Creative pruning

On overgrown creative projects, metaphorical shears, and the art of cutting back

This morning I spent an hour pruning a spiky tree that squats, like some malevolent creature, in front of a window of our little house.

It’s been slowly crushing a wooden bench beneath it, attacking us when we try to use our barbecue grill, and generally leaving sharp spikes everywhere that seem overly fond of toes and the soles of our feet.

Armed with my gardening gloves, a podcast, and my pair of way-too-small gardening shears, off I went. Hacking away until the tree looked a bit more subdued and my garden refuse bag was full.

Something had to be done, and I was the one to do it.

If only it were as easy in other areas of my life, most notably some creative projects that have got out of hand.

Creative shapeshifters

You know the kind. They’re shapeshifters.

What at first seems relatively straightforward becomes unwieldy, stretching in all directions instead of the one you were expecting. These are the kind of projects I think will be done in an optimistically short amount of time but which, two years later, appear to be settled in for the long haul.

And just like my tree, these projects can be a little spiky.

It’s to the point where keeping my distance feels safe and getting close feels risky. As if blood might be drawn were I to come too close, just like with the thorns on my spiky tree.

And the longer I leave it the more impenetrable a project can seem. Like a horror movie in which the doors and windows of a haunted house shift and disappear, so there’s no way in…and no way out.

This is always a little devastating, to finally feel ready to tackle something again only to find that there’s simply no way to get back in.

Yet I do have a couple of strategies up my sleeve that, when I get up the courage, help bring projects back to life.

Starting again

Sometimes, starting again seems like the best option. Nothing like the feel of a clean slate, no baggage, and leaving the detritus of what feels like a failed project behind.

But what often happens is that even if this is what it seems like I’m doing, the truth is that the idea that was the impetus in the first place remains like a shining star in my head. Or, at the very least, some remnants of it do, so that whatever I start building is guided by what came before.

Which means that even a seemingly failed spiky-tree project will not go to waste. The original idea might not become what I thought it would, but that idea and the work I did do on it have not gone to waste and have, instead, lead up to this restart, whatever the new outcome might be.

Creativity is coming up with new ideas or turning something that already exists into something new, and taking a ‘failed’ idea and turning it into something else surely straddles both camps.

Selective pruning

My other strategy is to bring out the metaphorical shears.

I’ve been known to scrap huge sections of something as if I were, indeed, furiously pruning a tree instead of trying to salvage a project. It can feel incredibly freeing to do this, making me feel lighter with each cut and more able to see what I might do instead.

Funny how removing something can feel like progress just as much as making additions. And in my experience, there is not one single project I’ve completed, both musical and writing, that has not hugely benefited from being reduced.

Even better, I don’t throw anything away but keep it for a rainy day. Because who knows when something that just wasn’t right in its first home might be perfect for something else?

---

I’m planning to do more pruning of our recalcitrant tree this weekend. And I think it knows, because twice this week I’ve had a thorn in my foot.

Unlike the creative projects that I manage to save and rework, there is no grand redemption for this tree. Merely the hope of more sunlight inside, fewer spikes, and the chance to sit outside without being on our guard.

---