Grantblings

Creative Mondays #030 – Creative work is hard work

I was talking to a friend via text message the other night when an interesting exchange occurred.  She has an incredibly hard job working with kids as a counselor and currently she is in school to get another degree.  She was lamenting to me how she had over 700 pages to read in a book for an upcoming assignment.  I asked if there was something I could do to help, I don’t know what I could have done, but I’m always willing to help a friend who has a lot of work to do.  She said no and then said the main reason why not, besides the fact that she had to do all the reading herself, was that because she didn’t think I could be serious.  I told her I could totally be serious and that The Jim Henson Company wouldn’t have sent me to Australia if I couldn’t be serious when it was time to be serious.  The she said, “Your work is different than mine.  A different kind of serious.”

This is something that creative people hear all the time.  All the time.  Creative work comes off as ‘fun’ to other people but that’s because, usually, they only see the art when it reaches the ‘fun’ stage.  The movie screening.  The gallery opening.  The play premiere.  The statue unveiling.  The concert.  They don’t see the hours, days, months, years, of work that came before.  The work.  (Although, I will say that the ‘fun’ examples listed above are all work as well, sometimes just as hard as the work that came before.)

Creative work is work.  And, it is serious work.  Ask anyone who has stared at a blank piece of paper, or empty word processing document, an empty canvas.  Yes, you are using different muscles to do creative work than, say, a construction worker does, but it’s still hard work.  (Again, I’ll add that caveat that a dancer does just as hard physical labor than a construction worker.)

In the Puppet Up! Uncensored show, we have several recreations of classic Jim Henson puppet pieces.  I have been fortunate enough to have been asked to participate in both of the pieces: Java and I’ve Grown Accustomed To Your Face.  These are put in the show as a tribute to the legacy of Jim Henson, but also to show the the folks who come to the show how they are performed.  Learning these pieces was not easy and, in some cases, were harder work for me than learning, say, the opening and closing choreography.  The reason being is that we are recreating pieces that the audience is familiar with and, in some cases, VERY familiar with, so recreating them accurately is extremely important.  It took a lot of concentration and, step by step, practice for me to even begin to get these pieces close to performance level.  This was hard work.  And let me tell you, even though I’ve performed each piece a bunch of times in front of paying audiences, they continue to be hard work.  Though, I will say, now that I’ve done them so often, I’ve started to actually have fun while doing them.  That doesn’t mean I do my own thing, but it means I’m no longer completely stressed out that I’m not doing them correctly.  They are some of the hardest things I’ve ever done.  And lets not even get started talking about using the Henson Digital Puppetry Studio.  That’s a whole other can of ‘hard work.’

Unfortunately, there are always going to be people who see me playing with puppets, or you drawing on paper or painting on canvas or practicing a dance or playing an instrument and they are going think, “That’s not real work.  My work takes a different kind of serious.”  There’s nothing that can be done about that.  You’ll just have to take comfort in the fact that other artists know how hard creative work is.  They get it.  Don’t let the other folks who don’t get you down.  Leave them to their hard work and stick with yours.

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Do people often say your creative work isn’t serious work?  If so, how do you go about explaining to them that they are wrong?  Or do you just let it slide?  Let me know in the comments below!

Creative Mondays #029 – Need help? Just ask.

I was thinking today about creative work and how incredibly hard it can be at times. And, sometimes, you just need a little help getting things done. When it comes to accomplishing your creative dreams, sometimes it feels like you are alone with your struggle to create. Here’s the thing, you aren’t alone. There are people who will help you. All you have to do is ask. And sometimes it may lead to some amazing things.

Okay, strap in for another ‘real life’ story. Back when we were doing Dr. Floyd we always enjoyed the idea of bringing in other folks as the voices of the historical figures that the cast encountered as they travelled through time. At the start we asked friends of ours to fill those roles. We recorded with Ryan Smith (a next door neighbor who acted), Chris and Tim Waffle or Hot Waffles (who were friends of mine from the comedy music world) and Leslie Carrara-Rudolph (a friend I met through puppetry). We were super lucky to get these folks to join us.

