I don't think we're there yet

Garrison Keillor returned to one of his favorite themes in his Minneapolis Star-Trib column today: oh, the suffering we go through for our art.

It’s true.

I write advertising and, oh, the suffering. Well, maybe not. But there’s no sure way to package the creative process or make it easy.

Extra hours don’t guarantee great stuff, but you usually need to put them in to find an elegant idea. Even then it may be the first idea or the last one. And I always have the feeling that there’s something else out there that’s better, if I just had more time.

No one can see what’s going on in your head and, in advertising, everything you create gets changed by somebody, usually by several somebodies. The best learning is to take pleasure in the pure idea when it comes to you. Enjoy the delight. Because when you tell someone about it, there’s every chance you’ll hear the dreaded: “I don’t get it.”

I’ve got a temporary boss right now and, to get to know everyone quickly, he asked us to bring examples of work we’re proud of. I found that hard because I’m seldom satisfied and virtually nothing, in its final form, is the way I envisioned it. Of course, some of it is much better because I work with talented people. But it’s never a straight line.

You know the changing-a-light-bulb jokes? I love the one about designers and art directors.

Q: “How many designers does it take to change a light bulb?

A: “Does it have to be a light bulb?”

So the rest of you just have to get used to it. We who create for a living always have to come at it from all sorts of strange angles. We need to see it differently to succeed.

But, oh, the pain.