JUST GOT BACK from a very clarifying, enriching & exciting creative meeting with a Producer -- where there were incredibly insightful notes from another producer. There are times when the creative process really does work the way it's supposed to.
Anyway, in the in-betweens of focus, the usual shit-shooting turned to the well-worn topic of "things that people who don't write for a living don't understand about people who do..."
I said one of my standard lines -- I hope it's actually one of MY standard lines, though for all I know maybe I'm half-remembering something I read somewhere long ago -- anyway. I said, "I kind of look at it as -- it's my job to fail until I don't. You try something, fail, fail, fail, keep failing, and hopefully eventually you look at something and say, 'that's not a total failure' and then you nurture that little ember and follow it and hopefully you get somewhere."
And the Producer nodded and said, "That's what separates real, effective writers from those who just have "ideas." Regular folk hit that first fail and either refuse to see it, or freak out about it."
And you sure can't do that for very long, now, can you?
So to all my peeps in rooms or pounding out pages today, wherever you are, here's to today's #fails.
Lucky, lucky, lucky us.
2 rumbles:
Very true for creative pursuits. And even in business.
Seth Godin's riffed on the importance of fail (or bad ideas) couple of times recently. (Fear of bad ideas and Unrealized projects (of Tim Burton))
Fail is a very imporant concept to embrace. Along with the "hopefully you get somewhere" part -- 'cause nothing is for certain.
Thanks for pushing throug the fail!
Thanks Denis - though couldn't you have posted this yesterday? ;)
I have hit so many fails over the past few weeks, I was starting to think there was something seriously wrong with me, and that perhaps I should start planning for a career switch.
And then a few embers ignited, and I'm now warming my fingers and toes.
Fails FTW!
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