New Year: that traditional time when we’re all encouraged to make resolutions that tend to last until the furry green stuff has finally caused us to throw the left-over turkey from the fridge.

New Year is all about fresh starts, do-overs and re-trys and each year begins with the hope and expectation of great things to come. All too often, however, that feeling of hope and expectation is coupled with a sense of disappointment that we didn’t achieve all that we hoped we would at the dawn of the outgoing year.

Instead of focusing on what we don’t want and haven’t got, why not choose to focus on what we do want, but also what we already have?

In his book “I Can Make You Rich” hypnotist and self-help guru Paul McKenna suggests a version of the following exercise:

Take a moment to stop and think what you would do if you had all the money you needed. You can imagine heaps of cash piled on your kitchen table, you can imagine many, many zeroes showing in black on your bank statement, or you can just imagine having a card in your wallet or purse that will never be declined no matter what you’re trying to buy with it.

Now think about the things in your life that are important to you. If you had that unlimited source of funds, what would you change? Would you change:

• Your house?
• Your car?
• You husband/wife/partner?
• Your friends?
• Your job?
• Your hobbies and interests?
• Your family?

Any of these things to which the answer is ‘No’ is an area of your life where you’re already rich.

While we’d all love to be snowed under with all the money would could handle, a Rich Life is defined by more than just monetary gains.

Yes, money lets you do things you wouldn’t ordinarily be able to do1, but the happiness that it brings comes not from the money itself, rather from the feeling  of richness and empowerment it gives you.

Wealth is about enjoying what you have in your life that brings you happiness and fulfilment. Whether that’s writing, filmmaking, doing your job well or spending time with your kids, make yourself this one resolution this New Year:

I will strive to achieve happiness in all that I do.

1. be that sailing around the world, flying first class or simply not stopping to check your bank account before buying a DVD [↩]

As we enjoy/endure the lull between the Christmas break and the New Year’s celebration it can be hard to be as productive as we may like to be.

I find this week is much better used for creating a Plan of Action for when the New Year kicks off in earnest next week.

Having a plan for what you want to do and achieve in 2011 will not only help you to hit the ground running, but also take advantage of the energy and enthusiasm of a fresh start to keep the momentum up.

The most important thing you can put into your plan for the first couple of weeks of January is something that pushes you far outside your comfort zone. The sooner you go beyond your own boundaries, the sooner great things will start to happen. And the earlier in the year you do it, the more likely you are to use the jump in confidence to help you progress through the next 12 months.

Just imagine what it’s going to feel like looking back at this period in a year’s time and feeling flushed with pride that all the great things that have happened to you came from one simple action. A Plan of Action.

As we all settle back for a well-deserved 48-hour respite1 from slaving at our respective grindstones, it’s as well to remember to keep your writerly radar pinging throughout the festive season.

What with the trapping over-excited children, confused elderly relatives, stressed-out parents and chefs on the rampage in one confined space, mixed up with a drop of misunderstanding and too much booze, Christmas and New Year can be a real goldmine for writers.

That’s not to say everyone wants to see the inner workings of one another’s families, but it’s the interaction, the banter, the (often forced) joviality that combine to offer up little moments of genius that, if you’re paying enough attention2, you’ll find cropping up in your work in the year(s) to come.

So raise a glass, kick back, chill out and enjoy the goodwill of all mankind, but remember to keep your writer wits about you – you never know when you might strike paydirt.

Merry Christmas to one and all and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

1. or more, if you’re lucky enough to enjoy time off until 2011 [↩]
2. Even if that attention is subconscious, thanks to writer’s osmosis [↩]

I tweeted a link to this video earlier, but it’s such a great summation of why we filmmakers do what we do that I felt I had to post it up on here.

This captures all of the endlessly changing feelings we all go through as we battle to bring our baby to the screen. Enjoy! And, if you like it, do the guys a favour and vote for them, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNNEwFqQCB8

The week leading up to Christmas is always a weird one. Whether you’re at home, at work or both1 no one is really interested in doing anything and it’s never a hugely productive period2.

So how do we make the best of the week before Christmas and the odd limbo of the following week before the New Year kicks off?

Rather than sitting at your desk procrastinating and clock-watching while dreaming of warmer, sunnier climbs, why not make use of the semi-downtime to make some progress on those little pet projects that have been kicking about in your head for the last three, six or even twelve months?

You know the ones I’m talking about: the projects that you love but just haven’t found time to focus on. The projects that you want to make a reality, but you’re not ready to share them with others just yet. The projects that really excite you, that fill you with drive and passion.

Too many great projects get lost in the maelstrom of everyday life and work, so use this little two-to-three week window to really reignite that passion.

If nothing else, just by working on a project that energises you for a few weeks, it’ll help launch you into the New Year with renewed vigour for achieving your goals and making the most of your life, your career and your talent.

1. working from home, that is [↩]
2. unless your in Panto, in which case you’re rushed off your feat right about now [↩]

A quite remarkable friend of mine1, photographer and filmmaker Holly Cocker, tweeted today that she hasn’t had a proper day off in over 3 months and another friend said he’d not had more than a few days off at a time all year.

