- Death to shit ads.
- Posts
- Never be content. Always keep the door ajar.
This is a screengrab from a recent slack chat with James, the other CD at SICKDOG, that made me laugh.
Over the years I’ve found that a lot of creatives have some kind of innate restlessness. Musicians that struggle to declare a song finished. Directors that will keep saying ‘let’s do one more’ until the 1st AD physically restrains them. And writers that will not stop pondering, questioning, tinkering with scripts until the art director tells them to fuck off because the deck has to go to client in 7 minutes.
It’s an attribute that can annoy the hell out of some people, but it’s important to acknowledge that it’s generally a sign that a person truly, deeply cares. And if there’s anything we need dearly in our world, it’s people that care too much. Because given how many angles our work can be attacked, criticised, and diluted from, if we didn’t, we’d all soon cease to exist. One of the few things that can never be in-housed or AI’d is people who genuinely care about pushing things as far and as hard as they can. (I mean no disrespect to in-house/client side people, but I have worked in large corporations, and in my experience they simply are not environments made safe for big ideas.) Better to care too much, than not enough. (This goes for everyone else as well, there is nothing I love more than a suit that charges into battle with you.)
“‘Contentment’ is a word that never sat well with me. Like ‘maturity’. They are words I’ve never liked. I think they imply some sort of decay. A settling.” - Elvis Costello
I struggle to ever feel content with my work. There’s always something that could be tweaked, adjusted, sharpened. Made a bit funnier. Sillier. More absurd. A drier punchline. A quicker way into the scene. An entire sentence that doesn’t need to be there. A script that made me laugh last night but has me cringing into oblivion the following morning.
There’s a saying in writing circles, ‘Hate writing, love having written’. I have to admit that I do kind of fall into this camp. In the midst of executing an idea, there’s always a nagging claw scraping at the back of my brain, reminding me that something better still lurks within. An uneasy weight sitting on my chest, like I haven’t quite yet shifted the lid off the tomb to reveal the treasure inside. I wouldn’t exactly call these feelings ‘enjoyable’, but our brains and bodies are pretty clever if you can find a way to tune in. Or maybe I’m just getting old and what I’m describing is simply headaches and reflux. Potato, potahto.
These kind of feelings probably get attributed to things like ‘imposter syndrome’ and ‘writer’s block’, but I like to try to view them as signs of intuition or messages from the universe that whatever you’re conjuring isn’t quite right, or isn’t yet ready to be released into the world.
There’s plenty of versions of a story where the Rolling Stones’ manager locked Keith and Mick in a kitchen and wouldn’t let them out until they’d actually finished a song. In our business, this fiddling and noodling can only ever go on for so long, because we have these things called ‘deadlines’. Deadlines have a way of kicking us into gear through pressure and fear, but they also present a beacon of opportunity. Because the brief is always open right up until that final moment. The work can always get better up until that point. So I’d encourage any young creatives reading this to embrace the power of the deadline and its ability to force ideas into shape. While the bulk of the creative process is mostly painful, you can often find sparks of enjoyment through the little improvements you make along the way.
That’s really all there is to this one. I don’t mean for it to sound so emo, but that’s just how it is. Maybe on the rare occasion you might knock out a first draft, and it’s great, but I wouldn’t get in the habit of it. Apathy is a slow poison, and will eventually get you in this business.
They say it’s the hope that kills you, but without it, you’re already dead.
Never be content. Always keep the door ajar.
Writing tip #1
Writing tip #2
Writing tip #3
Writing tip #4
Writing tip #5
Writing tip #6
Writing tip #7
Writing tip #8
Writing tip #9
Writing tip #10
Reply