I’m trained in writing and music, both via self-motivation and formally, but I have an active interest in film as well. I grew up watching classic comedies, Neil Simon and Costa-Gravas. I may not have got all the political references in the latter (I was in grade school, and they don’t teach about Greek politics or US counter-insurgencies in South America in the ever-conservative US school system, for some reason /sarcasm), but the feel of his films stuck with me. I’ve thought about becoming a filmmaker at various points in my life, have made short films, and at one point, had a screenplay in the beginnings of an option process; I know the industry moderately well. The times I’ve thought about designing games, one of my inspirations has been Peter Watkins. I have a whole list of Fassbinder films to go through. Film is not one of my primary disciplines (that would be writing and music), but it’s an active part of my creative process.

Even with all that, and professional training in two directly related disciplines, separating out “film theory” from “I just want to watch the first Avengers movie over and over, leave me alone”, or distinguishing my classical music and composition training from “I want to listen to the same Tune-Yards album over and over. Stop bugging me” can be hard at times. It’s a challenge to allow time and room for all of the above, rather than turning my perseverating over a given work into a negative, in artistic terms. “I’m not being disciplined, I need to stop.”

Usually what happens if I try this punitive approach, is that I’ll keep thinking about the work I’m perseverating over until I give in. Once I do so, I can feel the stress drop off of me. It can be frustrating to go through a creative process around what looks like a block, but in fact, is just “I just want to watch or listen to <thing> over and over again”. If that’s part of the artistic process (which it can be), I’ve learned (after many years) to let that be what it is. If not, not.

Alexithymia and catastrophizing can make this even more complicated. Like a lot of artists, my work is part of, and reflective of, my emotional process, and that can spill over into practical decision-making. “Do I want to start a band that has some elements in common with Tune-Yards because that’s where the songs are leading me to, is that because I’m perseverating, or is it because I have a fascination with drum machines and hand percussion, both? Do I need to drum more? Do I need to get better at programming drum machines? If I’m going to do this, how am I going to find musicians again? How are we going to organize ourselves? I hope it’s not like the other times where I tried to “lead” and wound up just making a mess of things. OK, I’m starting to feel like a huge ball of emotional twine here. I need to rest.”

So which is it? The answer is: yes. *All* of these things, they’re all valid, I’m just struggling with unentangling them. Meanwhile, the “arts professional” part of me is thinking: “Avengers, pop songs, whatever gets me through. Fuck, though, I’m not writing songs. I’m not practicing. I’m writing this blog, and I’m reading fiction, even though it’s a struggle at times, but that’s about it.” This may sound like i’m unfocused, but it’s more the opposite: I’m *very* focused, in multiple directions, constantly. From all of that, one primary focus emerges, most times, and that becomes the all-consuming focus, with all the rest of it being a sort of constellation surrounding it.

Or I just watch “Winter Soldier” again.

Further, something I’m working on will end on its own, and leave me creatively empty. A piece is completed and released, or I reach a creative plateau in my process. when that happens, sometimes i go on to the next piece after a break – but sometimes, an entire discipline or sub-discipline is dead to me. I’m grateful for it having gotten me to where I am, but done is done. Months or years later: it all comes flooding back, and that’s where I am at for a while.

Avengers. Pop songs. Even though I think Marvel’s storylines are jingoistic and simplistic, and I can’t stand how Disney is jamming viewer’s psyches into the equivalent of a press mould, young and old alike. Just like I’ve been playing “Nikki Nack” for weeks now, even though I think Merrill Garbus’ race politics are self-serving and very “White lady gets religion about racism 101, after years of living in Oakland, imagine that”. On a loop, over and over again. “I’m the real thing, real thing, real thing. *be boop, be boop* There will be always something you can lean your weight into. I will be always something you can rely on.”

I’m crying now. (No, you’re crying.)

It’s a complicated process. Not just complicated like “being a working artist can be complicated”, not just complicated like “being an adult autistic can be complicated”, it’s both of those things, and they’re in a sort of dance with each other. It requires a gentle hand – forcing things one way or the other, won’t work. (I’ve tried; I’ve gone through and applied several artistic self-books, from the most “baby steps” to the most “your creative discipline is all that matters, push everything out of your mind and body”, and come up with my own processes, over years. No matter what I do, both remain.) I’m autistic, I’m a working artist, I’m autistic and a working artist. Period.

Trusting the process can definitely help, but that’s not going to be of much assistance when the deadline looms or the dress rehearsal is about to happen, so to speak. I find that the demands of the creative workplace – which can be as much about labor as any other form of work, and work’s demands as well, from an editor’s or conductor’s perspective – sometimes are just on two different paths. nobody cares that I want to watch everything Fassbinder ever made. A deadline’s a deadline.

Aside: I shudder to think what it’s like for an autistic child or teen who doesn’t get the kinds of flexible support that I did, because without it, I would’ve been lost. I lucked into good teachers, who encouraged me to write, and supported me in that, as well as not being on me to “toughen up”. I also had several truly awful teachers, who did things like trying to force eye contact, or who literally assaulted me for not following some minor rule. It happens.

I hope the programs that are out there which provide a means to channel interests into a creative discipline (or any other discipline) are accounting for this, because there’s nothing more distracting than not knowing how to live with both impulses, creative and perseverating, when they sometimes compete with each other. (I also think that forcing 40 hours a week of aversion therapy on autistic youth is a form of torture, but that’s its own topic.)

I suspect the impulse here from allistic teachers and support staff will be to suppress one or the other, or just give up – don’t do either of those things! Allow space for both. Even as an adult, I’m pretty antsy, if not fighting being mildly combative, if I don’t allow space for both. Not having a proper outlet in both cases to just be myself would’ve wrecked me, I’m convinced.