Creative Fragmentation

It's very easy to get overwhelmed when you're taking on complex tasks.  For instance, I have a script project which ambitiously threads ten or so storylines through one house, whilst entertaining pretensions to an arching metaphoric structure and allusions across three thousand years of literacy.  It's a comedy.

So far, it's been in development for around four years. Four Years! And to think I started this thing way back when the War in Iraq was actually popular!  Fortunately the subject matter hasn't dated but the constant battle has been with trying to do it all at once.

Now I have divided the structure into tiny fragments, drafting each in turn, just a little bit - completely separate from each other.  I'll tie them all in together later, but for now, each fragment has its own page to work from, and they may not peek at each other until they are all approaching readiness.

And it's working!  suddenly the creativity feels unburdened by the scale of the task ahead!  I have tricked my mind into thinking it is doing something simple.  And of course, it's much easier to do a thousand simple tasks extremely well than it is to take on one massive and complex beast and do a mediocre job...

watch this space for progress reports...