The right one

After you perfect the design and run the simulations, it’s time to launch the rocket. (NASA photo)

I wrote a script the other day for a video — and then I didn’t record it.

I had expected to deliver this script on camera. However, once I completed it, I thought maybe it would work better as a voiceover. I could create video footage of myself doing activities that would illustrate the ideas I was speaking about.

And thus, I postponed shooting by two days and counting.

The assumption I’m making — the one that is holding me up — is that this script must only be used for one video, and that one video should be the highest and best use of this script. I can’t use it up on something less than ideal.

However, as a matter of fact, this script can be used over and over. There’s nothing sacred about the script or any video I’m going to make using it. I can take a few minutes to film myself saying the words on camera, and then, sometime in the future, I can do an alternate version with different footage. And another, and another.

I have been held up on sharing a piano method book with the world because I assumed, years ago, that whatever piano method book I share has to be the piano method book — the one that is the ultimate realization of everything I stand for as a piano teacher.

That’s just silly. I can make and share a piano book, and then another — as many as I like. It doesn’t have to be the right one before I put it out there.

One of the things I like about being prolific as a creator is that it keeps me from overthinking each individual thing that I make. No sooner have I released one than I begin focusing on the next one — and that means that there will be a next one.

When I don’t have the time or focus to be prolific, I will hem and haw. If I’m only releasing one video this week, this one will have to be amazing. Well, that makes the stakes way too high and I end up slinking away before I’ve shared anything — or even created anything.

I can learn from the artists who do not do this. Among the many ways to contextualize The Beatles’ incredible oeuvre, there’s this: They wrote and recorded an astonishing number of songs in a very short period of time. The band released two full albums per year in 1963, 1964, and 1965, then slowed down to one album per year for the remainder of the decade, still an intense pace. Most of their debut, Please Please Me, was recorded in a single day.

There’s no time to overthink your choices when you are churning out such a prodigious amount of material. The evidence shows that as they kept writing and recording, The Beatles kept improving. Whatever imperfections exist in their early work testify to the impressive velocity and amplitude of their trajectory.

While I don’t want to be hasty, I recognize that holding out for the ideal version of something usually just gets me stuck. Instead of looking for just the right lyrics to a melody, I can write a set of lyrics that works for the time being. Or I can write another melody that I don’t have to be so darn precious about.

Whatever it takes to keep me moving, I can do it. I’m not releasing hundreds and thousands of vinyl records to an international audience. I’m sharing ideas digitally, to a small group of people who, mostly, are not paying very close attention. It’s easy to iterate on the things that I create. I’m allowed to reuse and recycle my own work anytime I like.

For anything I make, I don’t have to find the right script or video or format. I just have to find the right one for right now. That gives me something to build on and learn from. I get as many chances as I want on the path to becoming the artist I want to be.