I've been exhausted for days. It keeps getting to 3am and I'm still awake. And the days keep getting busier.
Today was meant to be an early night. But I lay down and the tiredness of the day forgets itself and instead I think about ideas and projects and the world and whatever else comes along. It surprises me every time, but it really shouldn't, because it's so common for me.
I was never a sleeper. It's just a whole lot of lying down in the dark waiting for the day to start. But why am I like this? Is it linked to my creativity? Definitely. But why dont I sleep? Is it just a bad habit from childhood?
Is my creativity the result of a bad habit? Writers and artists of all disciplines like the ego boost of thinking they have a higher purpose or a gift from God, but maybe it is the result of a bad habit, or a knock to the head, or something equally mundane. Why do some people have a bad day and want to write a poem, whereas others have a bad day and want to buy a chocolate bar? We always have meaningful answers but why should it be meaningful?
As a kid I hated the dark. Didn't trust it. Even now I pull myself out of falling to sleep. But what if I dealt with my sleep issues when I was seven and became an avid sleeper. Would all the scripts and articles and blogs I've written at 2am still exist? Sometimes I conceive of entire projects in a night.
Was it written in the stars that I'd create my work while everyone is busy sleeping, or is it just a fluke?
But I'm tired, I wish I was asleep now. So often I can be so certain I need sleep, and then I almost feel anger as an idea appears in my mind at 4.09am, because I know the chance for rest is slipping away.
---- I've re-read everything above, and an ending to this post isn't coming. It's my late night muse shutting up shop, It's done for the night. The part of my brain that knows when I've done a good job knows that the work isn't done, but the part of my brain that fed me the 'blog about sleep' idea has gone silent. And that's creativity, a semi-formed idea at 1.28am on a Thursday morning.
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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 everything I'm writing is about my needs. You can see how I'm selfish.
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