Play projects are vital: they're the place you try things out, make mistakes, explore new ways, or stretch a skill that your current work-in-progress isn't using. Or even dump out the rubbish idea that's clogging the pipes, keeping the good ideas back. The idea of the finished product, of perfection, is so luring and tempting, though. It's so easy to start thinking, Ha! And because I'm playing, this will be brilliant and perfect and the book will look like... And that thought freezes you up, just at the moment you were shaking loose to play.
Rope of Words is now a beautiful, handbound book with full-colour illustrations throughout, in a limited edition of 600 books which I spent last weekend signing. Having watched the artist finesse every last detail, I breathed out in relief that I'd spent every bit as much care on the words. If I'd set out to write it with that degree of perfection, though, I couldn't have. In fact, if I'd set out to write it, I couldn't have.
I've written before about process versus product, that tension at the heart of creativity. Even while product may be what we're ultimately aiming for (the finished story, poem, book, artwork), we need to start with process and play.
