Illustration for The Goblin Market

 

At some point in the creation of your work in progress, the author/artist starts to see how focusing helps, how narrowing works, how staying true to the ideal when the mind and heart wandered really matters. This is about how the artist/author navigates the process, whatever that may be. A novel is a long journey.

At some point in the work, you start to see yourself and what you really care about and how the work begins to take shape and form, and you know that even if you had more time, it would not matter, you would still be doing this work, because you love it, because it has value.

That's how I feel. 

That's what I know.

From the very beginning of my creative process I wrote myself a letter on intent and purpose. It's a messy, small letter, but it's a big deal and that's because purpose has always mattered to me, more than achievement, and as we know, there is a difference in those two things. The letter reflects some of what I have written on The Goblin Market that a reader can find in my pages. In that small essay, I write about why The Goblin Market matters to me and what I feel are its borders, the creative parameters that I set for my own work. When I felt I was writing outside those boundaries, I allowed myself to write on, to satisfy the creative urges, but in the end, I cut what did not support my intent and purpose. 

That's called 'killing your darlings' by others, an act that is difficult and not about what doesn't work or is aesthetically pleasing to add, or even what could make your work better. It's about trusting your vision and letting go of words you love.  It's about finishing with a sense of purpose.

Sometimes letting go is the hardest thing a creative can do. To stick to a creative purpose is risky at times, because it does give you boundaries and many artists/authors do not like boundaries. That's understandable. But for me, narrowing my work has made it possible when in the past, the work was always impossible.

The Impossible, which is also a theme of my work, is about perfection and vision and also being incomplete. We are all in pursuit of something and sometimes our professional desires are not in align with our personal ones. This causes conflicts.

Writing that letter of intent and purpose, waiting it out to see what I had done and could do, is all about my Impossible pursuit and how to emotionally and physically negotiate my own process and finish my work.

This artwork is from the fabulous Florence Susan Harrison. (Not Emma Florence Harrison as she is sometimes misattributed.