Passion projects are always a joy to experience for me. Be it a movie, book, painting, what have you, they always have something in them that makes my imagination go wild. They tend to have unique elements that bring something more to the table than other works, that X-Factor that so many people try to capture. They may not always sell as well, or appeal to as wide an audience, or come out quite as polished, but they do have that special something in them.
Trying to figure out where this comes from is a dangerous game though. Putting all kinds of metrics in place to measure the amount of passion that went into something can ultimately suck all the fun out of it, reducing the artist’s passion to chase the dream. Everybody already knows what it boils down to anyway. Love what you’re doing and it’ll become a passionate project. The issue I have with that though, is that eventually the interest runs out. If I run out of steam on a short story, I rarely if ever come back to it. If I lose interest in a chapter I’m writing, I know I’ve gone down the wrong path and need to change things up. Worst of all, I’m struggling to keep editing my novel because it’s hard to care anymore after spending so much time on it. I know I should want to finish these things, but it’s difficult to capture that feeling again when I need it, and if I don’t I know they’ll all come out as just kinda … meh.
That’s why this week I’m looking for renewed wells of the stuff. If I could bottle it, I would, but I can’t. So instead I’m reviewing all the passion projects I can find to figure out what on earth those people were doing to keep interested for years at a time. Somehow, this must be a state one can master, if so many talented people are able to keep going on their projects for so long. Thousands of hours went into all the best books that I love, and I know if they can do it, so can I. Wish me luck!
Thank you for reading,
Benjamin Hawley
Dangerous Day Job 