The View from the Middle

So, I live in Roswell, GA.  It’s a suburb of Atlanta.  And as much as I love living in Atlanta, the big thing we’re missing is a body of water.  The closest beach is about a 5-hour drive.  (Unless you count the local lake… which, I mean, come on).  We do have a perfectly good river though, and thanks to that river, we in Roswell have a waterfall.

Roswell has a lot of history to it.  The town was built around an old cotton mill – a mill that was once used to make Confederate uniforms for the Civil War (before it was burned to the ground).  And to power this mill, they built a 30 ft. dam.

The ruins of this mill and the dam are now one of the most beautiful areas in the Atlanta area.  It looks like this:

Today, while exploring the falls, I was trying to navigate my way up a rocky path.  As I looked up, it was clear there was only one way up.  Every other possible path was either too dangerous or blocked by thick brush.

So I followed this one and only path to the top and looked back down.  What I discovered was this:

The brush wasn’t as thick as I assumed.  The dangerous rocks were safe and level.  There were many paths to the top.  I just couldn’t see them because of my limited view.  

And as I stood at the top, looking back down, it occurred to me… this is a great cheesy metaphor!

But that’s what life is like, right?  Especially for creatives.  We may be paralyzed by fear of the unknown.  We may be convinced that the path we want to go down is blocked or that the journey to the top is too risky.  It’s only when we make it to our destination and look back down that we see how clear the path really was.

I met a guy the other day who referred to himself as “an unsuccessful writer.”  When I told him that “success is just a mindset,” he replied “that’s something only successful writers say.”

My first thought was “He’s somehow been fooled into thinking I’m a successful writer!  What a sucker!”  But I suppose it’s true, I have found a little success in writing.  I’m still not doing it full time, but I do have a body of work to show for the past 8 years.  I’ve sold screenplays.  I’ve made a well-received short film.  I’ve had comics published on websites that I respect.  I’ve spoken at a conference on storytelling.  But it’s only looking back on these accomplishments that I feel anything resembling success.  While in the middle of the journey, these are very small steps surrounded by ten times that many disappointments and failures.

The only difference between me and this “unsuccessful writer” was that he just couldn’t yet see his path.  The further you climb, the clearer the path becomes.  You just have to keep moving forward.

Success is just a combination of time and consistency.  To constantly be producing over a long period of time.  Focus on the good, not the bad.  Overcome your fears.  Put your head down and keep climbing.  You’ll have plenty of time to figure out the path when you get to the top.

Tiny Opinions on a Gigantic Comic-Con

Got back from San Diego Comic-Con on Saturday so I should be fully adjusted back to normal life… sometime next year.

What an amazing experience!   For those of you who haven’t been, the best way to describe it is MASSIVE.  So like picture in your head what you think ComicCon is like and multiply that times a thousand.  130,000 people, a GIANT convention floor with thousands of booths and exhibitors, barely able to move through the crowd, and literally 100 things to do every hour – most of which sound awesome.

There’s something for everyone – video games, animation, comic books, role-playing games, cosplay, movies, television, toys, visual arts, books, anime, manga, and every mixture in between.  I mean, you’d really have to be a douche-bag to not be into at least one of those things, right?

And there’s something about being surrounded by so many like-minded people…

I’m now having withdrawals.

We were invited to take part this year by screening the short film I wrote, Rooney’s World, at the convention and therefore got free professional badges, which was totally rad.  The screening was a lot of fun.  We had a decent turn-out and got to do a Q&A following.

My favorite part of the week was (arguably) the meet and greet time we had with other filmmakers.  It’s an odd thing, making movies.  You put SO much time and effort into this creative outlet and put it out there, hoping it finds an audience.  It can be very nerve-wracking when this product, which is a huge part of you, is rejected.  It can be soul-crushing.  For example, we were turned down for ten festivals before Comic-Con accepted.  So it was nice to discuss with these other filmmakers the ups and downs of the process… to know that we weren’t the only ones going through it.

