Extra Credit! Ghosts of Projects Past

To celebrate the end of endless 2020, we share an "extra credit" episode made for our beloved Homework Club Members in early December. Homework Club offers creative people a framework for keeping their projects and practices a priority. beautiful worksheetsbonus audio content“extra credit” creative prompts + tips from practicing artistsaccess to a private members-only IG accountaccountability pods (optional)and a monthly webinar led by Beth Pickens!All for $12/month for those who sign up before January 6th! For more information on Homework Club, visit MindYourPractice.com.This month, your extra credit creative prompt comes from Mind Your Practice producer, Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.For your vacation extra credit, you are invited to revisit, and possibly put to rest, the ghost of a previous project. I’m talking about ideas you briefly toyed with, or even obsessed over, and then - for whatever reason - didn’t complete. Often these projects were too overwhelming, too abstract, or too involved. You didn’t have the time. Or energy. Or budget. Or some combination of these factors. I like to revisit these so-called ghosts in the Winter, here in the Northern hemisphere. It feels cozy and introspective, and is a low stakes way to exercise those creative muscles during a time of potential stagnation.Your extra credit creative prompt is to consider an unresolved idea, and make the easiest possible homage to it.For example: perhaps you choose to return to the novel you couldn’t finish (or didn’t even start?) - could you write a short story or essay based on the book idea? How about a poem?Feel free to switch mediums, as well. For example, the performance that was never staged - could it find expression as an ink drawing? Or be distilled into a short choreographic phrase… how about a single gesture? Could the former concept album concept become one song, or jingle, or a simple, but satisfying beat?Keep in mind, this is just an “extra credit” exercise - you don’t have to visit anything fraught or stress-inducing. You don’t have to share it with anyone. And it’s fine to feel a little sheepish at first when returning to unfinished business (I always do).But I also find that the seed of the idea is often eager to express itself, even if it isn’t the epic (and daunting) form I initially imagined.*SOMETIMES something magical happens - allowing these ideas to “do their thing” opens up psychic space, and I’ll get a surprising breakthrough in a completely different project.*This is super bonus, not the goal. The goal is simply to keep your creative muscles flexing in a zero stakes context.Good luck artists, or, rather, break a nail! We’re rooting for you!With Love,Carolyn