The Inefficiency of Art

"Art is not a thing; it is a way."

Elbert Hubbard

For several years in a row, I would write one book per year. The bulk of the first draft would be written in November each year, somewhere between 60–85% of it, depending on how ambitious I was feeling and how busy a month it was otherwise, between work and other commitments. I used to tick off a daily word goal and watch the overall count slowly rise. I would chase the illusive finish line, pursuing the end result over the thing I was actually creating.

First draft completed sometime in early December, I’d leave it alone for a few weeks and return in the new year. I had the advantage of being a writer that could produce relatively clean prose first-time around so the surface-level editing wasn’t that difficult. I had the disadvantage of being a writer that worked so fast on a first draft, with so little planning, that I’d be left with gaping plot holes and a sagging structure that meandered somewhere through the midpoint to reach some kind of finale. 

Unfortunately, I also hate developmental editing so I would routinely ignore the gaping hole in the middle, do a bit of a polish, and then spend an infuriating six months to follow wondering why no agent would pick it up (hint: the gaping hole probably had something to do with it).

While I do think there is something to be said for the way I work benefitting from intensive bursts, there is a difference between writing that way because the project is flowing and coming naturally, and pushing to chase targets you’ve made up for the sake of checking off boxes. 

The problem is, everything I’ve ever done in my life has been made of up boxes to be checked off, or targets to be reached, or some set of productivity markers. Is it any wonder, then, that it has been so difficult to learn to create outside of those parameters?

Some things in life benefit from efficiency and process. There is often reason to set out to-do lists and keep to deadlines and maximise productivity. But is it really necessary to optimise every aspect of our life? Does the production of art need to be optimised?

Our capitalist-driven society seems to think so; the one that values profit above all else. That’s why it wants artificial intelligence, something so far removed from everything that art is and should be. That’s why it wants books that are produced quickly, films that are made cheaply, just to be able to keep outputting product after product so the profit machine keeps churning.

And to be clear, the artists aren’t the ones that benefit when it does. The corporations get richer, and the artists are lucky if they can afford the time or resources to create at all between the entire other careers they need to be able to keep a roof over their heads and their stomachs from growling. 

Art is, by nature, inefficient. It is not deadlines or targets. It’s free-flowing creativity and inspiration that waxes and wanes like the moon, and days when you feel you are bursting to create and days when you must retreat to rest before starting again. Yet we’ve left no place in the world for this kind of behaviour, as natural as it is to the creation of art.

Of course, an element of discipline is useful and often required. It’s much easier to never write the book than it is to sit down, for however many days it takes, to write it. But there is a difference between discipline and forced productivity. There is a difference between setting a routine and tying yourself to a schedule.

I recently started writing a new book and, without even consciously realising I was doing it, I immediately crafted it into an exercise in productivity. I estimated how soon I would like the first draft done and how many words a day that would require. How many hours, on an average day, that number of words would take. I started writing down how many words a day I was writing, in a little list in my notebook.

I got about 25,000 words in. And I like what I’ve written and much of it came from a source of real, fulfilled creativity, not from forcing words down on a page – partly because I had time and a flexible schedule to write when my mind was ready to write. 

But I only had half a plan of where the book was going before I rushed to start writing and I can see the sagging middle looming ahead of me, dooming another project before it’s even halfway through. So, I stopped writing.

I sat down. I assessed what I had: what I’d learned about my characters, my world, and what story I as actually trying to tell. I slowed down. I let the inspiration readjust with the project.

I’m not going to finish the first draft of this book by the end of the month. I might even rewrite the 25,000 I already have (which is very, very unlike me) and not get much further than that before September falls. 

But that’s okay. In fact, it’s better than okay, because by rushing to hit arbitrary targets, I was doing a disservice to myself, to my talent, to the work I can produce. And if the point of this year was to give as much as I could to trying to see where my writing could take me, then doing it in a way that gives justice to the work is surely the only correct path forward. 

I hope to get to a place where I can’t tell you exactly how many words I wrote that day. But I can tell you where the story is going. I can tell you how the world is developing. I can tell you that I’m producing something I’m proud of.

Some things aren’t efficient. But they are still worthwhile.