My DYCP project is over. I’m repurposing this site to be something more like a blog of life and music and the things that don’t sit quite right on my main site. Or something. I haven’t decided yet.
I learned some new techniques and tools and I enjoyed the learning. I enjoyed the composition less and I wonder if that’s something I might lean into more.
Writing for a commission with an external brief is such a safe proposition. There’s a deadline, there’s someone external to please or keep happy. The box of the brief is (or should be) pretty clear. I know my expectations and limitations.
Writing for myself is different. It’s open-ended, painfully so. I cast about for purpose. I can’t stick to an idea because there are too many options and any one of them could be the ‘right’ decision and so many of them could be dead ends.
Or that’s how it feels anyway. So it was a particularly useful and valid psychological experiment in taking away all my safety harnesses and seeing what happens when I feel the fear and do it anyway.
In some ways, I could spend way longer than 3 months on this and still not find my voice. Or perhaps it wasn’t about that in the first place. It could have been about rediscovery. Or accepting the idea of a singular ‘voice’ was another safety harness and that the wide-open million options are more where this particular brain wants to go. It wants to try out all the flavours of the (non-dairy) ice cream. It wants to travel to all the distant planets. It wants to try out all the tools and make all the sounds.
Maybe it’s a failure in the making, but at least the ride will be surprising.