Take 1: The List
[PLACEHOLDER] (indefinitely suspended novel series/web serial)
Pajama Project (working title for a video essay series)
Where the Gods Have Gone (700-page fantasy novel that is nowhere near the ending)
Beyond Revue (podcast — sometimes Arch Revue depending on my mood)
Blog Posts hold on this isn’t quite working for me let’s take this again
Take 2: Slam Poetry About SOCIETY™
i feel like a failure.
i feel like a failure if
after a period of time
———time
——————time
—time
<make sure there are jerky, robotic clock hand motions here>
i have nothing
to show
—————(show — show — show — it’s all
—————a show — show — show)
for myself.
i feel like
a FAILURE
<really get the emotion out on that one
crack your voice a little
people go apeshit for that>
even though
i have
been working… working… working… working… working…
this isn’t working… working… working…
let’s try it again
Take 3: No Actually, Maybe the List Was A Good Place to Start
[PLACEHOLDER]
Pajama Project
Where the Gods Have Gone
what was i thinking someone help i think i’m spiraling out i’m spiraling —
Take 1: State the Problem Simply, Dingus
I feel like a failure if, after a period of time, I have nothing to show for myself. I know this is a familiar feeling to anyone who does anything creatively — hell, it's probably a familiar feeling to most people, given how productivity-oriented Society™ is — but I've been feeling it acutely and in strong flare-ups like a mental rash every now and then over the past two years.
I work on my creative projects a lot. Not as much as I'd like, to be honest. And, to continue the trend of honesty, a lot of my work time is spent piddling around. Caveats aside, I still do put in a lot of time to my creative projects when I'm not at work that pays the bills.
But with all that time spent, I don't have much to show for myself.
And then I thought more about it and realized that's both accurate but also complete bullshit.
Approach 2: Not Nothing
(Because on one hand, I do have very little to show. Very few of my pieces have been performed and I haven't gotten anything published since college. And yet, if I dig around in that sentence for specifics: I have had pieces performed. I have this tendency to be reductive when it comes to my accomplishments. “Oh yeah, my play was performed, but it was self-produced and at Fringe, so does that really count?” Well, yes. Sure, I haven’t had many performances in the past two years, but I have still produced three Fringe shows (two that I wrote, one that I co-wrote) and that's definitely not nothing. I co-wrote an immersive show. A play of mine got a lot of really great conversation going in a workshop. And just because I haven’t been published by anyone else doesn’t mean I haven’t self-produced. I've published blog posts, which have gotten steadily more infrequent. I published a zine with Jinny. That's all not nothing.
But it still doesn't feel like much. And I've hit upon why, I think.)
Approach 3: Confessing to My Many Brutal Murders
An artist’s rendition of my project list.
Preist: You wish to confess?
Me: O forgive me, Father Artstuffs, for I am a cruel man. You see, I kill a very large number of projects… even those which I have spent dozens of hours upon.
Preist: Oh my…
Me: I would like it if you would at least pretend to not be reaching for your phone to call the police. I was led to believe our little talk was in the strictest confidence. How rude.
Besides, I killed all of the police in this bit. I thought they’d be a nuisance.
Preist: Oh my…!
Me: I’d really appreciate it if you’d listen. I need someone to talk to. Also, you’re locked into the confessional booth. You can’t escape my whinging.
Where was I…? Yes, I've killed so many projects… I’ve left so many unfinished. Although "unfinished" is one of those semi-true statements that doesn’t capture the whole of it.
So many of the projects I've "killed" are merely on hold until something happens when I can progress it further. This could be something such as a theatre picking it up for production. Or it could be a burst of inspiration. Or the interest of another party.
But some are dead and never coming back. And some I’m in denial about the “never coming back” part.
Any advice, Father Artstuffs?
No, you don’t have any. I’ve killed you too. Damn.
Approach 4: I Added Typos Into This Next Part Because I Need to Piss Off My Inner Perfectionist
I have a bit of the perfecttionist in me, I admit it. If there's a project I've been working on that ins't quite up to the quality I want and if I don't feel like I have the time/don't want to devote the time too it, then it sort of just falls away. I tend not to follow through with making public work that I beleive is unfinished.
Well, sort of. That changes if I have a deadline andhave to get something up. But I have a lot of trouble coming up with those deadlines for myself. I cannot seam to be like: “Okay, come next Friday, whatever I have is what I have and this needs to go out to the world.” If its just me involved, I can’t get myself to do that.
