He stood over my shoulders watching as I moved the text on-screen. I was completely unhappy with what it looked like, which was nothing new. So frustrated internally I couldn’t even see it for where it might be going, beyond “Bad. Bad, this is all bad.” It had been, at most, five minutes. Maybe ten.
On the flip side of that depressing wave was something. Better than nothing, but not perfect. Not even great, buy somewhere in the neighborhood of passable. I could tell he was surprised by the critical voice telegraphing itself every fifteen seconds with utterances and groans as I kept moving in that little dance of weights, colors, faces, position, tracking, angles, and layer effects.
I was surprised too, for having forgotten that this — a process feigning itself as misery and pain but really just the typical birthing process of anything from nothing — was how it almost always went.