Category: Thoughts on Creativity
Creative Mondays #027 – Nervous? Just do it.
Recently I received a scheduling for a puppet audition through The Jim Henson Company. When I was first called about it, I was initially pretty confident I could go in there and nail it. Then, I received the script and all the information about the audition and I was even MORE confident I could go in their an nail it. The character was something I could hit out of the part really easily, the script was funny (something I usually find is quite rare in these situations) and it would just be a tremendously fun project to work on.
Then, just a few days before the audition, I found out something that rattled my confidence completely. Just completely dashed that sense of ‘I got this” completely. The good old Negative Brain took full control. In one instant, I went from confident to a complete mess. “I got this” became, “Not in a million years.” In fact, my negative brain, as if does, started telling me, “Just don’t even do it. That way you won’t be disappointed when you don’t get it.”
Now, my negative brain is not strong enough for me to make majorly stupid mistakes. I completely understand the consequences of not showing up to an audition that The Jim Henson Company has scheduled you for. So, there was no way I was going to NOT go to the audition.
I began thinking about being nervous about something big in your creative career and how it can completely play with your mind. In situations like that you have two choices. Don’t do it, as your negative brain would have you and play it safe. Or, as the old Nike ad says, “just do it.” And really, there is no choice. Just do it.
Nerves are nothing. They are just a holdover from that primitive brain we’ve talked about before on here. They are there to keep you safe. But when you think about things logically you’ll see that nerves can sometimes misguide you.
Being nervous while swimming in shark infested waters is probably a good idea. You could die.
Being nervous when going into an audition, or unveiling your recent painting, or stepping out on stage to play a new song, recite a new poem, read a new story, etc., those things re not likely to kill you. You’ll be just fine. Sure, you may blow the audition, receive criticism, get booed, but is it going to kill you? Probably not. And in the unlikely event that those things happen (how many people really get booed anymore?) they will all be incredible learning experiences of what to do or not do the next time you are in one of those situations.
So, when it came to this audition of mine, there really was only one choice, do it. I studied the script harder than anything I had recently. I worked on my puppetry even more to be spot on when I went in. Part of the audition would be riffing/improv so I thought of things I may say in different situations that may pop up. I made myself completely ready for this audition.
Was I still nervous? Yes.
Was I going to let that nervousness stop me? No way.
Will I get the part? Who knows? But I’m more likely to get it now that I didn’t chicken out and not go to the audition.
If you are nervous about something, just do it.
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How do you deal with being nervous about big events in your creative life? Has the nervousness ever won out? Or did you battle is successfully?
Creative Mondays #026 – Creative Goals
If you’re anything like me, always busy, you can gain a lot by setting creative goals. I’m not speaking of big lofty goals like: get a book published or have a gallery opening or have my play produced on the stage. These are big creative goals. I’m not saying those aren’t good goals to have, those are great goals to have. I’m talking about smaller creative goals that will lead you to those bigger creative goals.
I am a big proponent of working day by day, bit by bit on achieving those big creative goals. Those big goals don’t just happen overnight. In order to get a play produced, you have to write it. In order to have a gallery opening, you need to paint enough pieces to put into a gallery. So you need to look at those goals and see what goals you can set right now to achieve those bigger goals you have in mind.
Recently, I’ve started planning things out for the week every Sunday evening. I look at the week ahead and I jot down a list of things I want to accomplish by this time the following Sunday night. I break down all the current projects I’m working on and then come up with some things I can, conceivably, get done during the week to get closer to accomplishing those goals.
For example, I’m currently working on a podcast called The Tales of Deputy Guppy. Over the past few weeks I have the voice over artists come in and record their lines for the fourteen episodes of the season. So right now, I have fourteen episodes worth of audio that ready to be edited and produced into final shows. Now, I would love to be able to make one of my goals:
Edit the fourteen episodes of Deputy Guppy.
That, however, is a pretty big task and I have a ton of other things going on during the week, so it’s not going to get done no matter how much I want it to get done. So, I break down the goal into something more manageable:
Edit one episode of Deputy Guppy.
That is doable. In fact, I know I can do a little bit more so my goals then become:
Edit one episode of Deputy Guppy.
Choose the ‘selects’ for the next episode. (Selects are the takes by each voice actor that I really like and want to use in the final show.)
By doing this I have taken a near impossible task and broken it down into two little tasks that get me a step closer to achieving that big task.
Doing this also helps your brain wrap itself around completing that big task. Telling myself I have to edit fourteen episodes in one week basically makes my brain shut down because it knows that that is a LONG boring week of being glued to a chair editing. However, by breaking it down, my brain goes, “Oh I can do that and do that pretty quickly.”
And I’m not afraid of breaking down things even further. If it’s going to be a super busy week, I’ll make fewer goals. I will, however, do SOMETHING that gets me just a little bit closer to completing that big goal.
So why not try it this week? Take one of your creative goals and break it down into smaller pieces. Pieces big enough to be accomplished in a week’s time with the time you have available to put towards that goal. Then focus on getting those small things done this week. Then, at the end of the week, take the next little piece of that big goal and plan on getting that done the following week. If you can do this, put your mind to it and really do it, you’ll see that your big goal gets completed in no time.
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What goal are you working towards right now. How are you going to break it down into pieces you can tackle this week. Let us know in the comments below!
Creative Mondays #025 – The negative brain.
