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“You’re often most creative when you’re the least productive.”

​Austin Kleon​

You’ll never guess what?

Office Hours are back on – if you want help with a film idea you’re working on, you’re trying to pick out a new headshot, you finally want to set up your home recording studio (yes i am talking to you, mate), or you just want to catch up:

​Book in a slot here.

Let’s fucking do stuff together.

Christmas is coming

And it always bloody catches me by surprise.

Holy crap I need to buy gifts.

Holy crap I have no money. (this part isn’t a surprise)

But. Holy crap no more.

​Banks are still trying to legally bribe you to open an account with them – if you switch within the next couple of weeks, you will have a ÂŁ200 present fund by Christmas.

​You can find them all here.

Creativity

I used to believe you were born talented.

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​There are those who are inherently brilliant at making things,

and there are those of us who aren’t.

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If I can’t do it, then I shouldn’t.

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So I didn’t.

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Bollocks.

Your form of Genius

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Creativity is a relatively new idea.

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I found out yesterday that “Creativity” only entered the dictionary in 1966.

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​In his essay on the subject, Kickstarter founder Yancey Strickler reveals:

The concept was first developed in the 1940s by Defense Department researchers trying to identify independent thinkers for leadership.
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At the same time, social scientists and advertising executives were searching for a postwar ideal: a way to motivate and fulfill people in a newly consumer-driven America. (For more, see this book.)
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Their solution? A democratic form of genius that everyone could aspire to: creativity.
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Schools were remade in this image. So were businesses. Entirely new ways of thinking.
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Eighty years later, creativity shapes everything — from how we work to who we want to become. Kids today don’t want to be astronauts — they want to be creators. And unlike astronauts, they can actually become one.

The US found (“outrageously successfully” according to Strickler on the podcast, Doomscroll) that there is a way that we can encourage a thriving, happy society.

By

  1. practicing outside-of-the-box thinking.
  2. cultivating your individual voice e.g. who am I, what do I love?

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This supports an idea that whilst some may have been born a little further along the creativity spectrum – for most of us, this form of genius is a skill that can be learned, practiced and improved.

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For those who, like me, bought into the belief that artists are born and not made, this is an fast route to unhappiness –
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I’m not that, I won’t ever be that, so why even try?

You end up, as I did, giving up on a lifeforce.
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There was a point during Covid that i was so bored and so unproductive that i had nothing better to do than to make a stop-motion film.

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Then I made another.
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And another.

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And then I started writing.
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And now I’m here.

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I have perfection issues, I have ambition issues, I have many, many issues.

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But one of them is no longer the misguided belief that I am not a creative person.
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Not any more.
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We are all creative people.
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Don’t let anyone (especially yourself) tell you otherwise.

HOW

If you want to make something quickly and override your resistance:

​oneword.com​

You have 60s to write about the one word that pops up.

here’s one i made earlier (just now)

Clarinet
Toot ta toot ta toot.
I look over at the bassist next to me.
Fucking bassists, man.
“Hey, big boy – your in my space”
Doop doop doop doop waaaop.
Fucking bassists, man.
Toot ta toot ta toot.

Great, get it done. Let’s go.

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Encouragement

I didn’t see this when it came out during lockdown. I love it.

video preview​

All the way through to it’s gloriously pandemic ending.

OFFICE HOURS

Come on. Let’s just have a coffee or something.

​Book a slot​

That’s the end.

Reply to this email with your thoughts or something. Or not. Up to you.

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A xx

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