The Calling

I've been a bit quiet recently. I'm in that gut wrenching, knee knocking stage of a project. It's like running a marathon, I'm dragging myself through the long slog, hitting walls of pain and finding ways round them, normally after tears and a lot of moaning. My poor boyfriend has had to put up with all my misbehaving. I feel bad about this but I also feel proud of myself, because even though it's hard and I'm full of self doubt, I keep on going. I look at other people's work and my spirits just fall, I feel so unworthy, but that's kind of ridiculous because I'm just me and I can only do what I can do. I'm not very organised or good at editing myself. When I say editing, I mean choosing what is really the right way to go or the right piece of work. I just love or hate everything. I have so many ideas and I want to do them all. When I do little projects, they make me so happy because they are completed and done, but then I think they come across as being a bit easy, a bit simple. It's all so torturous. I try to remind myself that I have plenty of time and that as long as I'm doing something I'm doing well. I'm so impatient and of course I can't have brilliant ideas and do wonderful work when I'm pressuring myself. Sometimes when I look at my work after some time has passed I can see exactly what to do with it. Being an artist has been compared to having a sort of spiritual calling. I read this in Walking in this World by Julia Cameron. It makes me feel a bit better about suffering so much. I feel like I'm learning a lot about my creative process.