The Art Of Sharing Your Process

How do you share your train of thought, your creative process, your new ideas with others?

I am just learning how to share in a way that doesn't send me directly into a K-hole.

I wrote a play three years ago. I have been workshopping it ever since. I was not sure what I wanted this play to be: a musical, an an actual play, a film or a TV show. I decided that I would make it a TV show. So, along with a talented producer friend of mine, I set out to make a presentation. No money. Just my living room, some lights, a backdrop, a camera and some very talented actors. And we have been editing the piece. In the midst of editing, knowing full well there was much more to cut and tighten, I got excited and wanted to share the piece. And I did. And I prefaced the share with the apology "It is not done yet. Still working it out..." And I also opened up the conversation, asking those who viewed it what they thought. Some liked it, which of course strokes the EGO (this is not a Kaballah blog, don't worry, and if you are a Kabbalist then frame this for you) and some had questions, concerns, specific things they would love to see taken out completely. I set myself up. I asked. They spoke. And then my heart fell, my ears burned and the chest closed in.

I quickly called a singer/songwriter that I admire. I offered up my account of what had just happened. She said that she too, has gotten excited by the beginnings of a new song, played it for people only to be faced with blank stares and looks that intimated "is that it?" To which she would defend herself and her process...only to learn that perhaps she should not share something that is not COMPLETE.

I hear that. But aren't we INCOMPLETE. I mean, as people...aren't we totally UNFINISHED. Aren't our abilities, our wants, our viewpoints, our spirits ever evolving? If they are, then we are certainly ever-growing things. So if it is okay for US to be works in progress, works that should be gently handled so as to grow not from roots of fear but roots of love, then why can't our First Drafts, our Initial Ideas be viewed similarly? I don't want to be scared of sharing something that is just beginning for it is the greater community spirit that oxygenates the something. But I am scared.