And that in a nutshell is what Comic-Con is all about: 130,000 people getting together and validating each other – learning that our passions (whether that be film or cosplay or toys) are worthy passions.  Isn’t this what we all want from life?  To be understood?  To connect with other human beings?

I encourage you to find your own group of encouragement – a small group of people in your area that share in your passions – to be your light through the darker periods of your creative endeavors.

Putting ourselves out like this is a risk.  We’re not always going to get that validation we’re looking for.  We all need to be reminded during those times… WE ARE NOT ALONE.

What separates you from the professionals in your field?

If only you’d get that big break.  If only you knew the right person.  If only your family was more connected.  If only you had just a little more luck.  If only you had more money, more free time, more guts, then you’d be doing your passion full time, right?

If only… If only…

The truth is, the only thing separating you and the professionals in your field is the amount of time you’ve put into your craft.  

I’m not basing that on my own experiences, but on the experience of those professionals.  In the words of three writers from film, comics, & books:

Terry Rossio (Pirates of the Caribbean, Aladdin)

I made the observation that anyone who worked at a job for ten years invariably became an expert at that job. This insight freed me from the fear of picking a so-called ‘impossible’ job. I could pick any field I wanted, free of intimidation, because it was guaranteed I would become an expert… if I was willing to stick to it for ten years. So I picked the job I really wanted deep in my heart: writing for movies.

Since Ted and I were going to be working and studying screenwriting for ten years, that took some of the pressure off. It doesn’t make sense to kick yourself after failing at something for four years, when the path you’re on is designed to take ten. This allowed a period of time to undertake an analysis and exploration of the business, the techniques, the craft, the history, etc. Step by step, from style to format to character to concept to theme, etc. In other words, we gave ourselves room to practice.

Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man, Lost)

Write more, do other stuff less.

That’s it. Everything else is meaningless. You can take all the classes in the world and read every book on the craft out there, but at the end of the day, writing is sorta like dieting. There are plenty of stupid fads out there and charlatans promising quick fixes, but if you want to lose weight, you have to exercise more and eat less. Period. Every writer has 10,000 pages of shit in them, and the only way your writing is going to be any good at all is to work hard and hit 10,001.

And this isn’t just some tired cliche, I believe that’s a provable mathematical equation. I started writing five pages a day, every single day, when I began my senior year of high school. That means I hit 10,001 roughly a year after I graduated NYU, which was exactly when I pitched Y: THE LAST MAN to Vertigo.

Malcolm Gladwell (Outliers, Blink)

An innate gift and a certain amount of intelligence are important, but what really pays is ordinary experience. Bill Gates is successful largely because he had the good fortune to attend a school that gave him the opportunity to spend an enormous amount of time programming computers-more than 10,000 hours… The Beatles had a musical gift, but what made them the Beatles was a random invitation to play in Hamburg, Germany, where they performed live as much as five hours a night, seven days a week. That early opportunity for practice made them shine. Talented? Absolutely. But they also simply put in more hours than anyone else.

…to invest an extraordinary amount of time in pursuing that particular passion. Again, not just for a little time. The magic number for them, for Mozart, and for so many outliers, as I call them, appears to be 10,000 hours.

10 years.  

10,000 pages.  

10,000 hours.  

How close are you to these milestones?  How much time have you spent deliberately practicing your craft today?  Be pro-active.  Get feedback.  What area’s are you weak in?  How can you work to actively build those skills?  Give yourself time.  Be patient.  Enjoy this period in your life.

It’s easy to create one piece of art and then sit around complaining that no one wants it.  You can blame luck, you can blame nepotism, you can blame your financial situation, but there’s only one thing standing in the way of your success.

If you want to be a professional, you’ve got to put the time in.  There are no short cuts.

Writing Happiness

I recently caught a TED talk by Dr. Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology (which basically states that psychology can be used for more than just making miserable people not-miserable, but also for making not-miserable people happy.)

