January 7, 2025

Exhausted Action Figures and You

This is Finish Your Monsters, a weekly 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 the goal of figuring out all my goals for 2025.

And I about 90% did that.

I’m docking myself a few points because one of the goals is a little bit more ambiguous than I’d like. Here they are:

Most of these are clear yes or no goals and under my control to complete.

Finish The Film means do all the post-production work for the horror film we shot called DEAD MEDIA.

Get The Film To Market could mean anything from attaching a sales agent, getting it to indie film markets, touring it to different cities/theaters, etc. I don’t have control over the outcome, but I do have control over doing the work to get the film in front of people. I don’t write down time deadlines, but my goal is to accomplish this by summer at the latest.

Write The Next Film is the one I’m most excited about because the best way to get started on a new creative project is procrastinating from finishing the current one.

Make Another Short Film is also exciting because it’s both direct and wide open. Will I shoot a no budget thing with my phone? Hire people to make something higher-end for festivals? Who knows? I just know I want to keep making films and I don’t want to wait as long as it might take to get the next feature going.

Write 100 Vote Forward Letters is also pretty clear. If you’re not familiar, Vote Forward is a service that helps you write letters to voters encouraging them to use their power and vote. Vote Forward hasn’t announced the races/elections/programs they’ll be running for 2025 yet but I’m excited to get writing.

Volunteer/Fundraise At Least Twice for Specific Political Actions is the one I’m docking myself points for. It’s not as specific as I’d like it to be. I want to find more things like Vote Forward—concrete, researched, helpful actions I can fit into my life without becoming a full time activist. (More thoughts on that below!)

Confronting Fear Is The Destiny of a Jedi is, technically, not a clear yes or no goal. I write it down every year partially as a joke and partially because it’s a helpful reminder of how constant the battle to push past fear is. Everything from massive tasks like making a movie to small tasks like sending a stressful email can be battles with fear. It’s a Luke Skywalker quote from a Star Wars movie many people don’t like, but I do. I don’t like saying the name of the movie because I’m AFRAID people will tell me all the reasons they don’t like it which I’m frankly sick to death of hearing. But this quote from the 2019 film, The Rise of Skywalker, which I like, reminds me to be aware of my fear and try my best to address it.

Read 25 Books and/or Comic Book Runs is also a banger. I hope to blow this one out of the water. A dangerously fun goal. But I do feel better when I make time to read. And writing it down as a goal helps me justify making time for it.

I’M FIGHTING THE URGE TO MAKE TIME FOR IT RIGHT NOW.

ADVENTURES OF THE LAST WEEK/YEAR--

My wife, Sara, and I had a lovely New Year’s Eve staying at a hotel near the beach which we are very lucky to do. I continued to fight a head cold, get some first of the year/month work done, record more ForceCenter, and make more progress on editing Dead Media.

But I want to share one specific adventure. It happened again: I bought an action figure.

To me, action figures are little pieces of art packed with meaning. And I’m really getting a lot from General Carlist Rieekan.

General Rieekan is from a Star Wars movie I feel good talking about because people don’t yell at me about liking it. It’s called The Empire Strikes Back.

If you’re not familiar, the film begins with the rebels painstakingly setting up a new base on the remote ice world of Hoth, only to have the Empire discover them and chase them out.

As a kid, I was thrilled by the action—Vader striding into the base, Luke slashing open the belly of an AT-AT Imperial Walker, etc.

Now, I sigh about all of the Rebels’ lost work setting up the INFRASTRUCTURE. They carved tunnels in the ice, they modified their ships, they probably re-wired their space modems and updated their address on every website so they could still get software updates. All of that SHITTY work just lost.

But Rieekan and Leia, who are in charge of the base, just accept the hard reality. It’s a long fight and we lost this battle. Time to regroup, time to plan, time to find the next move.

I’m having a hard time concentrating on all my own life goals because I’m distraught by many real world events. But I don’t want to slip into despair and inaction. And I don’t want to waste my time with outrage that doesn’t accomplish anything.

I want to do exactly what my General Rieekan action figure is doing. Calmly, point at a tactical screen and make a productive plan to deal with the reality.

I need to take more time, do more research, and figure out more concrete tasks/actions I can do to contribute to the small battles that make up the long fight. Which is why that particular goal on my list is still a bit too ambiguous for my tastes. But I will keep working at it.

And General Rieekan will be good inspiration. Look at this man. Look at this tired, pointing man. So good, so exhausted.

LIGHT PLUGS—

COMEDY WORDS: I’m on my friend and podcast partner Ken Napzok’s comedy show on Friday, January 10th. I’m not performing as often so grab tickets if you’re interested and let us know you’ll be there!

SUPPORT DEAD MEDIA: We’ve got a fiscal sponsorship with the great Minnesota organization Film North. They can accept one-time donations that will go directly toward finishing the film: SCORE, VFX, COLOR GRADING, etc. It’s like a Kickstarter where the rewards are A) a tax deduction and B) helping us make the film.

For full info, please check out the page for the upcoming horror film, DEAD MEDIA!

Or if you have any questions about supporting the film, feel free to reach out to me personally!

MY GOAL FOR THE WEEK--

I need to stay focused on editing to reach my first overall goal this year to Finish The Film. So my goal for next week is to finish editing the next two scenes of Dead Media.

YOUR GOAL FOR THE WEEK--

I would absolutely LOVE to hear what you're working on this week in the comments below. What's your goal? Does it involve action figures? How can I help you literally finish your monsters?

A LITTLE SKETCH--

This week’s sketch is a magic book that always wants to be read. It’s happy if you’re reading it and it’s very upset with you if you’re not. FUN! I hope everyone has good adventures finishing their monsters this week, reading or not.