For the most part, I'm not just going to throw shit up for poeple to see just because I can. These blog posts are very informal, but the reason they've been so spare in the past year is because I was getting really tried of putting up stuff that I wrote to fit a bunch of arbitrary deadlines I set for myself and I didn’t even want to write about the stuff I was writing about amyway. Recently, I've only been trying to put up blog posts that I think are of a high enough quality for me to be proud of (especially t he nice guy one and the gringos one) and are of ideas that I'm actually interested in. Things that I actually want to put some time into — what an odd concept! And why would I want to subject anyone to something that is esssentially just practice anyway?
But… I do also think practicing in public is very useful. And I just can't bring myself to do it for quite a list of reasons that I'm pretty sure are not just excuses for the fact that I feel afraid. Although I am afraid, of course, but I think these are some valiid reasons.
Okay, I cant realy tlak about this witout geting into some of te ded projecs, so let'ss get moor into thaht.
Statement 5: [PLACEHOLDER]
I would love to practice in public more. In fact, over the years I’ve designed several projects that would allow me to do that, but then I abandoned them.
I was working on a web serial called [PLACEHOLDER]. Actually, [PLACEHOLDER] didn't begin life as a web serial — it began life as a series of novels/novellas. Even so, “practicing in public” was still a part of its original incarnation. The plan was, I would write these with very little planning in an absurd world and just go go go until I reached an ending, then go back and revise until it's acceptable, not perfect, then up as an ebook it'd go.
I have a first draft of a [PLACEHOLDER] novel sitting on my hard drive. I have yet to go back and revise it. Partly because I got the idea to make it a web serial after I finished. Chapters released once a week, only about 2000 words each. Again, very unplanned, very by the seat of my pants, very absurd.
I have ten chapter drafts taking up space on a WordPress server. Yes, I made a WordPress for it. Actually, I just remembered that I made it public and left it there, so here, take a look at this graveyard of ideas.
And while I'm generally happy with what I wrote, I abandoned this project. Why?
Because it was taking too much time away from actually important projects.
Ah.
Yeah, this is the problem I've been having with ongoing projects. I'd love to create stuff that I can make easily and put out frequently. But that requires me devoting time to something that, while of course I like it, I'm just not willing to devote nearly as much time as it will take to make it. And if I’m going to commit to something, I want to commit to something. I don’t want to get bored after fifty episodes and let it fizzle out.
This is the trouble I've had with ongoing projects. It's why the blog is so infrequent. It's why [PLACEHOLDER] is on permanent hold. It's why that narrative podcast is doing the same. It's why my idea to create a solo storyteller persona is ditto to the above.
Because the projects that I actually want to put all that time into? Those are projects that I cannot just throw up somewhere online week to week.
Question 6: So what do you want to work on, Mister Petriello?
Thank you for asking, Anderson Cooper. That’s a very tricky question. Partly because I’d like to know the answer to that too.
I get a lot of story ideas. They are almost never short story ideas, however. They tend to be novel-length — a format that I have temporarily banned myself from working on — or play/screenplay length.
Tangent 7: Novels
most of my ideas would probably work best as novels
but even novellas are a much larger time investment than a play for me
i’d really like to write a bunch of novels
but
anything i sink this much time into, i wouldn't want to self-publish
but the road to getting a novel published the traditional way is also a crapshoot
but at least i’d be paired with an editor who i wouldn’t need to shell out tons of cash for
anyway, back to:
Anderson Cooper 6 Again: Anderson Cooper: the Revenge: This Time it’s for Real: the Saga: the Coopening
What was the question again?
Right, what do I want to work on? Again, don’t have a straight answer, but…
I know I like to write stories that feel complete. When I finish a play, there is no sequel. There is only this play, so I'm going to work on honing this idea to its core components, I am going to make it as internally consistent as I can, make it as intertwined and complex as I can without straying away from what I believe to be the core of it. And to tell the stories I want to tell properly, I can’t force a shorter format.
Several times, I've tried to do similar ongoing projects to [PLACEHOLDER] where I just sit down and spew out a novella or a play that I don't put huge amounts of effort into and then put it up online. And while I'm a firm believer that spew writing can create some very interesting things, I can never help but feel like these projects are a diversion from the things I actually want to work on.
And what I want to work on seems to be plays that run between one and two hours. Or novels/novellas. Which I have banned myself from.
I want to tell more epic stories. And I've been trying to think of ways I can tell them in play form without completely blowing out the production budget.
It's why I really wanted to create a solo performer persona who told fictional stories in verse. Because with verse, I feel like you can get away with more. And while I still think this would be an excellent story delivery method… none of the story ideas I am excited about actually fit this format. I tried to force a few, but I hated them. Blech.
So yeah. I've got a whole pile of dead — or if not dead, at least smelling kinda funny — projects from the past couple of years. Probably shouldn’t say such things live on CNN, should I, Mister Cooper who I’ve also just killed?
