Creative Mondays #040 – Mistakes
Mistakes. As an artist, you constantly strive to make your art as perfect as can be. We want what we produce and release into the world to be free from any flaw or error. This is a very noble cause and one you should strive for. If you aren’t happy with something, do not release it just for the sake of releasing it. Keep working on it until you get it to where you are happy with it. NOTE: You may never be happy with it, but we’ll talk about that at another time.
Striving for perfection is a great goal but you have to understand that, if you are like me, a piece of art you put out will never be 100% perfect. Striving for perfection is fine but if you keep striving for it you may never release your art. Working on one piece of art for the rest of your life chasing a certain Ideal may be fine for some but not for me. Did you know that Michaelangelo’s statue of David isn’t perfect. A flaw in the marble prevented Him from sculpting one of the muscles in Davids back. Instead of spending years trying to find a way to work around the flaw or get a new piece of marble and start over, he finished it, put it out in the world and then got busy working on something else.
When I listen to early episodes of Dr. Floyd I cringe and wish I could go back in and edit out mistakes. Tighten up the dialogue and pacing. But, as IV said on here before, the goal was to just keep making more episodes and in the course of producing over 150 episodes I learned how to tighten up the dialogue and pacing. And that’s why the later shows are cleaner. I made mistakes early on, learned form them, and used them to make the stuff I was creating better.
Mistakes you make while creating are, more likely than not, be extremely frustrating. That’s fine. The key is to learn what to take away from making that mistake and how the lessons learned there can help you improve your art.
You should never be so obsessed with never making mistakes that you don’t allow yourself to make them. Why would you want to make mistakes? Because sometimes those mistakes can make you look at your art differently and lead you to creating something even better than what you had originally started out to create. Mistakes sometimes open doors that give you a new view of how to present something. Or a way to change something to make it even better than you thought of before. I cannot tell you how many times a fumble in dialogue while reading a line has lead to a new and even better line for the project. That’s not always the case but sometimes it is and if I was obsessed with getting every line down as exact as it is on the script I would never have stumbled upon something better.
The other note I want to make about mistakes is that you can’t be so afraid of making them that you don’t pursue the art that your heart is leading you towards. If you want to sculpt (or paint, or write, or…whatever) and you are afraid to get going because you’ll make mistakes, you’ll never begin. Learn now, mistakes are going to be made and you’re going to learn from them and become better because of them.
We are humans. We are going to make mistakes. That’s perfectly fine. Be open to them. See if there’s something you can learn from the mistake to improve the piece you are working on or the next piece. See if there’s something about the mistake that makes the current piece even better than it was before. See if the mistake leads you to something new that you didn’t even think of before.
—
Do you have an example of a mistake that blossomed into something better than what you had planned when you started out? If so, tell me about it in the comments below.
40.2
The last update I did regarding my weight loss efforts was back in July. I figured it’d be good to check in and, by doing so, re-motivate myself a little.
When we last spoke I weighed in at 182.4. Yesterday, my weigh in day, I was 176.4, so I’m definitely headed in the right direction. Last Wednesday, I was actually 174.0 and there in lies the problem. There in lies the problem…travel.
When I’m traveling it is far too easy to slip into ‘vacation’ mode and just go wild with my eating. The thing is, I know when this is happening but instead of picking the healthier option, I go for the junk figuring, “I can start eating right tomorrow.” I know this doesn’t work, you know it doesn’t work, but still…sigh. I have refocused on it again, mainly because I was so bothered by slipping back after having my lowest weigh in in some time just last week. The exercise has resumed (another thing that’s difficult to do while traveling) and the eating right and tracking my food has as well.
I’ve also revised my goal a little bit to see if helps focus me. My overall goal was 158lbs and that’s not going to change. Fo now I’ve made myself a smaller goal of 168lbs. That’s what I’m focused on. That’s just eight pounds and it’s totally attainable in about 4 weeks. The goal is to be there by the first week of November. I can do it.
I did notice something funny about eating ‘crap’ food. I’ve been eating so well for so many weeks that when I do eat something that is really bad for me, my body sends me a clear message that it doesn’t not approve. Nothing gross, just stomach aches and headaches. This past weekend I was in Canada and heard of a food I’ve never heard of before…pizza turnovers. For the unfamiliar, this is a large pizza, any toppings you choose, that is folded in half and the deep fried. It sounded amazing. And it was good. I could only eat about a half of it and I was full. My body, pretty much instantly, said, “Nope. This is not good and now I’m gonna make you pay.” I just need to realize that BEFORE I start eating. And truthfully, deep down I did, I just need to act on it.
I have some possible travel in November and if that does happen, I’ll be more focused.
My good friend Mur Lafferty recommended an website/app called HabitRPG. It’s a way to inspire you to accomplish your goals and try to instill new habits and it’s pretty fun. Not sure if it’s 100% for me, but the Magic Spreadsheet did wonders for my writing in that it made writing more like a game, I’m hopeful that HabitRPG will do the same. In there for daily tasks I have 30 mins Running, Morning Workout and Daily Writing. SO far I’ve been pretty good at keeping up. I did set up ‘Eat Junk Food’ as something that’ll have a negative effect on my character and I plan to use it. Check it out if it interests you.
