I chose the title for this post, not only because Spotify has been bombarding me with songs by Drug Church lately, particularly this one, but because I think it may be a good reminder to get myself out of the creative rut I have been in.
I have not made any further progress on my initial pitch, or the more recent one I decided to pick up again. With that said, conversations surrounding creating original work started to happen again, beginning with a feature in a local publication. This is now the third time this company has reached out to me so I am fairly used to their process. Usually, they send me several lists of questions to choose from and then I write my answers to a select few. One question I came across involved discussing a time when I almost gave up (on my career). I may have been a little too honest when answering this question, given that a time when I almost gave up is now. With that said, this answer was also the one I chose to be featured front and center. I’m bringing this up, because this question helped me realize all of the things I am NOT currently doing which have helped me get out a creative rut in the past. The common through-line that my suggestions had was creating original work just for myself.
The second conversation came while out to drinks with a colleague; animator extraordinaire and B-movie enthusiast, Christian Klopfer. He mentioned he was able to relate to my lack of motivation to continue working on my pitch. In his words when asking him to remind me of what we spoke about because I have a terrible memory; “something to the effect of diminished creative drive as it pertains to the reward dynamic of hard work”. My main pitch, the one I started this blog off talking about, was initially just created for myself. It was a simple idea inspired by real events. I came up with it during the pandemic and it just happened to continue to find new life over the years. The moment I put stock in other people’s opinions about it, I became immensely discouraged when they chose to walk away. It has been a downward spiral since. To be honest, I am also unsure how to move forward on it, without help from others.
The final conversation which has given me somewhat of a revitalized outlook, was one with a family member who also works in entertainment and has many years of experience on me. We hadn’t spoken in a while, until one morning last week when I woke up to a text from him saying that we should catch up. This alone put me in a good mood. He has helped me a lot throughout the years with advice on jobs, personal work, and long term outlook. Forgive me for not going into too much detail, but the main point that I took away from our conversation was to not give up, even if that means pivoting in a big way.
I know it may seem like this blog is becoming pointless as it pertains to getting my pitch noticed, but at the same time I believe this is still part of the process. Mainly, it helps me keep writing and regularly check in with myself. Since agreeing to be featured in another publication, and talking with fellow colleagues, I have gained new insight on what my goals are in the art that I create; honesty. Finding people who can relate to my creative rut and talking it out with them, I believe is an important part of the process. Since these conversations, I have slowly started drawing again, and sending my pitch out to completely objective parties (non-artists) for their opinion. Hopefully by next month, I will have more to talk about.