So here’s one of the things I notice about people, including me.
I like to draw. I’m not amazing at it, but I do all right. The way I learned was by watching a friend who was good at it, and having her critique what I was doing. I didn’t realize it at the time, but watching other people draw is an amazing way to learn, and having someone you trust gently point out what you’ve done wrong and how to fix it is also great. But I just took what she showed me and ran, started drawing everything under the sun and got better with practice.
Of course I took some art courses at school and found them less then helpful, ditto for the “how to draw” books I saw all over the place. The way those books and classes talked about drawing is not how I draw, and never has been. So I couldn’t ever figure out how to share what I did with others.
I accidentally ran across a “how to draw” book that actually broke down how I actually draw into followable, understandable steps. It was on a coffee table at my favorite coffee shop, and I spent the entire evening poring over it, super excited.
This. This made sense, this was exactly HOW I drew things, how I looked at them, how I thought about it, how I set pencil to paper, the way the drawing process actually went in my head! I was thrilled. My best friend at the time had often complained that he’d love to be able to draw. I was thrilled I could maybe share this with him now.
I got my own copy of the book I’d found, got a nice pen and a good pad of paper, and told my friend I was going to teach him to draw. He was excited, and we got to work right away.
Weeks later, I found the nice pen I’d given him under a chair at my house. I gave it back to him and asked if he’d missed it.
“No,” he said. “I haven’t been drawing.”
When I asked why, he showed me two pages in his sketchbook of pretty decent pictures he’d been working on.
“I suck,” he said.
I could not believe what he’d said. He’d spent two hours working with me from the magic book, and drawn two pictures on his own, and they were very good. Yet somehow he had decided he sucked and wasn’t going to do it anymore.
“Are you kidding?” I said. “You couldn’t draw a stick figure last month, look at this. Tell me this is bad compared to what you could do before.”
He shrugged. “I mean, I guess. Since you put it that way.”
“What other way is there to think of it?” I asked. “You expect to be able to go from nothing to brilliant overnight? These are pretty darn good for someone who’s been drawing less than a month. You can’t get better if you don’t practice.”
“That makes sense,” he said.
I asked him over the next few months if he had drawn anything, and he always made vague replies and didn’t answer. Finally, a year later, I was sketching while we hung out and he sighed.
“I always wished I could draw,” he said.
I threw my pen on the table. “Fuck you,” I said. “I taught you how to draw. If you wanted to do it, you’d be doing it.”
“You know, you’re right,” he said. “I guess I really don’t want to do it like I thought I did.”
I shook my head and went back to drawing and we never spoke of it again.
The thing is, this happened three more times with three other friends. Almost exactly the same way. I gave lessons, friends did very well with them, were disgusted that they didn’t do better somehow, and simply quit drawing entirely.
The same thing happens when people find out I’ve written seven books, working on an eighth. They say, “I’ve always thought of writing a book.” And when I say, “You should do that, then,” they look at me like I’m crazy.
Here’s the thing: I think people are nuts.
They speak wistfully about all the things they’d like to do, and then sit around watching TV instead. A lot of what they want to do just involves the time and energy to look things up, practice, and some leeway to allow themselves to suck a bit at first but keep going.
Damn near no one is willing to invest the time and energy it takes to actually do the things they talk about. The same friend who wanted to draw later said he’d always wanted to know more about local birds and get into birdwatching a bit. I offered him one of my bird books, which he took, set down, and never touched again. I quietly set it back on my shelf and never brought it up again.
Let me share a crazy secret with you: if you want to do something, the resources exist for you to do it. You just have to DO IT.
If you’re not going to take the time to do it, admit that to yourself and move on.
I’ve done this too. I’d love to learn French. Have I picked up any books, watched any videos, reached out to linguaphile friends for resources? No. In school, I failed algebra — mostly because I managed to miss the year they taught the order of operations, and after that year, none of the teachers EVER MENTIONED IT AGAIN. Even when I was struggling and asking for help. I had no idea it existed until I was complaining about not understanding algebra AT ALL to a friend who frowned and tried to remember the order of operations. I was like, “The what???” I’d like to prove I’m not stupid and actually learn how to do algebra. There’s website after website available to help with that. Have I started it? Nope.
Listen. For some things, I think there’s a time and place — I don’t need algebra, and I don’t actually need to prove to anyone that I’m not stupid — I know I’m not. Maybe one day I’ll do it for fun, or to say I did. Maybe not.
For other things, I think there’s a weird desire to be or do something without having to take the steps to learn how. It seems like a status thing — “I don’t want to learn to draw, I don’t want to spend my time practicing, I don’t want to give up my down time putting pen to paper, I just want works of art to spring from my fingertips like magic and gain pride and admiration.”
I strive to try to know the difference — and to know when to quit saying I want to do something that I know I’m not going to do. I’d like to ask the same thing of other people, but as Terry Pratchett has pointed out — people are not inherently bad or inherently good, they are inherently people. So I’ll set my standards for myself and let everyone else do the same.
But don’t expect hand holding from me. I’ve got my own shit going on.
