While recovering from Covid I spent a lot of time watching YouTube. I stumbled upon a series by the producer of Halocene. It’s called “Why your music sucks or doesn’t”, in which Brad Amick reacts to videos made by various garage bands. One episode in particular (https://youtu.be/0JFNWf6oRrY) spoke to me in an unexpected way.
Brad advised the band he was critiquing to pump out a song a week. He said if you spend all your effort on trying to perfect a single thing, it’s doomed to fail. You need to practice the craft by outputting stinkers and learning from them. He called it “Getting the suck out!”
This feels true of any creative art, including writing. I realized I’m guilty of focusing the bulk of my effort on one series. I too need to get the suck out.
Very recently a close friend and colleague of mine passed away. It reminded me there isn’t always a tomorrow for you to push things. If it matters, you need to make time for it.
Because of this, I intend to carve out time to write short stories, poems, whatever, every week and get the suck out. I will be sharing the work here, so consider yourself warned!