Break The Rules

On creating art that matters in an approval-seeking world

I had a blast speaking at CreativeMornings! Thank you to everyone who joined.

The wind whistles through the seams in our building.

I got home from AWP yesterday, then on the bus today I overheard two people talking about AWP. “There’s the Writers Grotto,” one of them pointed out the window. Normal, I suppose, that I’d be sitting on the bus next to two people who were at the same location as me the day before, five hundred miles away. Or a beautiful cosmic coincidence.

It’s a new week. When will you be creative? Schedule that time now.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies was Cats Don’t Dance. And by favorite, I mean I cried when we got home late and I missed the premiere on TV. Then, after finally watching it, I found a little stamp-size ad for the film in a magazine and I cut out that little stamp and I put it in a ring box and I kept the ring box under my pillow and I would open the box throughout the day and stare (honestly mostly at Sawyer, the girl cat) and feel such deep joy. Like, such deep joy. I was five.

The film was kind of a fail, as far as box office success goes. It suffered from bad timing. Was released as Turner Feature Animation merged into Warner Brothers and who knows where the ad dollars went. Now a cult classic, it went unnoticed at the time. I think it’s brilliant and the opening rendition of “Our Time has Come” still brings me to tears. To this day, Cats Don’t Dance probably inspires my optimistic outlook on creativity more than I realize.

Anyway, in the film, Danny, the newcomer to Hollywood, learns that his fellow animals used to be bright-eyed just like him, until their dreams died. When he reintroduces them to singing and dancing, they visibly become brighter and more colorful. Their dreams come back to life. 

They come back to life.

Creativity is like that.

If you’re meant to be creative and you’re not creating, you’re dying from the inside out.

But I don’t need to tell you that.

I just finished reading Hugh Macleod’s Ignore Everybody. It’s a book I found by accident at the library. It was the perfect post-AWP read, because AWP is both a wonderful conference and a place where there are many opinions and soul-crushing comparisons. Helpful to step back and realize that you as the artist are in charge of your art, and nobody else is. Unless you sign a contract, then you kind of work for somebody else even though it’s your art, ha!

Here are some of Hugh’s tips:

#1 — Nobody suddenly discovers anything. Things are made slowly and in pain.

He offers helpful perspectives on the myth of overnight success and how there will always be a tension between the art you want to create and the work you have to do to pay bills. T is very excited to watch Seth Rogen’s “The Studio” with me, I guess because these themes show up there, too.

#2 — You are responsible for your own experience. Nobody can tell you if what you’re doing is good, meaningful, or worthwhile.

Lately I’ve been ruminating on approval-seeking and how it’s a life force-sucker when you’re an adult. Online, it’s easier than ever to do something, put it out, and incessantly ask, “Is it good? Do you like it? Do you like me?”

The result is we measure our success on the immediate reaction something gets from people who are simply scrolling by and not in a position to deeply engage with anything. This screams disaster. Or opportunity, if you like creating short form content that’s easy to understand at first glance.

#3 — Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb. You may never reach the summit; for that you will be forgiven. But if you don’t make at least one serious attempt to get above the snow line, years later you will find yourself lying on your deathbed, and all you will feel is emptiness.

What’s your Everest? I know what mine is. I love climbing toward it. I have a suspicion that what I think is my Everest is actually just base camp. But that’s pretty exciting, too.

The wind kicks up and then gets quiet. Sun starts setting behind thick slate clouds.

Sometimes people ask me how to find your voice. They’re people who are trying to follow the rules and learn and do it right so they can make it. I hesitate. You find your voice when you start breaking rules and stop asking for permission to do so.