Do you ever get tired of your stuff?

[Espy]

Because I am on about the fourth round of mastering for my bands EP and I am amazingly sick of these 6 songs. Ugh.

I can't take a break, which I normally would, because this must get done sooner than later but it is really taking some effort to slog through it.

What do you do when the thing you love to do becomes hard work? Do you slog on? Take a break and play video games? Hire someone else to do it (thats what I wish I could afford to do...)?

[phil]

keep going unless it starts to take a negative turn on the quality. If I can write more, I'll write more unless I know it's just turning into shit, in which case I'll back off and do something else for a while.


Now if you'll excuse me, I have to write a commercial for hooker robots.

[LordRavage]

Yes.

I have been going over my old music I created and I am burnt out on it. My girl heard it for the first time and loves it. She tells me it sounds new and different. (But she loves me so it may be a bit biased.)

I recommend taking a break anyway and coming back to it later.

But if you have to do it now...slog through and push past the brain drain.

[Krisken]

I tend to go into painting phases, then take long breaks in between. Yeah, painting the same army colors over and over gets super tiresome. I'll either work on a special character or switch to a different army altogether.

[North_Ranger]

I haven't found the time or the inspiration to draw in ages. Stupid MA thesis... *sighs*

[Tinwhistler]

I've done a number of creative endeavors: Writing, music, poetry, computer software development, martial arts.
I've found that in every one, you're going to have moments where the act is more work than fun. Slogging through that is one of the things that eventually separates the pros from the hobbyists.

I learned, with martial arts, to put my annoyance/fatigue/whatever aside mentally and soldier bravely on. Eventually you get through the rough spots.

[RealBigNuke]

I'll confess, I'm not the greatest with the willpower. Wisdom was my dump stat. However, when I'm getting irritated with one project, I'll either work on another project or just start drawing something that pleases me. It still means my main project gets done slower, but I still get practice and improve my skill/speed at doing it - not to mention remember why I like to draw which will power me through the tedious bits.

I suppose for music you could take a quick break and jam to a song you like more for a while. Honestly, though, soldiering through it then stopping before your quality suffers is the best way to do it.

[KCWM]

Espy, when I was in a band, I felt the same way you do after practicing the same 4-6 songs for 3-4 hours. Yeah, we got it down tight...tight enough where we could do a pretty nice single live take and have it come out well. But man, I couldn't wait for the next practice so that I could get away from those songs. Spending hours on the same 12-20 minutes of music can grate the nerves. Hell, when I sit down to record a sloppy demo and it takes me a handful of takes, I often just give up and figure I'll back around to it later.

BTW, I'd love to hear your stuff.

[fade]

http://www.fadecomic.com

...I wish I could take like 3 months off from it and come back.

[Cajungal]

I used to take a break, then the breaks got too long. Now I power through and finish it, laugh at how shitty it is, take a break, and fix whatever needs fixing after the break.

[Espy]

Thanks all, glad to know I'm not weird getting fed up working over and over on the same stuff.
It was my 4th go around on the mastering of this EP and each time I felt like I did worse and worse... until this last one and finally it works. I was actually able to listen to it all the way through and go "damn, that's not half bad." and just plain enjoy it.

I've got the album art wrapped and just need to go through my list of internet release sites and gracenotes database so I can properly get it out there for people to enjoy and I'm done and can start working on new stuff/playing live.
EDIT: I'll post some stuff soon KCWM.

[PatrThom]

I treat creativity like crop rotation. When one runs down, go do the other one until you're built back up again.

--Patrick

[CynicismKills]

Careful with breaks. I took one from sketching and now 6 months later I can't make anything look right. It's seriously depressing.