I have been going over blog posts and videos from years past as a type of reflection on my life. My aim is to learn lessons from past successes and failures. Some of the content has been painful to look at. Huge face plant. What was I thinking when I made this? Who is the woman who made this? I don’t recognize her.

There is a type of delusion that is necessary to come up with something new or creative. A form of positive thinking that allows the creator to believe they are on the right track. In hindsight, it can lead to embarrassing failures.

Let me illustrate this with one example. A very embarrassing one. After publishing Graffiti Hack I decided to make a book trailer for the novel. Here is what I came up with.

Notice that the book trailer doesn’t tell you what the book is about. It seems to show you random visuals and then there is a book related to it somehow. For some reason I thought this was a good book trailer at the time. I felt very inspired by the effort that I came up with a second offering.

At least with this one, I focused on the book which is a small improvement. I felt very clever coming up with the idea of picking sticky notes out of my book that I placed there during the editing process. And liking it to the plucking of rose petals. The way you might while playing a game of “he loves me, he loves me not.” But why did I think this would make anybody want to buy the book? I just don’t get it? What was I thinking at the time? I was so happy with that video, that I made a third one.

I thought it would be cool to include footage of me doodling. Again the connection to the novel is tenuous. Some random verbiage. How is this supposed to help somebody decide to purchase the novel? No idea.

Finally, I got my act together. I revamped the book cover design of Graffiti Hack. And then I created a book trailer using paper cutout stop motion animation. The trailer tells you what the novel is about and is solely focused on the book. This was my first attempt at paper cutout stop motion animation so it doesn’t look the best, but it does look passable. Not bad for a first attempt. Finally, a book trailer to be proud of. At least a little.

Conclusion

I want to delete those old videos and forget that I ever made them, but, I feel that there should be a life lesson in all of this. I am not exactly sure what it is.

That I must first create lots bad work before I can create something that I am proud of?

I shouldn’t believe my own perceptions since they have deceived me in the past?

Go boldly in the direction of your dreams, you will get there eventually after a bumpy ride?

But I wish there was a more efficient way of getting things done with less mistakes. That would be less painful.