Remix 8: The List
[PLACEHOLDER] — Described above.
Pajama Project — Okay, this one’s kind of interesting since it’s outside my wheelhouse: I was in talks with a couple of filmmaker friends about doing a video essay series, but again, time-commitment was an issue. I have a couple of episode outlines, but it's pretty clear that the episodes would be at least twenty minutes each and none of us involved was willing to put in that much work.
Where the Gods Have Gone — This one hurts a bit. It’s an unfinished fantasy novel numbering seven hundred pages. I don't know if I'll ever finish it. I'm nowhere near the ending I have in mind and I haven't a clue how much longer it would take to get there. Too long, probably.
Beyond Revue — Used to be called Arch Revue for reasons and I was considering changing it back for reasons. It’s a podcast series that I realized cannot be a podcast series if I want to tell the sort of sprawling story in the detail I would like to tell it. It would either need to be a much more expansive podcast, a novel, or a TV show.
Blog Posts — Well, more specifically I’ve ditched doing blog posts on a schedule. Obviously.
Unnamed Solo Storyteller Project — I have a couple persona ideas, have written a couple stories that could work for this format, but I hate them.
Smokescape — Graphic novel I’m writing and Jinny is drawing. We both love it, but neither of us is quite willing to divert time to it.
The Vast Unfinished Freewrite Bonanza: — I’ve spew-written a number of plays and short stories and am probably never going to do anything with them. Well, never say never…
Cataract Attack — My first novel. Goofy as fuck. Sitting on my hard drive. I guess I could still self-publish it. It’s silly enough.
Unset — My second novel and quite possibly the best thing I’ve ever written. Was looking for an agent for it, but I stopped. Partly because I felt like it needed more revisions, but also partly because the traditional publishing process is awful. To self publish this one would be a disservice to myself.
A couple of short plays that I don't really want to go back and revise.
A handful of plays that are waiting to be produced.
A weird prose-poem story that I meant to write as a goof and throw up on the kindle store, but realized if I wanted to sit down and make it actually worth reading to anyone, it would take up way too much of my time for that dumb bullshit.
Grindcore EP — I have lyrics and a couple riff ideas. Not much more than that.
Other EP — I actually have most of the lyrics and general sound worked out for this one in my head. Will I ever open up Mixcraft and get to it? We’ll see!
A couple of Medium posts that are dumb and I will never ever ever definitely never go back to.
And lets not even count the number of outlines that I've jotted down "just cuz" or the little snippets I fill my notebooks with, but don't do anything with.
Probably more.
something 9: a conclusion, i guess
So yeah. I've been doing a lot the past couple of years. But I don't really have anything to show for it other than this list of things I don't know if I'll ever complete.
The issue I keep coming back to is time. What do I want to spend my time on? I'd like to spend my time on all of those things, but… I don't want to spend time on them in addition to my other projects. The couple of plays I’m in the middle of — those seem to what I want to put time and thought into. Right now, at least. Even though I ultimately don’t know how I’m going to get any of them performed beyond “I guess I’ll submit them to theatres online.”
But I guess the even deeper issue with the ongoing projects is more fundamental: I have deliberately designed them so that I don't care too much about them as to prevent my inner perfectionist from breaking out one of her very sharp knives. But you still see the Catch-22, right? Even with the perfectionist out of the way, I still care about quality, and quality — even reduced — is still too much time to put in. And now I also don’t care enough to want to work on it anyway.
I really do want to practice in public more. But the ideas I want to spend time with are not things that are ongoing, that don't have a definitive endpoint. I like to work on things that are complete. At least, that’s been the pattern thus far in my life.
eh whatever 10: an inspirational way-too-on-the-nose instagram poem
if you feel like you’ve been unproductive
that’s okay
you’re proably not
you just haven’t put anything out there
for people to see
we are OBSESSED
with creating quickly
it’s not a modern creation
today youtubers, webcomics, novelists are encouraged to churn out content
or perish
but
motown songwriters and pulp fiction authors were encouraged to churn content just the same
basically: capitalism, yo
<insert a shitty sketch of a flower for some reason>
Finally 11: An Actual Conclusion
Content churn works for some people. Devin Townsend has released almost thirty albums and I love so so many of them. Stephen King has released god knows how many books and I like a lot of those too. Some people thrive on constantly creating new things.
Not all of us do. There is a fine line between being precious about your work and ensuring it's complete.
I do want to practice in public more. But I don't want that practice to be a distraction from what I actually want to work on.
I want to work on what I want to work on.
And I think I’m finally figuring out what that is.