CRAFT & SPIRIT

CURIOSITIES
Found & Fascinating

WATCHING

READING

LISTENING

CRAFT AND SPIRIT
THE ART OF A SINGLE STEP

I don’t think writing was ever my talent. Words never really came to me in a way most people have words come to them. Sometimes, in every day conversation, you’ll find me falling in a black pitted expanse of my mind reaching upward trying to find the right word. Only to stand up in shallow water resigning to the fact that I simply can’t find it. But, besides that, I have to say…

I am extremely passionate about writing.

For 9 years I’ve been writing morning pages, a technique coined by Julia Cameron in her book “The Artist’s Way”. Every morning, I wake up, I head to a computer or notebook and I write nonstop for 31 minutes. The extra minute is for taking a few sips of my coffee.

The end result of how many words I’ve written in my lifetime doesn’t matter, there’s no way I can keep count of the hundreds of millions of words I’ve written. Over time, through millions of words that aren’t really effective, and rambles that are tossed aside, I’ve actually been able to snag a few semi-decent sentences to share with people. Sentences and paragraphs and problem solving that have changed the way I’ve lived my life.

I am who I am because I have been taking small steps for a very long time.

I’ve been walking more. There’s a trail that’s nearby, and if I’m not running, I’m walking, and if I’m not walking I’m running. If neither, I’m seated by the water to watch the lake and the eagle that lives across it.

I’ve met deer, horses, the cutest baby skunks I’ve ever seen (at a good distance), a few turtles, swans, and several chipmunks. I’ve touched grass, stared both dissociatively and actively at water and streams, and I’ve walked and walked, sometimes talked, and ran and ran, and have probably reached over 100 miles on foot.

If I were to create a gross generality; All it takes are a few steps every day.

One step per day is seven per week (1 step/day = 7 steps/wk)

One mile per day is seven per week (1 mile/day=7 miles/wk)

Eventually you’ll begin to take several more steps per day, and then work yourself up to a jog. Luckily you don’t have to go any faster than that if you don’t want to. No long distance runner has ever sprinted a course.

Though everyones speed is different, we’re all able to take steps to move forward.

It’s cliche, but it’s entirely true. If you were to simply walk someplace you might be surprised just how far you can go. Which is exactly how I wrote my pieces. Slowly, at a walk.

Let’s build a bit of structure to how I wrote my screenplay.

-Crazy dream
-Wrote the dream down
-Wrote a short film off that idea for an Emerging Artist’s program
-Got accepted and began the process of expanding on it
-Showed up to my past job at 6 am to write before I actually started work
-Weekends were for talking it out with friends and more writing
-Just about every Friday I would discuss the screenplay with mentors
-Very quickly, it changed from a short film to a screenplay (it’s not my fault, it was the idea!)
-Revealed the screenplay to an audience working with actors and a narrator
-Off to fix slowly while working on other scripts

From Winter to Winter. A year from idea to revealing the written idea.

What’s important to me is how to act on an idea and execute it. How are you going to take the idea that’s in your head and move it toward a fully realized tangible thing. Because to start the process you will have to take it to the first draft to the second and the third and so on. But you’ll never be able to get there without sitting down to write, without stepping up to your canvas, or stepping into the space.

Lao Tzu said the one who loves walking will walk further than the one who loves the destination.

At some point we’re going to have to let go of the goal and enjoy the walk. It’s ok to have a general direction, and have an idea of what the finished product looks like, but it’s more important to walk than anything else. What I’ve learned while writing is that it’s about showing up and taking steps. Because nothing will come from nothing.

And it can’t be overthought either. There is a certain level of thinking about which trail to walk that simply keeps us from even taking a single step. With little to no personal information, we’ll never be able to discover if we’re even on the right trail or not.

Thoughts like:
-“What is going to be the most successful?”
-“Will anyone like this?”
-“Am I good enough?”
-“Is this the right way?”
-“Well they walked like this and they walked here, but it’s different now, so is there even a path for me?”

All of these thoughts are filling the space where better things could be going.

If you were to simply think thoughts like:
-Just one step at a time.
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-Woah, look at that cute baby skunk
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-Why are skunks so fucking cute?
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-Should I get a pet baby skunk?
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-Nah, ownership over nature is an odd thing, it’s like plucking a flower out of the ground. Very much how we always take what’s pretty and try to own it for ourselves.
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-Hey I’m at the bridge now? Ahhhh already? I kinda want to keep going.

I don’t come out with masterful scripts, and I’m not saying I am in anyway shape or form a societal success. But when I think about the way that I write, the way that I simply take steps, that’s success to me. It’s been the joy of spending the time.

That’s what I want for you, to learn to be your own greatest success, divorcing yourself from the idea of success that other’s carry. Showing up to your work every day can be enough.

We aren’t working to produce more, we’re here to enjoy the journey. Eventually it’s going to be a good idea to release and share the work, but for now, enjoy the journey. It will get you further than the imaginary success of a societally accepted accomplishment. It’ll get you further than any reward.

That’s how I write. One letter at a time. One word at a time. One sentence at a time. One paragraph at a time. One page at a time. Then I go back and fix it all… one letter at a time.

CRAFT AND SPIRIT

CRAFT AND SPIRIT
The Work

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