Overheard in conversation:
"Yeah Greg's blog, there are like seven posts from 4 months ago"
"Sounds about right"
Hey fuck you, I have like thirteen posts. Double digits.
I'm terrible at this blog for the same reason that I am so drawn to improv: I cannot stand 95% my work. It makes me cringe. Not just improv, everything.
I was in bands with good friends in and out of college and it took me years to grow the balls to present my songs.
For The Death Show, I run through dozens of poster ideas before I stop on the one I tolerate.
I have never been able to write more than a page and half before throwing it out.
Am I unhappy with the quality of my work even though I'm just an amateur trying to get better. Oh most definitely.
I was and am totally a coward.
Except when I do improv now. This might be a function of having been doing for a while now, I certainly trust myself more than I did six years ago (or, hell, one year ago). But it is also because that when you're on stage there's no room for editing yourself.
I can stare at a notebook or a blogger post text-area for days erasing and rewriting the same stuff. That luxury does not exist in scene. Everything is moving at once, no going back, just you and your partners building a car that's rolling downhill. And it feels amazing.
Improving At Something is predicated on letting go of things that aren't perfect or even good and moving on. I did this in improv because you can't not do it. Every scene is disposable,. There are not masterpiece scenes that you hone and dote on, everything is a draft and final product. It's perpetual practice, can't avoid it, baked into the system. Which is fantastic for a wuss like me.
I need develop the discipline to do work through being creative in other spaces fearlessly, but goddamn it I hate it right now. I know it gets better though
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