Finally, I wanted to mention a movie I saw recently. It’s called Fed Up and it’s an interesting look at sugar and what it does to our bodies. To me, documentaries are always skewed towards the filmmaker’s bias, but it was interesting. If you’re interested in that sort of thing, it’s worth a look. It seems that recently Lebron James followed the same type of diet that this movie recommends and lost a ton of weight. There must be something to it.
Anyway, back to focusing. We’ll catch up again in November!
Creative Mondays #039 – Take a break.
Even though we all love creating, there are times when we can get burnt out. When this happens take a break. Nothing will recharge your batteries faster than taking a little time off.
You need to be careful though, you don’t want to take a break, get so busy with ‘real life’ responsibilities that you never return to your art. But taking a few days away from your current project with a set date to return is not a bad idea to help with burnout.
Another thing I like to do to help avoid burnout is have a couple projects going at once. I have a couple different longer stories that I’m working on and I will work on one for a few weeks, then take a break and work on another for a few weeks, and then come back to the first one. I find that this helps keep the stories fresh. Also I find that spending time away from a certain project will give me time to generate new ideas that I can bring with me when I return to it.
I’m not speaking of taking a break when real life intervenes. Unfortunately, that happens a lot more than we would probably like. What I’m talking about here is actually setting aside a periods where you say, “I’m bonn stop working on this for a bit and then come back to it.” You make a conscience choice to take a break.
Taking a break may tell you a little about your project as well. If you take a break from what you’re working on and find you don’t have a real desire to return to it, that may mean that the project isn’t speaking to your true creative self. Don’t spend your time working on a project that isn’t 100% what you want to be working on. That’s not saying scrap a project completely if you find you don’t want to go back to it after taking a break. Just set focus your energy on projects you do want to work on. The unfinished project may actually come in useful.
A year or so ago, I was approached by a producer to come up with some scripts for short interstitials that would, hopefully, wind up on television. I got really excited about the project and wrote out ten scripts over the course of two days. They were short scripts, about a minute long each, so it wasn’t like some big Herculean effort or anything. I was excited about the possibilities this project presented. Then, though, the producer got really busy with other projects and so this one fell by the wayside, as did my passion to create for it. I really liked writing the scripts in this style but I stopped because I knew the project wasn’t going to continue, at least nit then.
A few months later, I got the idea for the Uncle Interloper Pieces and Bits segments. As I was writing out the scripts for them, I realized that a lot of the scripts I had written for the other project would work perfectly for this one. Boom! I suddenly had 10 more scripts to add to the few I had completed already. Sure, they needed some tweaking to find this project, but all that work before was now coming in handy. So, if you take a break from a project, don’t trash it! You may be able to cannibalize it for something else.
People say things work in cycles. I think this can be applied to creative people as well, especially those who, like me, practice in several disciplines. It has been a good year or two since I’ve really sat down and tried to write a comedy music song for my act Throwing Toasters. In the meantime, I’ve been busy with puppet fun, improv and other pursuits. But I can feel the urge to write songs again bubbling in the back of my brain. I’ve been jotting down song ideas left and right. Soon, after taking a bit of a break from comedy songwriting, it’ll be time to pick up the guitar again and get going. When you are truly creative, your brain won’t let you take a break for too long!
We’ve spoken on here before about how creative work is hard work. Just like any nine to five job, you’ll need to take a break every now and then. Do it. Use it to recharge your batteries, invigorate your creative mind and return to your creating with a renewed passion!
—
Do you take breaks in your creative work? Do you fin them helpful in inspiring you to create more? Let us know in the comments below. Have a great week!
Walt Disney World – Epcot’s Maelstrom #ONELASTRIDE T-Shirts
A week or so ago, Disney announced that they would be closing down the Epcot attraction, Maelstrom, in favor of a new ride based on the film Frozen. The Maelstrom, while not an E Ticket adventure, is a big cult classic and I was bummed that I wouldn’t get to ride it one last time. After thinning about it for a bit, and checking into my frequent flier miles, I realized I could pop out there for one last ride. I got in touch with my friend John who works at the parks and made arrangements and we decided it would be fun to create T-Shirts to commemorate the event. I designed the logo and John got them printed out and we wore them to the park!
The shirts were a HUGE hit, both with cast members and other guests. We were asked to stop for pictures and were repeatedly asked where we got them. So, to all those who’d like to make your own #onelast ride shirts, I’m putting the files up here for you to download. I claim absolutely no copyright on these materials and I am not accepting any payment for them. I’m just posting them here for other Maelstrom fans to enjoy! If you do make your own shirts, I’d love to see photos! Use the #onelastride on Twitter and Instagram and show off your pride before we have to #LetItGo!
RIGHT CLICK HERE AND ‘SAVE AS’ TO DOWNLOAD THE SHIRT FRONT
RIGHT CLICK HERE AND ‘SAVE AS’ TO DOWNLOAD THE SHIRT BACK