Working through Anxiety to Find a Better Creative Process

As a multi-hyphenate creative within a tiny team, juggling multiple projects at various stages of production, my To-Do lists can quickly become overwhelming. The daily pressure, the demands of film after film needing my attention, can send me into a pit of self-pity, anxiety, and procrastination.

I fell into that pit this month. Checking emails first thing in the morning, last thing at night, stressing if things were not going to plan or tasks were not completed as quickly as I wanted, led to going to sleep with a racing heart, a self-induced state of constant pressure.

But with the support of meditation, yoga, and Ivan constantly reminding me to slow down and switch off, I was able to work through the pressure before it crushed me.

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That Community Feeling – How Connected are Artists in 2022, Really?

The artist Vincent Van Gogh was a fan of community. In 1888 he rented four rooms within the Yellow House in Arles, France, and worked for months to convert and furnish these rooms into a studio, aiming to build a space where fellow artists could live and work together.

The idea of a community is appealing, even to the weirdos and introverts amongst us. Although I refer to artists, it’s long been proven that people, no matter their hobbies, professions, beliefs or what-not, love feeling like they belong. We like sharing ideas and talking about our passions with like-minded peers.

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New Year's Resolutions are Fleeting; Long-Term Planning is Key

The concept of the New Year resolution started around 4000 years ago with the agricultural Babylonians. During their ancient annual Akitu festival, which included crop harvesting and appointing a new king, the Babylonians focused on pleasing their gods. Over twelve days they made promises to their gods that they would pay debts and return borrowed tools. Keeping this promise would gain them favoritism from the Gods in the coming year.

Other cultures adopted a similar belief around New Year's resolutions. In ancient Rome 46 B.C, the new calendar was introduced by Emperor Julius Caesar, making January 1st the start of the year. Caesar named the month after the two faced God Janus. Similar to the Babylonians, the Romans offered sacrifice and made promises to Janus to show good behavior in the new year.

UNDER PRESSURE

It’s these traditions that we have to thank for the reason most of us feel the pressure around mid-December to be better versions of ourselves in many aspects of our lives once January 1st rolls around.

Which brings us to today. Why does our society still hold on to variations of these ancient traditions?

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Being a Kind Producer and Still Getting My Way - How I Find the Middle Ground

The golden age of filmmaking in Hollywood set up an image of a producer being the person who calls the shots and says what goes and what doesn't – outsiders often or not have this image of a white, male, most likely middle-aged big shot, totally comfortable with demanding what he wants and getting it too. He is assertive, which is a kind way to say mean or bossy (when talking about men anyway), and everyone drops to their knees, scampering all over the studio to please him and meet his requests.

In the modern world, we still have these important producers, but the image of them has changed slightly, along with the way producers operate, and importantly what has also changed is how the people working below the producer respond to their demands.

Our generation is accepting of producers of any gender, religion, race and colour, but we are also aware of the power imbalance that comes ingrained in the hierarchy of the film industry. This was demonstrated by the much needed Me Too movement, and what followed for industries outside entertainment with the Time's Up movement. Both proved that you can't be simultaneously worshipped and an insensitive asshole that abuses the power that comes from your role.

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Theft, Cannibalism & Shameless Self-Promotion

Novelist confesses: It’s probably all about me.

One of my early readers – let’s call him Dave…although his real name is Dave – made an astute comment about the novel I have just had published. Having known me for several years it was plain to him that the fictional world of the book was a stylised and more narratively concise version of the somewhat messier realm I normally inhabit.

“I also smiled at the many conversations that echoed discussions we have shared about your life observations and philosophies, and of course the colourful mix of autobiographical traits scattered across various characters.”

There are many artists who cringe when asked if their work is autobiographical but, as a novelist, I feel compelled to confess that my fiction feeds directly, sometimes brutally, on the plot points and psychodramas of self. But it doesn’t end there. I also feast on the blood and gore of friends, family and random strangers. In fact, anyone and everyone who veers too close.

Write about what you know. Isn’t that what they say? Little wonder The Last Summer of Hair is suffused with detail drawn from my own experience, and from my observations of those unlucky enough to fall within the cannibalising orbit of my literary appetite. Dave will not be the only one of my friends to detect unerringly familiar motifs in the book’s 292 self-referential pages. Indeed, some of those closest to me will wonder if it’s them I was writing about. (Truth is, it often was.)

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The Cult of Busy

There seems to be this mentality held by some creative people and even non creatives who are working the daily grind that being busy all the time means you are the most productive person on the planet. That your self-worth is somehow tied up with how damn busy you are all the damn time. The busier you are, the more packed your schedule is, the more proof there is that you are working much harder than your peers or colleagues. And this is what defines us as people.

I confess that I was one of these people around four years ago. I use past tense as now I'm more chilled and sometimes less productive than I have ever been. I still get stuff done but in healthy moderation. Even with my full time job, I get home and manage to smash out a couple of hours working on an investment deck or marketing for one of my films.

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