision-making process of the grid?)
A further flaw: We may still be interested in the work, but what if it’s obviously unfinishable. That doesn’t have to mean we’re quitting; we may turn around and start the thing again, using different strategies/techniques/materials. In that case, have we not paused? And that wouldn’t be an accurate term for SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION, would it?
I think the important thing to remember is that the grid is not equivalent to the creative process; it is a framework to help decide whether to ABANDON a project or not. I may find myself wishing I were done with a project, but if the work is still interesting and I have some ideas on how to keep working, then I do not need the grid at all, do I?
I’d love to hear ideas for refining the grid in comments. And thank you in advance for not making Scooby Doo jokes about ROTE/RUT.