In this study of happiness, Seligman has divided happiness into three categories:

Emotional Happiness - This is what we typically think of as happiness.  Laughing, spending time with friends, falling in love.  Activities that bring about an emotional reaction.

Seligman states that the one thing that happy people have in common is that they are all social.  They are in romantic relationships and have deep friendships.  BUT for those lonely, friendless folks, there are two other types of happiness that are deeper and longer lasting…

Engaging Happiness - These are those moments when life disappears around you and you’re “in the zone.”  When you’re writing a song and you look up at the clock and realize you’ve been sitting there with a guitar for 4 hours.  I think everyone can relate to those moments.

Maybe your zone is basketball.  Maybe it’s drawing, writing, knitting, game-playing, climbing, speaking, designing – maybe it’s a hobby, or maybe it’s your job.  This is much of what I was getting at with this post on doing what you were meant to be doing.

Generally these activities are absent of “emotional happiness” but the one emotion I would assign to this type of happiness is exhilaration.

Meaningful Happiness - The final type of happiness is the one with the most lasting effect.  And it’s to be part of something bigger than yourself.  To give of yourself.  To serve others.  To live a life of gratitude and gratefulness.  To live a life of meaning and purpose.

Seligman tells us that if a person has all three types of happiness, they are exponentially greater than the sum of their parts.

What occurred to me though, is how these three types of happiness show up in all kinds of places.  Take movies for example.  Don’t your favorite movies explore these three types of happiness?  Aren’t they emotionally deep – even if that emotion is laughter or excitement or romance?  Aren’t they engaging – that you disappear from the real world for an hour or two, away from all your problems?  And aren’t the very best ones meaningful – that you leave the theater questioning your own life?

So this week’s challenge is to explore these three types of happiness, not just in your life, but in your art and in your work.  Don’t just create something fun, create something engaging, create something meaningful.  These are the things that last.

You can find out more about happiness (and take lots of fun quizes) at Speligman’s website, authentichappiness.org, or watch the talk in its entirety here:

Empathy

All wars begin because of one thing.  Romantic break-ups, political disagreements, family fall-outs, religious persecution… all because we lack EMPATHY:

The ability to put ourselves in the shoes of others.

If you want a successful marriage, if you want a successful business partnership, if you want a successful marketing campaign with your clients or customers – the key is empathy.  It’s not about convincing someone else what you want, but it’s finding what the other person needs.  And the only way to do that is to put yourself in their shoes.

I had an old friend contact me the other day for coffee.  I hadn’t seen him in years and thought it would be good to catch up.  But the moment we sat down, he goes into a pitch on something he’s trying to sell me.  He only cared about what he wanted at that moment.  He could care less about what I needed.  And I haven’t talked to him since.  A much wiser decision would’ve been to catch up, build a relationship, get to know me on a personal level and find out if I even needed what he was offering.

Why do we have such a hard time with empathy?  I think mostly because it’s difficult.  It takes work.  It’s much easier for us to corner ourselves off in this black and white world where we are always right.  Where the world revolves around us.  Where all relationships exist to help us reach our goals.

Just about every time I see my step-dad, we argue over politics.  He tries to convince me that his political beliefs are “right” and mine are “wrong.”  I always kind of laugh and shrug it off (he doesn’t care for this response).  But what does he gain from me agreeing with him?  What does he lose by me disagreeing with him?

Because the moment we clash with someone who might have a different perspective, our black and white world becomes grey and all those walls we’ve built up around ourselves crumble.

Being empathetic is being vulnerable.

It’s not enough to just assume what the other person wants (humans are really bad guessers) but we have to actually communicate to find that out.  Listen to your clients.  Listen to your spouse.  Don’t try to impose your view on them, but accept their view as their own and figure out how you can serve that view.

We all come from different walks of life and we are going to have different needs, but it’s important to realize that it doesn’t make one person wrong and one person right, it just makes us different.  And we have to celebrate those differences, not impose our point of view on everyone else.

What can you do differently this week to empathize with your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, co-worker, boss, mom, dad, brother, sister, friend, neighbor, fan or client?