Archives: Creativity

After the travails of the last three weeks ((detailed in 3 posts on my Journal Blog here, here and http://www.olilewington.co.uk/smilethroughit/2011/05/31/the-sage-concluded/)), it’s time to get back to the business of blogging and creating top-quality content for all my readers again.

To that end, a very useful little initiative popped up in my Google Reader RSS feed this morning – The Domino Project‘s #Trust30 initiative, based around their new release Self Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

#Trust30 is a month-long commitment to create something new every day for 30 days, whether it’s blogging, writing, painting, filmmaking or anything in between. The aim is simple to create.

I’m committed, are you? If you’ll be taking part, leave us a link to your site in the comments so we can all help to hold each other accountable.

As a freelancer making films, working with social media clients and running a successful indie film website, things can sometimes get on top of you, hence the lack of blog posts here in the last couple of weeks.

Far from being an excuse, it’s a point worth noting that sometimes it’s OK to take some time away. I’ve talked before about how focusing on something new can be refreshing, and also about the good points and bad points of taking a break from your blogging – and work – routine.

If you’re working as a freelancer there will be times when your workload swamps what you do and writing a blog seems like the last thing you want to do. Companies have a huge advantage over individuals in having people to delegate blogging duties to when the primary blogger is away ((Indeed, if you’re an organisation with more than a couple of employees or partners you should make sure everyone understands the needs of your blog so you can step in)).

What I failed to do (and will rectify over the next few days) is to build up a catalogue of pre-written posts to put up when I don’t have time to dedicate to writing a new post every day. By marking out a posting calendar and making sure there are always posts in the bank, freelancers and individual bloggers can make sure they’re never away from their post for too long.

Because we all need a break from time to time and it’s good to get away (as evidenced by my three days in Durham for a charity event this week), don’t let yourself fall into the trap of feeling you must always be “in the office”.

Many of us have had a taste of success. Some of us dine on it frequently, for others it’s a rare treat. What it does is to help us all feel like we’re doing what we should be in life.

Too often, though, we define ourselves by how we feel. We even decline things by saying, “I just don’t feel like it today” – we put so much stock in feelings that we don’t stop to look at what and who we actually are.

This quote got me thinking:

It’s not about feeling like a filmmaker, it’s about being a filmmaker.

Drake Doremus, The Wrap

Doremus is talking about filmmaking and how it’s better to shoot for a lower target budget in order to be able to make films as opposed to holding out for the mega-budget and never actually making anything. It’s also about how the trappings of a “big” production don’t make the film, it’s the kit, the crew and the cast who make a film what it is.

It’s time for us all to stop chasing the “feel” and start “being” what we want to be – filmmakers, entrepreneurs, writers, artists; we all have goals and we all want to achieve them, but if we set about doing the things we need to do to get there, no matter what, we’ll arrive and find success much quicker than doing all the things that make us “feel” like we think we ought to.

I’ve been so bogged down in various admin- and office-based tasks in the last week or so ((not least the highly successful launch of the Indie Film Hub)) that my creativity has taken a bit of a dip.

Yesterday, however, I scouting the location for a promo shoot with the client and talked through the various bits and pieces we needed to get organised. By going through the creative process again, my creative brain has reawakened and hit the ground running will full force.

Unfortunately, it seems as though I have far too many ideas for the amount of time I have on my hands, which means my desk is now positively littered with scraps of paper with my mind-overspill all over them.

This is why it’s so important for anyone dealing with creativity in their job (which, frankly, should be everyone) to have pads and post-its around to keep track of all those great ideas that pop up. Don’t rely on your over-extended internal memory banks to keep tabs on everything for you.

Inspiration comes from many quarters all around us. Sometimes it’s something we see, sometimes something we here. A lot of times for me it’s things I read.

I’ve written previously about Seth Godin and his new book ‘Poke the Box’. After reading the free eBook SXSW Pokes, I immediately downloaded the Kindle version of the full book and read it quicker than I’ve read most things before.

Poke The Box is all about starting, initiating, changing the status quo without fear of failure. Reading it struck a chord with me. Not only had I decided to give up fear for lent, but I was also living a more fearless life, committing myself to things and driving myself forward in several areas of my life, albeit slowly.

While going through my RSS feed one day, I wondered if it wouldn’t be nicer to have a single place on the ‘net that collects all of the best content, particularly for filmmakers. There’s Hollywood Wiretap – a great site for news on big studio movies – but nothing really similar for blog posts and articles that are aimed at, written by and for the benefit of independent filmmakers.

TheIndieFilmHub.com was born in mere moments and, no sooner had the idea come to me than I had set about making it happen. This project, which launched yesterday, is my poke at the box, my attempt to get something shipped when other projects and ideas have been stagnating or not progressing as quickly as I’d have liked.

The Indie Film Hub is a place indie filmmakers can go to find the best, most useful, most relevant and entertaining content on the web, all personally curated. Every post on the site is hand-picked by a real, genuine human being – no bots, no aggregators, no automation whatsoever.

I hope, in time, it will become a great resource for filmmakers and be the first stop on their hunt for content. But if not, at least I started something. At least I poked the box.

When it comes to living your life creatively, you – the artist, the filmmaker, the writer – are the single most important person in your world.

By setting out to impress other people, we are doomed to following the path of what we *think* people want to see, only ever re-creating things that have gone down well before or that we are pretty sure will be swallowed without too much sugar on the spoon  ((apologies to Mary Poppins fans)).

