Curse of the Side-Quests
This is Finish Your Monsters, a weekly blog/newsletter/blogletter about the creative process. I'm sharing adventures in art and life as well as setting CLIFFHANGER goals for myself, so--
--DID I MAKE MY GOAL?
Last week, I committed to completing tweaks on my short film, The Demon's Commentary, and submitting it to a minimum of five film festivals.
And I will be very honest--I remembered the first part of the goal because it was time sensitive. There's a film festival I really want to get into and the deadline was yesterday. BUT I completely forgot that the second half of the goal was to submit to a total of five film festivals.
Which, strangely, is exactly the number I applied to yesterday. Apparently, the age of subliminal goals is here for me! I look forward to my sub-conscious quietly suggesting I eat better, exercise daily, do a second draft of that novel, learn to fence, and become a squirrel during the full moon. Then, let the magic begin.
I'm really proud of The Demon's Commentary. I learned a lot working on it--from lighting to color grading to export settings to the science of scratches on celluloid. But it's still hard to let go. To make those final tweaks and cross your fingers that an audience (and specifically film festival judges) will experience the soul of the thing, not all the little tiny flaws and "what ifs" the artist can obsess over. A thing I strive to remember about art and just the way other humans see one another.
ADVENTURES OF THE WEEK--
This week, and several to come, will require creative multi-tasking. For many years, I've put a bit too much on my plate. I pick a big goal--a thing I care a lot about--then look at my plate and go, "It's just one thing, I can add more!"
But in the language of video games, I need to focus on the MAIN QUEST. And I keep adding side quests. I need to rescue the village of the Grack-Folk from the oppression of Vesh-Nor, King of Froth Shadows, but I get distracted because the Cloud Farmer, Heemlo, needs me to collect 10,000 beedle-bonk bugs. Even though the main quest is clear, it's hard to turn your back on Heemlo when you are also Heemlo.
But this past week I actually did a good job of balancing the various quests. My ongoing main quest this year is to work on a feature film. It's written, several key cast and crew members are attached, and I'm raising funds.
As part of that main quest, I'm shooting a short teaser for the film. I decided to do that two weeks ago and I needed to prove to myself that the concept for the teaser worked so I banged out the first draft of the 5 page script in about three hours.
It was a success!
(pause as the honesty settles in)
Mostly!
In order to complete that draft, there were two spots in the script that I knew were wrong. Not the idea, not the intention of the character, but the way he expressed them. It's like a car engine where the vital parts are correct but your gas pipe is made up of taped-together bendy straws. It functions in theory, but it will not make it through a torture test.
This week, revising the script was one of my highest priorities but I only had a quick hour early in the morning set aside to work on it. I was stressed because I didn't know if I could get it fixed in time. But I had a blissful surprise when I realized this was one of those times where the emotional scale of the creative issue was much larger than the actual problem scale.
The two parts I let myself despise in order to complete the first draft were very short. And with the benefit of the big picture of the script being in place, they were very quick and frankly, joyful, to fix.
It was a reminder of the mantra this blog is named for: Finish your monsters. This is one of those lessons I seem to need to learn again and again. A first draft is like a monster--full of hideous little quirks. But if you complete the entire monster--if your mind is not consumed with the whole shape of the thing, getting all the body parts in the right place--it's so much easier to just zero in and go, "Yeah, yeah, seven is too many eyeballs on this guy's back. Let's focus on the eyeballs."
Having saved the Grack-Folk for the week, I then collected a dubious number of beedle-bonks.
MY GOAL FOR THE WEEK--
This week, I'll be spinning plates on the main quest, but my big thing is that I'm flying to my hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota to shoot the teaser for the feature film. So I'm going to stay focused and keep that as my primary goal. By next Tuesday, I will have filmed a 5 minute teaser and be poised to edit.
YOUR GOAL FOR THE WEEK--
AWOOGA! I'm thrilled to say Buttondown now has a comments function. I would absolutely love to hear what you're working on this week in the comments below. What's your goal? Is it creative? What are the challenges? What are the joys? Are you on a main quest or a side quest? How can I help you finish your monsters?
LIGHT PLUGS--
There are screenings of our film, The Nightmare Adorable, coming up! In particular it's playing in the Pacific Northwest as part of Crypticon Seattle on Saturday, May 4th at 9 pm and I will be in attendance! Full details are on my website here.
Here's the poster for the latest short film! Submissions to film festivals add up extremely quickly. They average about $25 per festival and the more I submit to, the better odds at getting exposure for the film. So any proceeds from buying my comedy albums and short stories on Bandcamp go directly to film submissions! Thank you for the kind support!
A LITTLE SKETCH--
This week's sketch is processing complex side quest feelings. It's Heemlo, the Cloud Farmer, plagued by uncollected beedle-bonks. I will be there, Heemlo. I love you, Heemlo. Hold tight. Thanks and see you in the far-off future land of NEXT TUESDAY!
