Archives: writing

January was a terrible start to 2015, but when it comes to the habit change I was looking for, I actually achieved quite a lot and am now meditating regularly.

For February, I’m looking to upgrade my writing practice and stop myself slipping, so I’ll be trying to get into the habit of writing at least 500 words per day.

Writing has taken something of a back seat for me in recent years, subsumed beneath the dense foliage of the working world where the lengthiest pieces I compose are emails on strategy and execution. I miss writing for the joy of writing, I miss writing to solve problems and I miss writing to get people to think, to provoke reactions whatever they may be.

Writing is where my passion lies, that’s where my talent lies, where I’m happiest – pouring out words onto a page to eventually engage and impact, in some form or another, the eventual reader, listener or viewer.

So this month I will be writing something every day. I don’t know yet whether I’ll come to focus on just one writing project or flit from thing to thing, but whichever it is, I will make progress one day at a time, 500 words at a time.

The only rule I’m setting myself is that the words I write must be easily countable (ie, written in a writing app of some kind) and therefore social media posts don’t count and nor does journalling at home, which I hand-write. Emails definitely don’t count.

If things go to plan I’ll be back here in 28 days with at least 14,000 words written for something, somewhere. Stay tuned!

I have a habit with my work to wait until everything is “just right” before putting it out there for people to see.

For some, this strive for perfection underpins everything they do; they simply won’t let something out of their grasp and let it free into the world without knowing it’s 100% right.

Here’s what I’ve learned: there’s no such thing.

There’s no perfect version of a book, or a blog post.

There’s no perfect cut of a film.

There’s no perfect design for a website or platform.

There’s no perfect time to release something.

There’s no perfect circumstance in which to do anything.

If we wait for perfect, nothing will ever happen. Even when we think we’ve got something just right, how many times have you looked back over something from the past and wondered what on earth you thought was so perfect about it? Haircuts, for example…

The true nature of perfection is constant evolution. But recognising we’ll never make something perfect, all we can do is vow to never believe we’re done.

Some of the world’s most famous and talented people do this every day:

Footballers train daily to improve their skills and keep themselves at the peak of fitness to be better able to play “the perfect game”.

Photographers who take “perfect” images are still always exploring, always playing, always looking for the next thing to make their work even better.

The startup world loves the word ‘iteration’ because they know being open to shifting their ideals of their product or service based on what the customer wants is the closest thing to perfection their product will get. Perfection is achieved perhaps for one fleeting moment before the next iteration is needed and started.

Into this same bracket I put myself: I’ve iterated this blog many times. And I’ve been working for the last three months to perfect it. But I can’t.

So this “soft relaunch”, if you will, is my acceptance of a lack of perfection. It’s my choice not to wait for perfect, but to acknowledge it never will be and instead get out of my own way to write more, share my experiences and get back to the root of this blog: smiling just once every day.

What are you waiting to perfect? Stop waiting, start doing.

For those of you who just love a list, here’s what you need to know:

1. Write more.
2. Shoot more
3. Relax more.
4. Feel worthy

For those of you who want just a little more detail, read on.

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The Red Planet Prize, a free scriptwriting competition looking for the best new writers in UK TV drama run by Tony Jordan’s Red Planet Pictures and Kudos is once again open for submissions.

I was a finalist last year and even though, for various reasons, I was unable to attend a lot of the workshops and mentoring sessions, I learned more from this one competition than anything else since I’ve been writing.

Here are my Top 5 Tips for becoming a Red Planeteer:

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Finding time for creativity is hugely important to me, but it’s not always easy. Reorganising and relaunching the blog has taken me away from my usual creative endeavours for the last few weeks and now I have to get back into the habit.

I’m hoping that keeping to 3 regular posts will help keep my creative brain ticking over nicely, while giving me the impetus to push forwards with other creative projects.

Every creative person works in a different way, but for me creativity stems from habit. I’ve always liked to believe that my creativity is able to be summoned at will. I now understand that it bows to no master, but I also recognise that it enjoys routine.

