Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Inspiration

For the past several months I have been trying to finish the Christmas script for the Spirit Singers. My due date for myself was September 1st. Around October 1st I decided that enough was enough and I was going to stay up ALL NIGHT if necessary to finish the script. However, since I had "all night" I spent a lot of time surfing the internet and messing around, and even the little time I spent on the script wasn't very focused.


FOCUS.
Reason One:
This show is really entertaining

That's something I need to do quite often. One of my acting professors called me out on that. Maybe two or three in the same quarter. It's a battle I'm still fighting with myself, to choose Quality over Quantity. To focus on one project and see it through instead of hopping to more exciting projects half way through.

I didn't finish the script that night. Around 1:30 in the morning I gave up because I was spiraling into that place in my head where everything I'd ever written was worthless, and I needed to fix everything and re-write the entire play. Some of what I wrote that night was good, much of it was awfully close. A little more focus and I would have had a
much better half-nighter.
Reason Two:
Someday I'm going to finish these four books.
And the next week I was in Colorado, and got nothing done.
And the next week I...just didn't get anything done. Why?

Because I'm really good at latching onto any excuse to not do work.
Especially this work because it terrified me. One because it seemed like it would never, ever get finished. And two because it was so close, and if I finished it I would then show it to people who would judge how good or bad it is.

Today, at work, I was getting so worked
up about it (and upcoming auditions for the 5th Ave which I also don't think I'm good enough to attend) that I literally started to feel sick. Luckily, my best friend works with me and
Reason Three:
Fall makes me want to knit
she told me to go home, she'd finish my shift for me.

So I went home. To a laptop full of things to distract me. Bought some cookies, to aide with the artistic process, and sat
down.

And puttered. Each line was a challenge, because it wasn't perfect. The voices in my head kept telling me how futile it was because the script would never, never be finished and would certainly never be good. Much less brilliant.

So what did I do?

I watched this. And danced around my house. And told those &*%&(^$ vampires to suck it.
And I finished my damn script.

Don't ever, ever let anybody tell you that you're not good enough. Especially yourself.

No comments:

Post a Comment