returning to yesterday's draft feels very hard

abandoning my draft yesterday and making a new post instead was not great for morale. i had a hard time returning to that post to finish it today, which made me feel like a coward, like i'd never actually take a stab at describing monday's fashion show, because i'm scared of doing it badly. 

but maybe i will lower the bar a bit. the draft attempted to not only describe the fashion show, but also to make some meaning out of it and tie it to other things i've been writing about. and maybe i'll still do that, but i think i'll just try to describe the fashion show and then see how that goes. 

when i read the draft today, i felt myself getting caught up in "how do i describe this right so that i describe the whole event well," as in, making sure i describe it with chronological accuracy, kinda leaving nothing out. no idea why that all of a sudden became my approach, when i had been doing fine before with choosing salient moments or themes and having those carry the description, rather than feeling like i have to describe the thing super perfectly and fully. 

it reminds me when i did some figure drawing—usually i'm the nude model, but this time i was the one drawing—and i realized i was trying to draw things exactly as they appeared, which is kind of an impossible thing to accomplish; everything changes form when it changes form. 

the other, much more experienced artists had all developed a strategy for choosing what to include and how to include it, to end up with a beautiful finished product, rather than something totally true to the subject. as one of them put it, "once you leave here, no one will know what the subject looked like; all they'll see is your artwork, and will judge it on its own merits." 

after feeling stuck approaching the draft in this frustrating way, i talked it out a bit with my boyfriend on our way to the gym. as we walked, little moments from the show kept coming back to me: ones that made this particular show stick out from others i've done, in ways i'd like to share and remember. 

and that's the approach i want to take. i want to describe the parts of the show that stood out to me, ones that i'd tell someone if i spoke to them about it in person. i can tackle the narrativizing and meaning-making part later, if i want to. 

so tomorrow i think i'll start fresh. i had some good stuff going in my draft, but i think once i start finding my new direction, i'll be better equipped to enter the headspace i was in while i wrote the draft, and glean whatever parts fit in this new draft.