Despite last week’s spirited claims, Selftape Pizza will in fact resume in the New Year. There is a time and a place for getting better at our work, the holiday break is for breaking so will be doing that today instead.
If you have written your first screenplay
If you have been dropped in the shit at your work, and then exceeded all expectations.
If you have beaten the odds and found a new agent, in a desert of opportunity.
If you have resolved to fight without, chosen to pick yourself.
If you have been patiently, persistently building something bigger than you, working towards something long term
If you’ve taken a leap with the person you love
If you have taught yourself a new skill,
created a new source of income, one that has given you independence, pride and self-sufficiency
If you had the bravery to stand in front of a room full of your closest friends and say, here – I made a film for you
If you had the courage to move from a comfortable job you find easy, to a new one that shoves you way outside your comfort zone
If you have taken care of your loved one when they were sick
If you’ve written and workshopped a play and had the courage to put it in front of people you know and people you don’t
If you have taken a risk on set
If you’ve moved in with your partner, knowing there’s no one you’d rather come home to
If you’ve supported your family, financially and emotionally, through hard times, that you yourself did not get similar support through
If your life has irrevocably changed, and it does not feel like for the better – but you have not thrown in the towel, you are persisting through the hard, even though the end may not seem in sight, yet
If you have been a supportive sibling, knowing that most of the game is turning up
If you have been a loving son, taking care of the ones who took care of you
If you have been a caring daughter inconspicuously spending as much time as you can with those you love the most, before you can’t any more
If you have pushed yourself to take up a new hobby, make new friends, and to find life in new places
If you have dedicated time to helping kids who ask for help, kids who want to learn, if you have been brave enough to teach them what you know
If you have shown up every single week to record a podcast
If you have organised, led and inspired your friends (including this newsletter writer) to see the power of their Union
If you have had to juggle family, work and personal life every single day this year and have had to make hard decisions that do not have any short term benefits for you
If you’ve been thinking about starting a degree
If you’ve started a degree
If you’ve finished a degree
If you’ve had a second child, in the face of no paternity leave and little support
If you’ve curated, hosted and performed an evening of some of the hardest songs ever written, without waiting for someone else to do it.
If you have moved to a different city
If you have moved to a different country
If you have moved to a different bank
If you got married this year
If you have organised a charity event that is a source of camaraderie and friendship to bunch of people, even though they may not tell you that too often
If you have put your politics aside because your family means more
If you have grown a thriving business bringing your art to people that it means a huge amount too
If you conducted tiny experiments in an effort to get better at something
If you have volunteered your time and your money to help make someone else’s life fuller and more full of joy
If it felt like you have been fighting an uphill battle, but one you know deep in your bones is a battle worth fighting
If you are pursuing your passion, your dream, in the face of those who say, don’t
If you have made art that makes you sing, even though it might irate the masses
If you have put your middle finger up at the way things have always been done, because it’s not working for you any more
If you have done any of these things this year
Well Fucking done.
you have lived more of life than a great many
Thank you for all your work.
You are a community of incredible artists
Have a terrific holiday.
You deserve it.
A x
p.s. and thank you to everyone who voted last week.
