I've written an awful lot of light frothy blog posts on here about people I've met, things I've seen and issues that wind me up. What I've done a surprisingly small amount of - seeing as how this is supposed to be my blog about attempting to be creative and work professionally in the Arts & Entertainment industry - is chronicle the real ins and outs of what it's like to be right on the bottom rung of this ladder.
I think one of the reasons that this is so, is entirely down to the fact that I can be uncompromisingly lazy even in the face of trying to make strides in one of the toughest and most insecure industries in the world. Guilty and repentant as this may make me, I don't feel alone in this regard.
Lazy Creative is a paradox that is a pretty efficient way to describe a large number of people working in this industry. While it rarely springs to mind when we're confronted with the in-demand, agency represented actors, directors etc. who we see dashing from audition to show to meetings to heaven's knows what, it's a more commonly associated term with the sporadically working artists, those self-employed freelancers searching for a break, for their big idea and recognition. While there are those who truly do sink into sheer laziness (daytime TV, all day lie ins) and those who will maintain a determined work ethic (gym, writing/acting classes, networking events) regardless of their professional success, I believe there is a more general middle ground of artists who, like me, have great bursts of energy and creativity followed by a moony, mundane period of existence where the urge to create is tempered by the lack of focus and direction normally created by a surefire publication date, TV role, upcoming major audition or world arena tour.
So while I absolutely understand that the fact that sometimes I can go days just staring at a computer screen idly expecting inspiration to strike, that rejections from agents or producers can send me into a tailspin of reruns of Gossip Girl and giant bars of chocolate and that the thought of finishing scripts just to have them sitting unpublished and unperformed in front of me can make me give up and pop out to see a real show at the theatre is a reality that hundreds of you out there are facing, I can't help but be embarrassed and ashamed of it. Hence the lack of blogs about the more negative sides of the business.
In my opinion it is much easier to produce something - a show, a play, an event - than to create something new. It's not that the work load is lighter at all, it's simply that the relationship between problem, solution and deadline is more tangible than the more abstract issues between creating and adapting a piece of art for public consumption. For me, while irritating, the first step needed to take to deal with a problem obtaining the rights for something is more clear cut than where to begin rewriting a script to add an extra 40 minutes onto it when it seemed the perfect length to begin with. It's not that I can't do both jobs, or even that I might not do the latter better, it's simply that first step, that entry point is so much more fineckity and slow-moving that frankly, it's clear why most of us procrastinate like all hell to avoid having to start.
But this year I have started to fight against the haze that can descend when the monotony of days staring at computer screens, self-promoting and near-begging are broken only by the need to make money or reassess one's life plan and instead I have set myself the task of imposing a much more tangible game plan onto this airy fairy profession I refuse to separate from. So from now on I promise that my blog will stop shying away from being a slightly more personal account of what an exciting and ridiculous life I've set out on.
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