Holly also mentioned her admiration that I take time out fairly frequently, which I decided to take as a compliment in the way it was intended, rather than a suggestion that I’m actually quite lazy.

It got me thinking, though: we all need to strike the right balance in life. There’s work, there’s play – for a lucky few of us there’s work that feels like play – and then there’s all the other things that happen in life.

I mentioned yesterday getting caught up in Twitter/Facebook streams and losing hours of your day. In the same way, it’s far too easy to get swept up in what you’re doing and losing sight of the fun times and the opportunities to just kick back, even if it’s just for a day here and there.

Striking the balance between driving yourself forward and keeping yourself happy and relaxed in life is always a tough thing to do, but it’s also one of the most important. In the lead up to Christmas, we’re all focused on taking some time out for ourselves and for our family, but we need to make a conscious effort to continue that focus into the New Year and beyond.

Remember: relaxation isn’t just for Christmas, it’s for life. In more ways than one.

1. For many reasons, not least also being post-transplant and chasing her dreams – with tremendous success so far. [↩]

When does promotion become procrastination?

When social media goes bad (cue over-the-top American-TV intro music and flashy title sequence)1.

We’ve all been there: listless, unmotivated, snowed under with things we just don’t want to be doing with our day.

We just sneak a peek at what the Twitterverse is up to before we get down to it. We just see who’s thrown a sheep2 at us before we put our noses back to that grindstone.

Before we know it, we’ve lost hours of our day to commenting, reTweeting and generally putting ourselves about, always telling ourselves that it’s all in the name of networking and promoting ourselves, our product or our project. Which it very often is.

But it’s vital not only to your productivity, but to the success of said product or project, that we pay attention to those warning signs of procrastination. There’s no point in marketing yourself if you’re never going to have anything to deliver.

So shut that browser down, Command-Q Tweetdeck and set yourself to task. You’ll be glad you did when you jump back on later to Tweet “I finished it!”

1. Apologies to my American readers, I couldn’t use British TV as all our shows are pretty bland and boring when held up against the US. Two ends of the same spectrum, I guess. [↩]
2. Does anyone actually throw sheep any more? [↩]

This weekend I took a couple of days respite from the rigours of the last couple of weeks chained to my desk finishing off a couple of projects. On Sunday morning, K and I headed to a nearby village to meet a couple of friends for some period festive merriment at a Dickensian-themed Christmas fair.

As we wandered around, my friend and I got chatting about the last 12 months: he was made redundant, which finally gave him the kick up the arse he needed to pursue his career as a magician and hypnotist full-time and I officially started – and started finding success with – my production company TinyButMighty. Then we naturally segued into our thoughts, plans, hopes and dreams for next year and the year after.

We’re both very similar people: highly motivated, hugely ambitious and very lucky to have supportive partners. But the more we chatted the more it struck me how important these real-world friendships are in these days of myriad virtual followers and “friends”.

My online friends tend to be my filmmaking buddies; the people I interact with most on Twitter are those that motivate and inspire me to push on with my film-related projects, hence the term ‘reel life’ friends.

My ‘real life’ friends are those who I’ve known a lot longer, have been through more with, but who aren’t necessarily engaged and enthused by the same things in life as I am.

Until this weekend, I’d always thought of the two sides of the reel/real coin as being entirely separate. Now I see that what they are is the yin and the yang of a cohesive whole.

Without my little online ‘tribe’, I’d have nowhere to turn when I hit that roadblock in developing ideas, concepts and screenplays. But without my friends to hang, chill out and relax with, I wouldn’t have the enjoyment and the richness in my life to motivate myself to push forward with anything.

Sometimes you need a push from someone who knows what you’re going through, who’s been there before and can sympathise, empathise and hold your (virtual) hand while you rough it out.

And sometimes it’s precisely because they’re from outside your ‘reel world’ that someone can offer more support and a bigger spur to your dedication and commitment than your hundreds (or thousands) of Twitter followers all tweeting you at once.

The yin/yang nature of online/offline connections should remind us of the balance we need to strike between our different worlds and how they can best help us achieve what we want in their own separate and inimitable ways.

Well this is just a whole big bunch of brilliant:

Not sure about the 3D, though. The rest of the Marvel universe have managed to be all kinds of awesome without needing a 3rd dimension, so I’m sure Thor can, too.

I caught Gareth Edwards’ new, much-lauded flick, MONSTERS, at the cinema yesterday and was mighty impressed.

It’s by no means perfect – some of the characterisation is a little rushed, while some of the more minor characters are almost ignored as “featured extras” and a couple of the action sequences don’t pack the punch they maybe could have, fear-wise – but I really, really enjoyed it.

The best thing I can say about it is that I loved it for the movie it is, irrespective of the budget and visual effects work that went into it.

A great film is a great film and I’m always slightly disappointed when I come out of a flick and think, “That was great, for the budget they had.”

I’m really hoping Gareth Edwards is snapped up to write a “Rebel Without A Crew”-style book about the making of this film; I think it would be hugely inspiring to all those filmmakers with the talents to do what he’s done but without the balls to go out and do it.

It makes me want to shut myself away for six months and learn the ins and outs of AfterEffects so I can do the same thing.