HALFWAY (A Year Of Bad Art 6 Month Update)
Tldr: It’s going well. Writing a lot helped me write more. I’m having more fun. I’ve learned a bit about creativity. My view of myself has changed. I don’t think I’ll stop after a year.
Did the Artistic Training Programme (Writing 1000 words a day 6 days a week) work?
Yes.
My god I wrote a lot. I'm now no longer writing 1000 words a day, primarily because it resulted in me having way too much content to film and I just couldn't keep up. But it did really improve my writing, and I can absolutely see how years of writing that volume of words a day, or even more, can make authors truly great. I think I'll do something like that on and off again in future to keep my writing in check.
I also think it heavily benefitted from the fact that simultaneously with writing 1000 words a day, I was reading some really good books and essays. One feeds the other and you get lots of ideas. Towards the tail end of the last three months I fell out of the habit - not because I forgot about it, but because I just spent all the time editing and changing things up. So in place of writing I improved my habit of regularly making stuff.
It's easy to change up your training at the gym when you already have the habit of going 5-6 days a week.
What have I learned?
A fair amount.
1. Creativity doesn’t just need constraint, it needs context.
Constraints are great - I think it’s part of the reason things like TikTok are so successful - you have 15 seconds and this particular song, what can you do with it? It’s a great recipe for new ideas, remixes and so on.
But context is a broader term which I think incorporates more of the wider truth - context is something you create through your environment - everything from the people you're with to the arrangement of things on your desk. It also doubles as a constraint. I incidentally, by making a declaration to myself and publicly gave myself the context of "oh you better make some stuff and put it out there" which tricked my brain into actually doing it rather than thinking about doing it.
I think it also makes sense of why deadlines are so effective - because the added context to the problem you're working on is that it needs to be solved today, rather than any other day.
2. Nobody gives a shit
I feel this can be taken in the same way that the old 'nothing matters' can be. In that, if you're considering doing this, I think most people just don't care. And that's great! That's extremely liberating. One bad video or essay is not a big deal. While in principle you're putting things on the Internet for the whole world to see, most won't look. So you have time and space to improve.
Most of my fear around putting stuff out was ironically that lots of people would care to look at something I had made and it wouldn't be very good. This is unlikely to happen. You're good.
It wasn't like I was expecting any attention whatsoever when starting this, though it was interesting to note differences in how videos were received and shared and so on.
3. More valuable than the things you make, is the way you change
I had the idea for AYOBA, unironically, for years. I've wanted to do at least some form of creative endeavour online for a long time - by finally doing it I came through on a promise I made with myself, and that's a really good feeling.
Less important than the work itself is the story you tell yourself about the work
4. The more you do the less you care about it
Early on, with every post I made I would get in a cold sweat before uploading. Now I'm like "eh, it'll probably be fine". To say this is liberating is an understatement.
5. It becomes more fun
With practice you become more competent, and as a result of this I’ve found my enjoyment of the whole thing has increased, which I didn’t at all expect!
Will I stop after a year?
Probably not. I'll inevitably change up how I approach things - I've tried to keep some sort of regular output with this project - in that I've mainly focused on shorter term projects that can be done in a week or two. I expect after all this I'll shift up the balance a bit and go from there. But really I'm just going to follow what's fun and interesting, as this is a hobby.
The one thing I will pay more attention to after this year, is I'll more deliberately put effort in to build an audience. There's so much advice out there on how to break out and get noticed and normally it involves paying attention to a niche - which right now I'm quite all over the place. But that's fine, I want to find a groove first.
All in all, I'm not done yet - but if you're thinking about doing something like this, I'd highly highly recommend it. You've got nothing to lose - if you do it well, you'll make some stuff, and risk embarrassment, and if you do it badly, you'll make less stuff, and perhaps be embarrassed anyway. So really the embarrassment is a done deal once you say you're going to do it, meaning you might as well get on with it.