From The Bathroom With Hope
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 coming close to completing the pitch deck for the feature film I'm working on. A nice wiggly goal that I successfully wiggled toward. Although the name of this blog is Finish Your Monsters, sometimes I have to be honest with myself about how much time I have in a week.
This past week was technically productive but emotionally rough. I've got a couple of projects on my plate. Three-to-four oldie-time comedians all trying to come through one small doorway.
I don't deal with that well. Here's a bad thing I do that I'm trying to work on: I get it into my head that everything needs to be done NOW. So even though I get a lot done, it never feels like enough. Hence the encouraging myself to embrace these micro-goals.
In the end, I got a lot done on the pitch deck--an arm and a leg of a comedian--so I should be able to finish it this week and the whole comedian will pop through the doorway, dammit.
ADVENTURES OF THE WEEK--
This week my bathroom became very clean and it was a triumph. Backing up a bit, (the narrative, not the bathroom) I made a choice in late 2022 to focus more on filmmaking. One of the reasons is that filmmaking, by its nature, is a collaborative art form. It forces me to reach out to old friends, make new ones, ask for advice, send scary emails asking for favors, etc.
And the connection aspect is going great! Last week, I shot a new short film--currently titled THE DEMON'S COMMENTARY. We shot it with no sound, planning to dub it in later. So this past Friday, one of the actors came by our apartment to record the dialogue.
Before she came over, I wanted to give the apartment a good cleaning. Now to be clear, my wife and I clean the apartment. We are not living in filth. There aren't any roaches or raccoons I need to shake down to pony up their cut of the rent. BUT we've lived in the same one bedroom apartment for almost ten years. There's a lot in here that sparks joy vying for space. And I've got this specific problem where I like to display action figures on black furniture and I'm not a big fan of dusting. A gordian knot of personal issues.
So I set to giving the apartment a DEEP TIDYING. It was really nice to work on something tactile and specific. It was a balm to organize, scrub, and beautify. And as I was happily tidying my little heart out, I realized we haven't had a friend or creative partner or family member over to our apartment since MARCH OF 2020. Four years.
As it happened, my friend arrived, we chatted a bit about Doctor Who and improv comedy, she knocked out the ADR in a few takes, and was on her way. Never even looked at my glowing, sparkling bathroom.
But after she left, I looked around the clean apartment and felt like this was a good step on achieving some of my own emotional goals with filmmaking.
Over the years of the pandemic, I retreated into the safety of solo work and patterns. I was mostly writing by myself and recording podcasts with the same (great) people. Attempting to live a full life while rarely changing out of sweat pants physically or, more importantly, emotionally.
This coming Friday, two more old friends--people who have been in my home often in the before times--are coming over to record more dialogue for the short film.
I can't wait to collaborate with them.
To dive into the messy, churning waters of creativity and slosh around.
And when we're done, I can't wait to show them how tidy my bathroom is.
MY GOAL FOR THE WEEK--
Okay, I'm going to live up to the title of this blog and finish the damn pitch deck for the feature film. It will just be a draft with plenty of room for tweaks and adjustments. I'll also need to keep moving forward on the short film, but in the interest of picking priorities that comedian will have to be second through the doorway.
YOUR GOAL FOR WEEK--
What's your goal? Is it creative? Do you need to tidy? Hang out with a friend? Buy new sweat pants? Feel free to reach out to me on social media or respond directly to the email version of the blog and let me know what projects you’re working on this week!
LIGHT PLUGS--
Last Friday was Bandcamp Friday where artists get all the proceeds from purchases. Several of you bought albums--thank you so much! If you're interested in checking out the albums (and a 45 minute cosmic horror story) they're all here. Below is a photo from the recording of my album FLAW FEST with Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett kindly backing me up for a bit where I sing even though I can't sing. Fun!
THE NARRATOR! All members of my Patreon now have exclusive months-early access to my experimental comedy film--THE NARRATOR starring the great Phil LaMarr. If you're interested, you can check out the Patreon here!
You can also check out Strange Path t-shirts and wall art on Threadless. Thank you for the kind support!
A LITTLE SKETCH--
This week's sketch is an angry little drum set. I put a call out on social media for sketch suggestions and Scott Millis expressed his frustration with not making it to music gigs. And a cranky drum was born! Let me know if you have suggestions or requests for next week's sketch! Hope you have a better week than these drums. See you in the FUTURE TIME called next Tuesday!