As the show went on we started wondering if we could possibly get other stars to come in and do voices. And the only way we were going to be able to do that was to ask. The first person we asked was Frank Conniff of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 fame. To our surprise he said yes. He came in, recorded a voice for us and was amazing. We had so much fun working with Frank that we continued to ask him to return and do a voice and he was always so gracious and willing to come help. In fact, he even drove down to Comic-Con one year just to be part of our live show. We will always be grateful for Frank’s time and generosity.

Following Frank, we just kept asking. Jeffrey Tambor (Arrested Development), Joel Hodgson (Mystery Science Theatre 3000), Don Novello (Father Guido Sarducci), just to name a few, came in and did voices for us just because we worked up the nerve to ask. One of my favorite stories is the night I asked June Foray to come do a voice. You know, the LEGENDARY June Foray. You know, June Foray from Rocky & Bullwinkle and Granny on Sylvester & Tweety and many, many other shows. I was at an event that June Foray just happened to be at as well. In my mind there was no way she would ever say yes but I worked up the courage and I asked. She said yes. AND she recorded for us twice! All because I asked.

I firmly believe that The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd would never had become as popular as it did if it weren’t for our celebrity guest stars. And all we had to do was ask. We had plenty of folks say no to doing our show. Or saying yes, but then asking for more money that we could afford to pay. But, a lot of folks said yes. All because we were brave enough to ask.

And don’t think I’m talking about ‘celebrities’ helping you out here. I’m not, that was just the example. If there’s someone who could help you take your creative work to a new place or even finish it, just ask.

Now, I will say there’s a chance the people will say no, but a lot of people will help you. Or at least help you find out where to go to get the assistance you’re looking for.

Don’t be shy. Just ask.

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When was a time you had to ask for someone’s help in order to get some creative work done? How’d it pan out? How did you go about asking? Let me know in the comments below! Have a great week!

Creative Mondays #028 – Distractions.

Distractions.  They are everywhere and they are a major threat to you an your creative goals.  If you want to have hope of creating your dreams, you need to learn how to tune them out, turn them off and just plain ignore them.

Distractions often sink my creative plans for the day.  Even just sitting down to write this post has been filled with distractions.  Just while coming up with that first paragraph alone I have prepared a CD to ship off to CDBaby as a restock and looked into Apple Computer’s Compressor software to see if it would solve a problem I’m working on in trying to get my video podcasts down to a smaller file size.

Yes, I did all that in between writing sentences for that opening paragraph.  I have a problem in that I’ll sit down to do one thing and then as I’m doing that one thing a million other ideas pop into my head and suddenly I feel that I have to get those things done right now.  This is a huge hurdle to us creative types.  Projects take way longer than they should because of the tiny little things that get in the way.

And I’m not just talking about email, texts or even the sudden excursions down the Wikipedia rabbit hole.  You know, where you look up one thing that pertains to your project and then thirty minutes later, you are on a page that has nothing to do with what you looked up in the first place.  There is another time of distraction I call the I Can’t Until… distraction.

It goes like this, you sit down to write but your laptop isn’t charged, so you get up and go get the charger and plug it in.  Once your laptop is open, you pop open your word processor of choice and see there is an update available to your software so you click to have it update.  Once it’s updated you sit to start to write, but the scrap of paper you wrote your idea on is in the other room so you have to get up and go get it.  It’s now been 15 minutes and you haven’t written anything.  This is my story, for you it may be different, but this is what happens.

SO, what do we do?  Well, the only thing we can do…DON’T GET DISTRACTED.  It’s hard, but it’s the only way to get through it.

In the situation above where I spoke about trying to sit down and write, the easy solution would be to get out pen and paper and just start writing.  Let the computer update, but get the butt in the chair and start writing.  But then of course, you have to find the paper.  And this pen is out of ink…..

Turn off your phone.  Turn off wifi on your laptop.  Close the door to the room you are in.  Tell your family that you aren’t to be disturbed.  Try your best to minimize the distractions.  And before you start, make sure that you have everything you need to begin.  Laptop charged, software updated.  Pen and paper.  Then get going.

Again, the only solution is to fight through it and get the work done.  If you had an office job, you’d be in trouble if you were constantly getting distracted and not doing your work.  Creative work is work and if you let your creative work falter because of distractions you’ll get in trouble too.  Not by a boss, but by yourself because your creative goals won’t be met.

So don’t get distracted.

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How do you deal with distractions?  Let us know in the comments below (especially if you have a really good trick).  Have a great week!