Invisible work
There are days in the creative process when it feels like nothing gets done. The script remains unwritten, the storyboard a blank document, the film unedited. I’m talking about the days of doodling and thinking and typing and erasing, of searching for inspiration and direction, of shouting questions into a void and finding no answers. I hate those days. But I love them too.
Facing a blank page or a hard drive full of raw, unsorted footage is kind of scary. Not jump-off-a-cliff scary or tackle-the-bank-robber scary, but in a culture that’s trained us to celebrate productivity, feeling unproductive on a presumed work day is, well, hard in its own way. I admit that I like checking things off my list. I’m porous and have absorbed all those messages. Plus, I relish the satisfaction of completion. It just feels so good to finish something.
And yet, years of writing and working on creative projects have taught me that those nothing days are often essential to making good work. At the beginning of a project, those are the days we spend brainstorming and tossing around ideas, trying things out, reading and listening to music and watching things (or sometimes staring into blank space, if I’m honest). Those are the days we explore how we might approach a story, or, even more foundational, figure out what story we’re telling. During an edit, those are the days we mull structure and scene and attempt to find gold (or, at the very least, what’s usable) in that hard drive of footage.
On days like these, decisions aren’t made so much as possibilities explored. I like to think of this as invisible work. It’s how we get to the heart of a project and find the ideas lurking just out of plain sight, how we fill our brains with nuggets that come together in unexpected ways on walks or when folding laundry. I can’t immediately quantify the value of this invisible work, and I’m not sure that I want to. But I do know that if I want to tell a story or solve a problem or create something new, there’s a pretty good chance there will be some nothing days, or at least some nothing hours.
Whatever our profession or craft or life, I’m sure we all face our own version of the proverbial blank page and our own variety of invisible work. Here’s to braving those days and maybe even finding joy in them sometimes.
-Monica
P.S. In honor of joy, I share this poem: Joy Is the Justice We Give Ourselves by J. Drew Lanham