I was talking to author, Mur Lafferty the other day. Though we talk occasionally via text or Tweet, we hand’t spoken at any great length for some time so there was a bit of catching up to do. Even though Mur and I are sort of on different paths, she’s an published author, I’m a…well, whatever I am, we are both creative folks and we always find we feel the same way about certain situations that happen in our career. One of the things we have in common is the random flare up of the negative brain. That part of the brain that, even when something really good is happening, you focus on some negative aspect of it. And a lot of times, for me, this tiny negative thing will completely outweigh all the good. Mur and I spoke at length about this and I figured it’d be good to bring up here as some of you may have the same issue.
My therapist, yes, I go to a therapist, says the negative brain is a hold over from our evolutionary past. At the time when we, as early humans, had to constantly be thinking about the negative things in order to survive from day to day. We had to think about the worst because the worst was always right around the corner. What if we don’t find food? What if that wild animal attacks us? What if this lake dries up? We constantly had to worry about it. Luckily, most people, have things easier these days, but the negative brain is still lingering with us.
I’m going to give you an example now of a recent flare up of my negative brain. Unfortunately, I’m not going to get specific with the details. I hope that, even by being general, you’ll get my point. A year or so ago, I was offered a huge creative opportunity. This was one of those things where it was so big I, of course, had to say yes. And I did. I was over the moon with excitement about this. Huge smile on my face for days after I found out. Then, as I began hearing details about this project and I realized that my involvement in the project, while still a huge opportunity, was not as big as initially thought it was going to be. The project was still happening, I was still involved, it was just that tasks I thought would be assigned to me were going to be done by others.
Now this opportunity was something that people would PAY to do. It was truly a once in a lifetime experience that I was going to be one of a very small handful of people to get to do. But my negative brain wouldn’t let me see that. My negative brain was constantly reminding me that I wasn’t going to get to do every aspect of this amazing job that I wanted to do. And, in the end, it slightly tinged this incredible experience because my negative brain wouldn’t let me enjoy it.
This negative brain is something that I’ve had for a long time, as long as I can remember. I guess the good thing now is that I’m recognizing it and can now focus on trying to fight it. But the question is…how?
I’m sure that folks who are affected by this would just say, ignore your brain when it does that. That’s a good piece of advice. Easier said then done sometimes, though. In thinking about what my therapist said about the negative brain being a holdover from our primitive self I thin the best solution is to EVOLVE. Evolve my thinking to focus on the positives of the situation and not the negatives.
So if you have ‘negative brain’ know that you aren’t alone. And you absolutely must not let it get in the way of your creativity. Even if your brain is focusing on the negatives of a situation, you must keep pushing through with your creativity because not creating is worse!
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Do you suffer from ‘negative brain?’ If so, let us know how you fight it in the comments below.
Creative Mondays #024 – Don’t be precious (a lesson from Gonzo The Great)
This is one of those rules on creativity that people talk about a lot. When you are creating something, especially something you are creating with other people, you cannot be precious with your ideas. Some of them will get used, some of them will not get used. You must know this going in otherwise you’ll be setting yourself up for misery.
This rule struck me one time when I watched it happen right in front of me. In 2003, I was lucky enough to be invited to hang out on the set of a Muppet commercial shoot. It was the Dominoes Pizza Super Bowl ads that they were in. For two days I just sat, like a fly on the wall, and watched as the people behind the Muppets worked their magic. As a side note here, my favorite Muppet is Gonzo, so I kept a close eye on what Dave Goelz, Gonzo’s performer, was doing.
During one break I noticed Dave was over near the Puppet Wrangler’s table working on something. He had some items from the Craft Service table, a long puppet rod and some tools and was busily building something. Someone asked what it was and he said he felt lil Gonzo should be doing something in the background of the next shot they were filming, so he was building a stack of food for Gonzo to balance on his finger. The rig would have made it appear like Gonzo was balancing a peanut on his fingertip, then balanced on that, a soda can, and then a bag of chips and so on. It was really a great looking rig and it was built out of actual stuff! He drilled holes in a REAL peanut in order to slide the rod through.
I’d say he spent about a good thirty minutes of his lunch break on this neat little addition to the commercial. When he was done he tried it out and the effect was hilarious, it looked like Gonzo was balancing all this stuff on his finger. Everybody loved it. They tested it out on camera and it looked great. But then, somebody decided that it just wasn’t right for the scene. The Muppets mantra has always been, “Pull Focus” but this gag was pulling a little too much focus. Ultimately, the decision was made not to use it. I guess in a commercial you don’t want to pull too much focus away from the product you’re actually selling.
So, after working so hard on this little piece of puppetry fun, what did Dave Goelz do? He just tossed it aside with a smile and got ready for the next shot. His attitude was one of, “Well, that would have been fun but, oh well, no big deal.” Now, he could have been upset or fought for it or thrown a big-time hollywood star tantrum, but he didn’t. He moved on to the next order of business with a smile.
Seeing this happen really struck me. Something you work hard on, no matter how good of an idea it is, may not make the final project. This happens all the time when creating things with others and it can happen in working on your own stuff as well. A particular exchange of dialogue in your writing may be the best you’ve ever written, but if if doesn’t work with the story, you have to toss it. You can be upset for a moment, but then you have to move on with your creating.
This is a tough one. Usually us artists go from thinking everything we do is crap to everything we do is good. Sometimes, even when you know you have something good, you have to let it go if it’s not working.
Take a lesson from Gonzo: you can’t be precious with your work.