Good afternoon everyone and welcome to The Magical Mystery
Blog.
Most artists and writers submit their work to various sites
for publication or as a part of their portfolio. Portfolios are often used as
samples of work to get into college or some grand institute. It’s a wonderful
dream that most people have and often pursue. As a writer, I know what submitting
work feels like all too well. Much like
there is the five stages of grieving, I’ve complied the five stages of submission.
1. Preparation (Motivation)
All your gear is ready. Pencils sharpened, your favorite
beverage near you, music playing, ideas buzzing like bees in your head. You are
ready to take on anything. You
immediately focus on those ideas and nothing else as you begin what you
consider your magnum opus. When people see your submissions they will praise
you like the God you are and you will immediately gain acceptance and/or
prizes. You are on top of the world and nothing will stop you.
2. Working on It (Confidence)
Everything is going to plan. The shading is perfect, the words
are pure magic, the writing is classic and original. It’s gorgeous and your
brain is your coach, telling you to press onward, work until your fingers grow
numb, and reminding you why you’re doing this. The college you’ve always
dreamed of, that prize money, it’s all shining like diamonds in your head, and
you know you have the skills to take it all.
3. Everything Goes Wrong (Anxiety)
And just like that it all goes down the drain. You notice
your grammar is terrible and you know you can do better. You notice a tiny line
of color has gone out of line. You think of another idea to write about just as
you’re finishing your current one. You contemplate redoing your entire
submission as new ideas start to brew in your head. Cursing your brain, you’re
wondering why they weren’t there before. Maybe those ideas would be better,
maybe you weren’t paying attention; everything starts to crumble and you don’t
know how to fix it. (Now would be a good time to take a break from your work
and clear your head).
4. Editing (Self Doubt)
We are own worst critics, especially when it comes to
editing. We judge ourselves too harshly and believe we can seek the advice of
others. Most of the time it works, but sometimes they don’t see your vision. Sure, we follow their advice, but we still
hear our own nagging voices in our head. Fix that, that line sounds terrible,
why is that colored weirdly, and while they seem encouraging, they actually
doubt our skills. But of course, there is that small grasp of relief and joy
that eventually blossoms when we realize that maybe our work isn’t so bad. That
maybe after the harrowing experience, we still may have a shot. We edited all
we could through the late nights and hours just before the deadline. Now it’s
time to take the final step.
5. Submitting (Acceptance)
That’s it. You’ve done everything you could. You’ve written
the best to your ability, you’ve drawn to the very brink of your sanity, and you
have done everything possible to be as good as you can be. As you enter your contact information and any
other necessary data, your brain starts to bubble. What if it isn’t good
enough, what if you aren’t good enough, what if you missed the objective completely,
or what if you just overall failed?
Well, it’s okay if you did.
In our lives all we can do is our best. We push ourselves to
produce better work and from it
we learn more about ourselves. We learn what our style and approach to our
craft is. We learn how far we are willing to go just to obtain that big college
dream we’ve had since we were teenagers or how far we’re willing to force
ourselves to be better than good; to be great, wonderful, fantastic. We learn from our failures, we learn from what
we did wrong, or what we should have done. It’s all a part of life’s wondrous
journey and it’s completely normal.
There will always be someone out there who’s probably better
and that’s okay. It means their life is different than yours; maybe they went
to an advanced art school or devoted all their time to their work. And it’s
okay, that’s who they chose to be. You cannot be them, but you can definitely
try to be better in your own fashion, regardless of what you do.
So go ahead. Take a deep breath. Enter your submission and
hit ‘submit’. You could gain what you so desired or you could fail, but either
way, it’ll be a learning experience. May the best come your way and always
fight to do better, be better, and be awesome.
Thanks for reading today’s entry. If you liked it, feel free
to comment, share, and critique.
So tell me, what do you do to motivate yourself when it
comes to your craft?
