Showing My Work?!

I received an unexpected wake-up call this week.

The kind that makes you pause and wonder what the hell you’ve been doing.

I’ve been reading Austin Kleon’s esteemed tome, Show Your Work! As I expand beyond my beloved plain text and lean further into visual storytelling), I figured deepening my understanding of creativity and artistry would be wise.

One chapter in, this line struck me like a whip:

“It’s not good enough to be good. In order to be found, you have to be findable.” 

The only projects in the past almost-decade I made findable were MASSthetics, Email Imagery, and kinda-sorta The Psychedelic Awakening. Everything else was shrouded in secrecy, supported solely by people I reached out to or were referred.

Thirteen Beans, my fancy coffee brand of 2021-2022, is a perfect example of not showing my work. I spent 9 months preparing, designing, putting in countless hours of quiet, diligent, behind-the-scenes work before sharing what I’d built.

Sooo much ideating, testing, iterating, rinsing and repeating. Sooo many opportunities for sharing that delightfully kooky and cool brand, casually tossed into the void. 

In hindsight, ‘twas folly.

So this Whimsie is my first attempt at sharing more of my process.

If you were around last week, you saw the first polished iteration of Emberbrook and its inaugural destinations. And while I did mention the ravenous creative vortex I slipped into that yielded all the pretty pages, what you didn’t see is the work.

Which I can’t really show you since I’m doing this after the fact.

(Meet me in the middle please.)

For the better part of two weeks, I felt like a stark raving mad scientist closing in on a long-awaited breakthrough. I woke up excited and eager to bounce out of bed and tend to the pressing business of staying alive—so that come 4pm or so…

I could let go, surrender to the flow I contained earlier in the day, and lose myself in writing, designing, testing, iterating, repeating until the clock flirted with midnight.

Wiz’s Whimsies was the only already-established Tiny World. The Magic of Wordcraft existed, but needed a ground-up iteration (including the content). Hanuman was serviceable enough to release, but is ready to evolve. Tiny World Architecture only came about after building two similar-but-not-quite-it versions that’ll likely never see the light of day. And the larger world of Emberbrook was new-new.

I wish I had a timelapse of my screen to share. If I did, you’d be treated to a kaleidoscope of zooming, dragging, resizing, adjusting, writing, editing, refreshing.

None of this is to brag or pat myself on the back.

Rather, to share a glimpse into my worldbuilding process.

And to pluck this low-hanging fruit of a reminder:

Creative work is messy, incomplete, imperfect, even confusing at times.

Which is no excuse for not creating. That’s the reason to create. To indulge and immerse yourself in that lovely, liminal space between conception and completion.

For the writers, musicians, poets, comics, painters, or whichever creatives you admire, remember that their finished products you see are the result of dozens, hundreds, thousands of hours of learning, practice, effort, and iteration that you don’t.

And for you? Show your work. Get sharesy with your process.

I shall do my best to lead by example in this regard.

With love from the forest,

~ Alexander

P.S. Since sharing Seinfeld’s Secrets of LIIIIFE earlier this week, I’ve made a point of falling in love with some silly, meaningless things. Amusing examples include:

The lime green burst of new growth on my blue spruce tree… The delightful new cheese buns I found… The Toronto Maple Leafs getting the upper hand on Florida so far… The intensity of fresh-cut grass smell coming from a farmer’s field… And the sonic delight of this ohrwurm (no, not Ghost Assassin.)

Which of life’s little details have you fallen in love with this week?