The Long Dark Middle of the Soul

Every project has a middle. 

The dreaded, dreary, dark and depressing middle. 

Interactive projects have it, but so do, say, novels. Or even things outside of the realm of the arts and entertainment! School years have a middle. So do diets and exercise programs, or road trips, or TV seasons. You could say life itself has a bit of a dreary middle. Even cars, clothes, and everyday household items have a long, desperate middle in between "new" and "vintage." 

...but back to interactive work. 

Middles suck because you've lost the contact-high from your sparkleshiny big idea, you haven't yet hit the buzztastic fresh jolt of end-in-sight, and you still need to clock in all of those hours of work to keep moving. One foot in front of the other. One page after another. On and on and on and on. 

I've got a couple of middles cooking right now, and it has me wondering how other people go the distance. So I'm taking it to you: How do you keep your spirits high, your motivation unflagging? How do you keep inching forward day after day? What keeps you sane, what keeps you moving? What absolutely doesn't work at all? Any and all experiences and war stories welcome.

Oh, and did I mention you guys are the best? Because you so are.

Comments

[@netwurker]

i *soooo* thought that read "The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" ;)

...wot keeps me chuggin away? my drive 2 create: motivation via sparkling [+ often pockmarked] curiosity accidents [which often happen in the middle_mud if ur still operating along an open>wonder_line by that stage]:)

[Jim Gramze]

I have a couple "middles" sitting around at the moment; in fact, if I were to actually look there might be half a dozen. I credit those to the notion that their time has not come and there is no deadline forcing the issue.

But I am not here to talk about that although I will leave implied that it might not be worth your while to pound your head incessantly against a wall when you could be starting a new thing and later going back to where you are stuck once you can make a new idea to continue on.

I am here to talk about process.

Many times it has been my situation where I am spending months learning a piece of music so that I can perform it live for other people once or twice. So that's hundreds of hours of work in order to have a chance at a little glory for 15 minutes. And without getting paid.

It isn't merely a question of how does one get through this sort of ordeal, but is it really worth it in the end when I can do more easy to accomplish things with much greater financial reward at the end.

I do it because I like it. I do it because I can't help but do it. I do it because I love being in the middle of the process more than the big finish and performance at the end. I like being stuck, I love to keep hacking away while apparently making no progress, and obviously finally making progress and the little triumphs along the way are a definite blast.

One place we differ is that I have no need to seek encouragement to continue on or to get going. The creative process is a very personal and solitary time, this me time. It becomes a solitary addictive habit, a way of life for years at a stretch.

So I dodge the question with intent. I sometimes recognize that something is going nowhere. I sometimes put something aside because I would rather work on something else for a while. But the fact of the matter for me is that when a "have to" is present, when a deadline looms and I am as stuck as stuck can be, that very situation turns me on and gives me a feeling that it is me against the world and I'll be damned if I won't prevail. This is when I'm at my very best and it's just the way I am.

Embrace the impasse.