I don’t know if its the writer in me, or just the base level of habit-former in all of us, but if I can get myself into the right routine around my work day and my commute, I know I’ll be able to engage my creative brain and start creating things that matter to me.

We’ll just have to wait and see if they matter to anyone else…

How do you create? Are you a ‘do it while the inspiration strikes’ kind of artist, or a ‘head down, crack on’ type. Do you have triggers that set you off on a creatie journey?

One of the interesting things about taking on a challenge like #Trust30 is the imperative to create.

Normally, we create out of a desire, out of inspiration that comes in many different forms, whether it be business ideas, marketing concepts or works of art.  By being part of a month-long initiative to create something every day, the onus is switched from inspiration to perspiration – we are forced to work to conjure something to post or begin.

Of course, creation-to-order is nothing new – media and ad agencies ((as TinyButMighty is evolving into)) develop fresh, innovative ideas every day, under pressures from clients only too happy to take their business elsewhere if they’re are unimpressed.

So can creativity be forced? Is it possible to access the hidden banks of ideas in our heads to keep the creativity waterfall flowing, or are the people who do it day-in, day-out simply overwhelmingly talented and in touch with their creative hemisphere in their heads?

Truly creative people are able to create from nothing in an instant. It may not be a polished, finished product or idea, but their brains work in such a way as to always be able to supply something. But I also believe that there’s no such thing as a “non-creative” – everyone is capable of it, one just needs to learn how to harness the creative muscle and make it work for you like anything else.

Yesterday I pledged myself to taking part in the Domino Project, Ralph Waldo Emerson-inspired #Trust30 project to create something new everyday.

As I headed to bed this evening, it occurred to me that I hadn’t written anything on the blog today. Sure, I busied myself with updating and catching up on The Indie Film Hub, which had also been hit by my minor health detour last week, but did that qualify under #Trust30 rules?

What is “creation” – how do we define it? How do I define it is probably the more pertinent question; the one thing we can safely say about all art and creativity is that it’s entirely subjective.

For me, this blog represents creation; the Hub represents curation, a very different thing. Even though I create new content to post every day, what I’m actually doing is curating the content I believe to be of value to other filmmakers and people who work in film. The content itself – the lessons, the examples, the information – is all created by the hugely talented people whose blogs, websites and newsletters I read every day.

So what is creation? For me, creation is about intent. Creation is about originating something that serves a purpose. It doesn’t have to be a higher purpose. It doesn’t even have to be a purpose that matters to anyone else. When I first started blogging, I wrote entirely for myself, to motivate me and to explore my life and my feelings. That’s a purpose. That’s creation.

By that definition, I suppose the Hub does represent that. So why doesn’t it feel that way?

What’s your definition of creation? Is it word-count, impact, intention? Or is it more ethereal, more intangible?

In today’s world, it’s harder and harder to find anywhere that doesn’t have Wi-Fi access. Much to my surprise ((and, it turns out, my luck)), one of those places is the campus coffee shop of City University ((where I accompanied my fiancée to calm her nerves before her exam today)), which has a connection so slow as to be pretty much useless.

Unfortunately for the new website I’m planning and prepping, it just wasn’t as viable a work option as I’d hoped. Instead, with no real ‘net access to speak of, I managed to write a rough draft of the first two thirds of my new eBook ((which I have also now announced to the world, giving myself accountability and therefore less ability to avoid it, but more on that in a future post)).

I’ve been planning and meaning to write the book for the last couple of months, but something always gets in the way, whether it’s my own procrastination, a feeling of too little time or a simple perception of “writer’s block”.

Today, by getting away from my usual distractions and by having almost literally nothing else to do, I settled down, I focused and I ploughed through way more, way faster than I ever thought I would.

The next time you have something you really want to do but can’t seem to find the time, see what happens when you move yourself away from your usual workspace and take yourself to a place where you can’t be distracted by the usual things. Be it a park, a library or anywhere that doesn’t offer fast-as-lighting internet access, find the place that fits and see just how much you plough through.

I see many more days of internet-off writing ahead of me. Let me know what you think if you’ve tried it, or if you have your own tricks for getting super-productive.