21st Century Weenie

Teenie Weenie wasn’t afraid of no stinkin’ blank page: Cover Design for “The Talking Horse”

As I sit in front of a blank screen, trying to come up with something profound to say for my very first blog post, it occurs to me that perhaps I should’ve aimed a little lower. This empty screen has me stuck like a kid with a fresh sheet of loose leaf paper. (For those of you born after 1980, that falls somewhere between a stone tablet and the iPad.) So when I find myself unable to piece together even one sentence, I turn to a trick I picked up in second grade while working on my first graphic novel: I walk away.

Seven-year-old Ilene was smarter than 40-something Ilene. She knew the best way to get things done was to do something else for a while. In the early 1970s, “something else” may have involved Barbies or spinning in circles, but as an adult I can choose more productive options, like “Law and Order” marathons. The point is, no amount of staring into the void will inspire greatness (or even mediocre-ness), so you might as well grab a Barbie and start spinning.

It’s one thing to walk away when you get stuck, but it takes real commitment (and a little bit of short-term memory loss) to come back and finish the job. I’ve found sleep to be a great way to get past creative block. If I haven’t blinked for 18 hours, it’s time for bed. The only thing more frustrating than struggling with a design problem until 3:00 a.m. is to wake up the next morning and solve it in 30 minutes. You’d think I’d learn.

A day at the beach is the perfect remedy for a severe case of creative block. (Teenie Weenie; circa 1974)

One of the main reasons my progress on this website moves at the speed of a tectonic plate is because I have a serious case of perfectionism, which is just another word for fear (and in my case, laziness). It’s why my portfolio is incomplete (although in my defense, WordPress is hard and stupid). Today I choose to turn my back on fear, but this time I’m not walking away from doing something—I’m walking away from doing nothing.