I wrote for an hour today and then threw it all away.
Was it a waste of an hour? It’s easy to say yes, because I finished the hour precisely NO closer to completing the project. And I’d be lying if I didn’t walk away from that precious hour a little dejected by my lack of progress.
But the truth is, it wasn’t a wasted hour at all. Every minute I spend on a project, even if I can’t show anything from it, is a minute of me putting parameters around the art. Knowing what it isn’t is just as important as knowing what it is, and sometimes it takes an hour (or ten) of writing the wrong thing to really start to know what the art is.
Tomorrow I’ll try again. When I start, I’ll know more about what I want from the project and what is (and isn’t) going to work. With luck and perseverance, I’ll finish the next hour with some big steps taken towards finishing the art.