Why do I expect to revise my novella after it’s been published? (I hear this is possible with e-books.) It’s already rewritten itself at least four times since it was conceived last summer. The same could be said of me, still experiencing alterations of perception, inspiration, intent, and relationship with life-as-a-work-of-art.
Transformation practitioners know about dramatic shifts, in awareness and retroactive understanding, that come with being liberated from earlier ways of seeing and feeling. Writers of story-form know about dramatic shifts that reveal the central premise, themes, character arcs, core conflicts, points of view, climactic moments, resolution, and so on.
So what happens when the Writer/Artist changes completely with regard to what matters – as a personal life premise, as a theme for existence, as a supposedly relevant conflict or point of view? The art changes. Life changes. The reason to Do the art changes.
I may be entering a newly expanding group: “artists in transition.” The concept is not new. A famous example is Picasso, with blue, pink, cubist, and other “periods.” Completely different sensibilities and focus, in each. The expanding group is now the mass of humanity, increasingly experiencing individual and collective life as a work of art, infinitely creative, unlocked from traditional realities. Unprecedented.
Paul Valery’s “Art is never finished, only abandoned” takes on new significance in this context. Every moment is now so much more fluid, on so many more levels than before, that most moments need to be abandoned as soon as they’ve come into view. In our new-tech world, even abandoned art, however, like an earlier edition of an e-book, can be revived and renewed. How liberating. Will make it easier to temporarily release a “first edition” to the electronic cloud, to be reborn. Waiting for life to settle down no longer seems like a viable option.