The only person we as artists need to satisfy, impress or please is ourselves. By creating honest work, true to our core sensibilities and interests, we create personal work that carries a stamp of authenticity that will carry it onto a higher plane.

That’s not to say what works for us will sell like wildfire, will be the next break-out success or even make an impact. But all of those things are far more likely to happen if we start with the most important person in mind.

*Special thanks to Lucas McNelly on Twitter for inspiring this post.

Even after my apologetic post last week, I was unable to return to the flow of posting daily.

Instead, I’ve been having something of a break to focus on developing other things, including a programme of motivational speeches and presentations to help re-engergise and re-focus businesses, upping my programme at the gym in preparation for the 3 Peaks Challenge and working towards the launch of my new website theindiefilmhub.com – a content curation site for independent filmmakers, now just 5 days away from launch.

Although I’ve previously suggested that breaking your routine in blogging – whether about your film, your business or your personal life – can be punished with a significant drop in your readership, sometimes it’s good to take a break for a while.

Taking a break doesn’t have to mean not doing anything at all ((although we all know the times when that’s precisely what we need!)), it’s simply about re-focusing, allowing yourself to be immersed in a different project, a different goal or even a different world.

The old cliché goes that a change is as good as a rest. Remember, clichés are generally only clichés because they’re true.

My regular schedule of blog updates has been interrupted this week.  I’m ashamed to admit I’ve neglected the blog in deference to other things.

I was going to post a list of reasons why I’ve been a little lax since the weekend, but rapidly realised that work commitments, the beta-testing and site building of the new website and writing the eBook were nothing but excuses. I could and should have made time for the blog, just as I’m doing now.

There’s a lesson in this for all of us, especially in this time-pressured world many of us inhabit: excuses are exactly what they say on the tin – an explanation offered to justify or obtain forgiveness ((according to TheFreeDictionary.com)) – and we don’t need forgiveness, we just need to do what we’ve said we will.

Whether it’s through workload, procrastination or fear of over-committing, we all make excuses for the things we can’t do. The answer is to stop making excuses, stop asking for forgiveness and just do them. You’ll soon find it’s far quicker and easier to get things done than it is to run around seeking forgiveness for not doing them.

As a happy by-product, you’ll also be far more organised, far more productive and be seen as far more reliable. No need for excuses.

What have you been making excuses about this week? When are you going to set things right on them?

As part of my training for the 3 Peaks, I swim twice a week (in between the full-on gym workouts), thanks to the lovely people at Topnotch Healthclubs who’s sponsored my challenge.

Today while I was swimming I noticed a curious phenomenon that I’m going to name the “hottie effect”. There were three guys in the pool, including me. One of them was pretty much just sitting there, the other doing some slow, steady, not hugely dedicated breast-stroke lengths and me, somewhat beasting myself churning out my 500m.

In the middle of my 3rd 50m set, a girl came in.

I should immediately qualify this by saying that when I swim I obviously don’t wear my glasses, so I can’t actually see anything beyond the end of my nose in any kind of clear fashion.

This girl came in and, from what I could make out, she was young, slender and wearing a bikini.  Suddenly and remarkably the layabout starting cranking out some lengths, the breast-stroker suddenly upped his speed and improved his technique and I… well, I mostly carried on doing lengths while wondering how hot this girl must be to inspire the other guys to such great feats.

The point of all this isn’t swimming pool-based voyeurism, but to suggest that we all in some way or another adapt our behaviour in the presence a a pretty person ((girl or boy, depending on your personal preference)). In the gym especially, it makes be act “up” – trying to show ourselves to be fitter, stronger and faster.

What if we could apply that “hottie effect” to our creative lives? If we created in the shadow of the “hottie” – that single person we’re all desperate to please.

Impressing people – whether it’s an agent, a producer, a client or a partner – is an innate desire in all of us. We want people to love what we do. Creating that voice of approval and encouragement in what we do is a perfect way to motivate yourself and keep focused on creating the very best that you can, whatever it may be.

Struggle with getting down to work some days? Most days? Every day?

If you’re trying to think creatively and get yourself into the right mood, but can’t seem to settle your brain to the task in hand, you need to create yourself an inspiration pathway.

IP’s (as I like to call them ((since it takes too long to type inspiration pathway every time)) ) are a form of hypnotic process that allows you to reach the right state of flow to achieve your creative goals.

We all recognise the feeling: when you’re reading the blog of an inspirational online mentor (Tim Ferriss, for me); listening to that track that gives you goosebumps; sitting in that perfect spot that fills you with feelings of limitless ability and peacefulness. The trick is to find a way to tap into that feeling and apply it to your work routine.

By recreating that feeling of invincibility – of total creative power and freedom – you can access the flow state that will see you glide through the challenges that face you over the next couple of hours, or the ten pages, or that sales call to your dream client.

If you’re trigger is musical, so much the better – just hit ‘Play’ and take yourself there. For other triggers, find a way to access them each and every day when you sit at your desk to get cracking.  Bookmark a favourite post or posts, stimulate your sense and psych yourself into inspiring yourself to make the most of your day.

Inspire yourself and you’ll reach new heights you never imagined.

What lights your inspiration candle? How do you help yourself reach a state of flow when you sit down to work in the morning (or afternoon, or whenever you do your best work)?