Photo by Nigel Tadyanehondo
I have a desire to revamp my life, career, and social circles in a BIG way, and I pretty much want all of it to revolve around authenticity, growth, creativity, and empowerment. And love… Always LOVE.
I did a new show this past summer. It wasn’t really ready when opening rolled around. Yikes! But I performed anyway, and… that opening performance was barely okay. Definitely not great. I had messed up the timing in a big, big way and ended up having to cut out some really important pieces of the play that add more depth and heart (and without it, the play doesn’t really work). And, of course, it just so happens I was reviewed on that opening late afternoon performance. *facepalm*
It seems this is always my horrid luck — to get reviewed on the very first performance of a brand new show or production. It’s happened countless times, and I hate it. It was a pretty harsh review, too… but alas, I digress; the past is the past.
But I bring up this play to share a few things. First off, although the first performance was decidedly… shall we say, in need of vast improvement, many (most, actually) of the following performances went rather well! Some were perhaps even great! The reason being is that I would continue to experiment and improve the show with each performance.
Recently I’ve come to realize what kinds of creative techniques or approaches work best for me, and it doesn’t involve meticulous planning and research and routine and taking little steps each day that will progressively and ultimately result in my greatest creative work. …Nope. Perhaps that approach works for many, but I can’t seem to make myself do it — that’s not how my creative output thrives.
I’m my best creative self under pressure. I need a deadline. (Granted, I had a deadline for my show in the summer, but a deadline is only one of the components necessary for my ideal action strategy.) But I also need to bounce ideas off of people. I need to create something fast, and then present it, and then tweak it, and repeat the process until I have something I love.
What’s funny though is that I have been fearful to use such an approach… I have this strange hang-up when it comes to sharing a work in progress. Maybe it was based on a fear of being judged for something that I knew was incomplete and imperfect; or maybe it was a fear of being too vulnerable, inviting my raw creative self to be viewed and judged during a very fragile process that is creation. It could be both of these things, and maybe even something else too. …Hell, I remember even after going through a full 4-year university education majoring in theatre and drama, I was still often hypersensitive about rehearsing anywhere where I might be overheard. And so I’d often whisper during rehearsal, which is really quite stupid unless the scene actually involves whispering.
I want to get rid of this weird hang-up or phobia or whatever one might call it. I want to conquer it. And I think one way of accomplishing that would be to start making videos and publishing them online via either Vimeo or YouTube. …And even better, it would involve needing to adhere to deadlines with time pressure and public accountability. What better way to conquer this hang-up than by committing to a video challenge?
I’m not sure if I should commit to a 10, 20/21, or 30 day video challenge – the challenge being to record and publish a video online every day. I’m also not yet sure when will be the best time to carry out such a challenge, but I’d definitely like to do it sometime in early 2018 — perhaps even January 2018. (Although, I’m also wanting to commit to some screenplay writing challenges earlier in the new year too, so that’s why I’m not sure if jumping into this challenge at the top of 2018 will be the best idea. It might, so I’m not completely writing off the idea… but I want to give it some thought and planning first before I jump into. …So we’ll see!)
Anyway, consider this as an official announcement that I will be undertaking a video challenge sometime in early 2018. 🙂 I’ll figure out further details and announce when soon. (…My first videos will undoubtedly suck (lol), so I hope you’ll bear with me as I navigate through this new (to me) territory.)
AND, if you don’t hear from relatively soon regarding an update on this, please bug me in the comments! …I’d sincerely appreciate it! 😉
