Austin Kleon lately has written a few pieces on how "you don't need a vision." He makes the case that visions are for things that already exist in the world, where art is the process of creating what doesn't already exist. In response to "Vision is everything:"

...this all sounds very inspiring — it really does pump you up! — but for much of my life, it would have been almost useless advice, because I didn’t really see any of my career coming. There was no clear path back then to where I am now.

It's this way on a project level just as much as it is on a life-sized scale. Many projects don't start with a crystal clear vision of what's going to make it on the page.

Sometimes the wind is in your sails, a vision for the project is so clear that it practically writes itself. Those can be so thrilling!

The only way we get those, in my experience, is with many projects that start in dark caves.

The lights are out and there's little sound.

Perhaps there's a north star, or a breeze indicating a path to follow. So much of the start can be groping in the dark, feeling the walls and floor gently, finding an indication of the way forward.

Dead ends are reached. Steps retraced. Sometimes early, sometimes late.

Sourced Via Kleon on No such thing as waste, Lynda Berry writes about this searching when drawing with four year olds:

I often find drawings begun and then abandoned… Something is not quite right and they need to start over. Then comes the issue of wasting paper. And of finishing what they started. But what if we were…talking about a kid learning to play the trumpet, trying to play a certain note by repeating it… Getting the hang of it, making it natural. Would we say they are easing notes? It took 12 index cards to come to this image.

Projects start here, but I'm finding that even seasons follow this pattern. For me, fall and spring are highly generative times of year, while winter and summer I find myself slowing down. It's applied across the board to software, music, art, and writing.

The challenge is to look at that cavern not as a discouraging block. But as a part of the process.

The predominant culture values linearity, but nature works in seasons and cycles. Overlooking that can make the cave feel never-ending.

Derek Sivers writes about how the two ideas are in contrast in "Explorers Are Bad Leaders:"

Explorers poke through the unknown, experimenting, trying many little dead-ends.

Explorers meander, constantly changing directions based on hunch, mood, and curiosity.

Explorers are hard to follow. It’s better to let them wander alone, then hear their tales...

Leaders are easy to follow. Leaders say, “Here’s where we’re going. Here’s why this will improve your life. Here’s how we’re going to get there. Let’s go.”

...Leaders go in a straight line. Leaders simplify.

Explorers are bad leaders.

Keeping a creative practice is contingent on the extent to which you are comfortable with submerging yourself in the dark time and time again.

Giving up on the search means being closed off to finding the way forward. Returning to the dark, though, means there's a chance of a new path being discovered.

That honestly is what ends up being the fun part of the process. It's an act of discovery when a piece starts to come alive, or when a practice continues to mature and grow after years.

It repeats time and time again. Since, as Gene Wolfe told Neil Gaiman "You never learn how to write a novel, you only learn to write the novel you’re on.”

I love what this means for a creative life. As Kleon put it at the start of this piece, In Free Play, Stephen Nachmanovitch speaks to practice as a means of uncovering oneself over time:

The Western idea of practice is to acquire a skill. It is very much related to our work ethic, which enjoins us to endure struggle or boredom now in return for future rewards. The Eastern idea of practice, on the other hand, is to create the person, or rather to actualize or reveal the complete person who is already there. This is not practice for something, but complete practice, which suffices unto itself. In Zen training they speak of sweeping the floor, or eating, as practice. Walking is practice.

With this piece done, I'll be stepping back into the cavern. Listening for the next indication forward.