Artistic Maturity

You start out knowing who you are and what you want. And then you realise it's more complicated than that so you start adapting yourself and changing your plans and figuring out how to 'market' yourself.

Artistic maturity is when you go back to how you started: you become yourself.

I had lunch with three friends today. We're all still young but we've been at this a long time. One of the group always had the crazy unrealistic dream of acting on the West End stage. Now she does. She never allowed herself another choice.

One of the other friends used to worry about what his 'type' was, and what genre suits him. But today at lunch, in a short break from a show he's touring, he told me about a one man play he wants to produce, about a politician who fascinates him. There were no worries about whether it was a good career move or whether it was a logical thing to do -- he just followed his instincts. And it was great. We sat and brainstormed ideas for an hour and we could well be co-writing something.

The third friend, she had those battles with her agent that all actors have. It's the one where an agent tries to shove you down a certain path because that's where the roles are. Or more truthfully, that's where the agent's comfort zones are. But my friend said no. The agent wanted her to do some play that paid well but wasn't interesting. My friend said no, stayed in London, and landed a role on prime time TV.

And as we had lunch today; it was great to have that feeling; that we're all doing what we want to be doing. And it's not that difficult, you just decide to do it.

Because when someone says 'you have to write horror, it's the only thing I can sell' -- if you don't love horror, then you're strangling yourself as a writer. And if you want to be acting on screen in London and your agent tries to make you do a play in Ireland for six months -- you have to weigh up what counts, figure out who you really are.

Because most people I've met are bending to try and fit into the industry. But they all fail and they're smashing their head against the walls and complaining about how nothing is happening.

People forget to be themselves. Sure, you can try reinvent yourself and be something you're not, but how real is it? Is it a part of your true personality or are you trying desperately to be noticed? You don't wanna be like Meg Ryan in that boxing movie.

So, my friends are doing good. They're focusing on what they want to do. It's better than thumping your head against a wall.

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"MY DREAMS" Review

For many nights, over much of my life, I have watched numerous dreams, of my own, mostly whilst sleeping. I am growing increasingly unhappy with the quality of my dreams, and much prefer the earlier, funnier ones. It is also troubling to me that my dreams are becoming increasingly unrealistic, with some terrible acting. The dream about the banjo playing dancer, starring my best friend Doug --- whilst interesting at first, lost all credibility when Doug's feet stopped moving and he ended up shouting "I have no elbows!" at Natalie Portman repeatedly. What was Natalie Portman even doing in this dream? After her recent movies, I'm surprised she would star in something so unprofessional.

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A Guide To Video Rendering

I have been hired to write an instruction manual for the industry's leading editing software company. Here it is, in full:

Regardless of the speed of the system and the length of your project, rendering will take precisely somewhere between two minutes and/or nineteen hours. This is true even if you render the same thing twice.

We cannot give you an exact time for rendering as then you may end up doing something productive like going for a run, doing a painting, or finding a moment to pee. But we can promise that your edit will take no longer than nineteen hours to render (except when up against a deadline, when rendering may take three days, even when it says "35 Minutes Remaining.")

Editing uncompressed video takes a long time to render because the files are so big, therefore this takes the longest. Unless of course you are rendering a very small, lo-res file, in which case it takes the longest because we need a very long time to make everything so small. The best thing to do is to make a medium size file; but bear in mind this takes the longest of all because we need to turn uncompressed files into medium files without accidentally turning them tiny.

When the rendering is complete, you will find that your video is unplayable because the format you chose does not exist. This is your fault. You will need to render again for somewhere in the region of nineteen hours, and at the end of it your film will be complete but unfortunately there will be no audio and possibly no video. This is because you tried to format an mpeg into a mov whilst the mp4's were arguing with the avi's. Luckily, in order to help you meet your deadline, we have arranged for the producer to visit for a stern chat. You only need 47 hours to render your video.

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Marriage

Joe Fox

Tweaking? A project that needs "tweaking"?

Kathleen Kelly

Yes.

Joe Fox

T-w-e-a-k-i-n-g.

Kathleen Kelly

-i-n-g. That's what he said.

Joe Fox 

I think he's married. Married, three kids.

It's tell me what to write week. TB asked "Have you ever been married or been close to marriage?"

And the answer is no and no. 

I never planned it to be that way. But there it is. I always thought, by now, I'd have all that stuff figured out -- but I really don't. It's weird because, when you write a blog post, everyone 'gets' you. In relationships, it's never that easy. 

And I'm no good at all the nonsense, the drama. I like forward motion. I need to fly to New York on a whim so I can write a screenplay, I need to disappear on my own for five days when I'm a grumpy idiot. I'm an awkward-writer-fool who always reads too much into the women that don't like me and too little into those that do.

And I never get it right.

And starting things is hard. Too much drama and confusion. I just want a woman who'll happily watch 'The Apartment' and then we both go off and get on with our dreams. But there aren't too many women like that.

And everything I'm writing is about my needs. You can see how I'm selfish.

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Two Comments Today That Made My Week Already

From Krista: "I'm not sure if I've commented on your blog before, but now I just have to! You are such an inspiring person! Thanks to your writings I am beginning to find who I am and, more importantly, who I want to be, and not live life the way others think I should! I am gonna be me :)

Thanks for being awesome!"

From Happy Frog and I: "Since I read your interview with MLS and the great advice you gave there I have felt different. I have felt like a writer who happens to have an office job at the moment. All the procrastination has vanished. When I have free time I write or read blogs or think about how to move forward with creating.

I am glad I am feeling this way now but not when I was a teenager. I am glad I am following my dream now rather then when I wouldn't have been able to handle the pressure and the rejection. "

Thank you! It is wonderful to recieve encouragement!

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