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“A whopping ONE word.”

That was the text I received from my writing partner, Jack, this morning.

Every day Jack and I check in with each other on our writing progress.

An accountability partner is essential to an artist's ongoing art production.

Jack and I have been checking in with each other almost daily for at least five years now. When we share and make our progress public, the brain subconsciously works on bringing that intention to fruition. This morning's text, therefore, was surprising when Jack said one word.

My glib reply was, "I hope it was a good word."

Jack replied it was a matter of editing, revision, and deleting that totaled through addition and subtraction to a net gain of one word over yesterday's word count on the same project.

Creative Process: Brainstorm, Edit, and Polish

And before the artist/creative/maker even gets to those activities, there might be hours, days, or months of ideation before they put anything to paper. Regardless of the art form, thinking about making art constantly swims around in the muck of the subconscious brain.

There are days when ideation delivers many notes. And these kernels might sprout and grow into full-fledged art pieces.

Other times, ideation more closely replicates the tossing and turning of an insomniac. Lots of fits and starts but nothing really germinates.

Accountability to Others Elevates Ideation Process

Find a partner who receives your check-ins without judgment. While it is ideal for your partner to work in the same genre or medium that you do, it can also be counterproductive when this person struggles with their own self-doubt. They may defer to offering critiques of your work, or course-directing your progress when all you really need is the motivation to keep going.

Ideation and early art production lay and build a tenuous scaffold on which more solid walls and structures can be attached to develop and strengthen the work.

But in the early phases, particularly creative brainstorming, need the ebb and flow of stop and stops.

Keep in mind that peeks and valleys in creative thought often stem from our experiences in public and private education.

Evidence suggests that creative talent is not always encouraged or valued at school, explaining the loss of interest in creativity by the age of seventeen. Creative subjects often lose their attraction post sixteen, due to the pressures faced in the education system. This has a direct effect on the interest invested in design and technology as a subject (Page & Thorsteinsson, 2017, p. 13)

Education, particularly its administrators and bureaucrats, fixate on measurements to the detriment of individual creativity. Tests and assessments provide those tools.

As for myself, I have always loved being tested. This truth sounds strange even to me, but I remember when I learned the declension of nouns and conjugation of verbs and a list of new vocabulary words in my high school Latin classes. I relished each day when Mrs. Feehan assessed our knowledge through a short quiz.

Even now, I enjoy greater success in completing online courses when those lessons and modules include tests.

Assessment, however, succeeds when the participant receives positive reinforcement through their grade.

Wrong answers pinpoint those areas of the lesson that need to be more fully understood, studied, or mastered.

Likewise, your accountability partner needs to know how best to support your art-making, depending on where you are in the art-making journey.

Try this:

• Reporting on ideation: Share the number of ideas generated because the more there is to choose from, the more likely a good idea emerges. Thomas Edison reportedly had over a thousand different ideas for how to make the light bulb before he suddenly (slowly) brought together two other workable ideas into the one that served as an electrical beacon for so many years.
• Reporting on drafting and revision:

1. Sketching out, drafting, and noodling around the drafting table might be measured best with time spent on tasks.
2. Challenging yourself to show up for 20, 30, or 60 minutes likely serves as the jumpstart toward the completed first draft.
3. Editing and revision may also be measured best with time spent on the task; however, in some production, such as writing and musical composing, word count or measures may better represent progress.

• Reporting on polishing: Preparing a work to be released for consumption by an anonymous audience, as in publishing or selling art products, may benefit from time away from the product to better replicate the audience's perspective.

Help your accountability partner help you by clearly stating your expectations.

You might say, “I'm going to put away this short story for 30 days. Please remind me at the beginning of next month to complete my revisions and submit them to a contest.”

We cannot change the past. We cannot change the future. We can only act in the present.

Partners Are Steady Sounding Boards When Art-Making Stalls

A thumbs-up emoji or smiley face, an "attaboy" or "good work," a keep-going message prompts a production loop.

And when the muse seems to have abandoned you, a simple note from your partner, "What's up?" or "Just checking in…" can be just the medicine to kickstart your art-making once again.