The Creatives

I had a breakthrough on Easter Sunday.

I wish there was a word other than "breakthrough" to describe what happened.  Makes me sound like Queen Dorkess of the Pretentious Dork People.  There just isn't. I called my best friend at 7:30am NYC time and told him that I finally broke through and I was pretty sure I was on a manic high like Sally Field when she played a bi-polar patient on ER.  

"Andrew, I am telling you. I can't feel the cold. I'm going to dress totally inappropriately to feel life's energy coursing through me.  You're going to get a call from the Australian police saying you have to come pick me up from The Opera House where they found me trying to break in to sing an aria."

Andrew replied, "whatever, Jackson Pollock. Just make sure you wash the paint out of your hair, and get it DONE so I don't have to hear about it anymore!"  Then we made a few more jokes about me wearing a 50s style sundress, converse, and no bra, crouched over a canvas with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth. Of course, I don't paint. I write.  And I don't smoke.  It would most likely be a Tim Tam hanging out of my mouth. But it is that kind of moment.  

This was about something we'll just call "The Project", which I have been absolutely obsessed with an terrorized by for the last 5 years.  This is not for work.  It's a very personal thing that I've never been able to bring myself to start in a meaningful way, let alone finish. I've cried about this countless time and have said to my best friends, "this damn thing needs to happen or get out of my brain, because I can't take it anymore. I honestly don't know if I'll ever be happy if I don't finish this."  Dramatic. I know.  That's how it felt.

Everyone's process with this type of stuff is different, I guess. But for me, I have to go through the absolute ringer emotionally in order to output anything even slightly creative.  ("Brainstorm" is yet another totally appropriate word.) Whether it be a promo for a TV network or a paper for Marxist Thought in college (I was a philosophy major in college. Please don't call the Committee for Unamerican Activities on me.), every one of my brain cells constricts with so many ideas and fears, that eventually nothing constructive can get in or out. But if it's really worth doing, this is what happens eventually.  Every single time...

I see it.

Everything else goes away.

Once again Queen Dorkess, with the extra title of Lady of the Vague attached.  That's the only way I can describe it.  All of a sudden there is just a tipping point- probably because I tried a different tactic or said something really self-respectful like "Fuck it. I'll try it this way. It's going to suck anyway, so who even cares. I just want it DONE." Then all of a sudden it is just there.  Outside of me.  It has this strange quality of being far less personal  but more exciting than ever.  It's this awesome place in the distance that always existed, and now I need to get my butt over there. As I get closer to it, it can absolutely shift and change.  It always does. So you revise, re-strategize.  But by this point in my game it is real and very workable.  I see it.  So let's get it poppin!

And that's what I mean by "Everything else goes away."  All my energy is directed at navigating a path to this thing out there so that eventually it's right here. In the real world. Something that actually exists. It's not like the hard work is over. Please hardly. But now I know where I'm headed and that's all that counts. Everything else goes away.

I hope that rings true for somebody out there.  Now that I'm working really hard and fast on The Project, the few brain cells I have that aren't dedicated to this are kind of obsessed with other people's creative process. And not just the people typically called "creatives"-writer, directors, singers, actors, designers. I'm talking about anyone who wants to make something, anything new.  (Please tell me someone knows what I'm talking about.)

I took the picture above with my cell phone at LAX on my way to SYD.  I was in the international terminal and so psyched to see all of the South Pacific references. (That might be Air Tahiti's logo?) I'm pretty inspired by this area of the world, (duh obviously. I'm here all the time now. Who does that?!), and it was one of my major directions for Catherine Mangosing when she re-designed my blog.  I grabbed the pic out of habit to send it to her as a visual reference. The thing is, my new blog was already done by the time I took it. Looking at the picture now, feels like proof that the it I see really does exist somewhere separate and in the distance.  Catherine and I both talked it through, saw it, and got there together.  I'm so pleased with the results.

Going through my Jackson Pollock style breakthrough on my own made me realize how lucky I am to collaborate with so many talented people on a regular basis. I sit with editors all day adding and deleting frames until is just right.  Because I am not a drawer'er, I drop a million pretty pictures in the laps of designers who can and say, "this is cool. I like this. I don't like that, but I like the font they used for "T"."  And then there are all of the writers who have have sat in the middle of brainstorms with me to come up with a thousand alternate words for "happiness" or "fork".

Every time I start a project, I'm basically saying to all of these people...

"Ohhhh..k. So, I see this thing. Do you see that out there? No, there. Right there."  

"Yeahhhhh maybe... I think so. Yes"  

"Do you wanna go?"

"Ok sure."

Some projects are more fun than others. Some projects make me want to kill myself more than others.  But all and all it's a blast..

To Catherine and all of those other creatives, thank you so much for coming along.  I know this is our job, but I love what I do.

I'd probably go crazy like Pollock if you didn't see it, too.  I'm grateful. 

Comments

[Kim]

Congratulations! This is going to be great. So happy for you!