The 'Oh S%#t' moment

Its been a bit more like an 'Oh S%#t' day or two actually. What does this mean you ask? Well.....

It seems to have become a bit of a constant in my cake creation process. There are many stages in creating a cake (that maybe I'll write about one day), but this is a fairly prominent and sometimes soul destroying (or do we call it character building) one. I may tend to the dramatics in this post when describing this particular roller coaster... but lets not forget, it is a cake... no lives are at risk, just my creative livelihood and general wellbeing (again with the dramatics!). I realise this has some similarities to last week's post.... but rest assured, this is at a whole different level to what I wrote about before. This is when I am coming much closer to the day I hand this cake over and construction has usually begun, like I said, this has become an absolute regular in my cake making process. Maybe one day I will get to leave it behind.... I hope.

In this moment its like I become completely commitment-phobic towards my cake. I question everything; why did I agree to this, why did I decide to go with this design, why did I decide to do it this way, WHY am I making cakes in the first place???!!! I start wondering how I ever thought I could do this. I'm convinced it even effects my ability to create. Case in point, I broke nearly everything I made this morning (don't worry it wasn't too much)... so before I went into a blind rage and smashed everything else I had already made I calmy walked away from the table and watched some reality tv... oh so calming.

By now my confidence is rather shaken and anxiety is my new friend. I truely believe for complete seconds, minutes, even hours that I might not be able to accomplish this. And that is the moment when someone needs to step in, slap me around the face and tell me to pull it together..... OR I need to sit myself down and have this conversations with myself, in my head or out loud, it doesn't matter.

This craziness that goes through my head is not about actually deciding to make the cake, or questioning wanting to do it... I wouldn't have signed up for the task in the first place if I wasn't commited and passionate about it, lets be honest, I wouldn't be here writing this blog at this very moment either. I guess its just part of the creative process. A very wise person once told me that inventors and creators have many, many more failures than they do sucesses... we just don't see that side of things. That infact brings me back to part of the reason that I began this blog in the first place.

In nearly all cases I know when this stage will end. There is usually some form of achievement I have to reach to know it is all going to be ok. I won't give it away for this cake. But its managing to make something or attach something or get it all looking just right before I realise I'm actually doing fine. If all goes to plan, that should be this afternoon... fingers crossed...

P.S. I promise next week there will be pictures... I just needed to vent today, so thank you.