I use to sleep in a room made of paper. (Almost).
There was a path, just one, from bed to door.
All around my ideas and dreams lay scattered on pieces of paper, as I built up mountains of drawings and stories around me.
The hours I spent just immersed in this creative world, one of fantasy and fiction, I could not ever count. That doesn’t really matter. I enjoyed every minute.
And it was not time wasted.
I just didn’t wake up one day wanting to be famous, or known. I just wanted to create. And so I did.
It was something I needed to do just as much as I wanted to do it.
I am not the only one.
The mountains are now in boxes, in an office, always overflowing. If I was snapped up one day it wouldn’t be because I got lucky. There are years of work stored away here. In my house and in my mind.
OVERNIGHT SUCCESS (10 years in the making)
He sat in his room playing guitar, for days on end. She drew pictures that no one ever saw, and wrote stories to go alongside. The invisible ones. Consistently and constantly immersed in their passions. Like the outside world didn’t matter. Didn’t care.
Then suddenly anonymity is no longer existent. They are everywhere. As if they were swept up one day off the street and made famous. As if they were handed these gifts from some divine source.
Just got lucky.
And they think how the hell did that happen? And we think where the hell did they come from?
For we see final products not processes, without any prior warning, and want a piece of that.
It’s what you see when you’re first starting out. It’s what you want when you begin. To be like them. To be them.
And you want it all now. Like they seem to have. As if it just ‘happened’ to them. One day.
But it’s not like that.
From the loner in the bedroom practising his guitar, to the hundreds of short stories and publisher rejections before the publishing deal, when you look back, when you dig into their pasts, you will find years and years of work.
Taken each day at a time.
There is no such thing as an overnight success.
HARD WORK (and lots of it)
***
My mother would make me paint the steps with water to keep me out of trouble, day after day, and I would become obsessed with it. Wanting them all done before the water would dry. Never quite getting there.
That progressed to paper (and sometimes furniture). And then canvas, and anything else I could find. And then all of a sudden I had this this massive body of work, and not enough space to store it all.
I explored, I experimented, I worked hard to get better because I wanted all those images in my mind, those stories swirling about, to come out just the way I saw it. And all of a sudden I wanted things to be better. I wanted more. So I would spend hours immersed in my own imagination, pulling from it what I could. Learning about ways to take the ideas and make them tangible.
It never really felt like work though. But It was something I had to fight for. It was something I had to work hard for.
Ideas and inspiration and talent are NOTHING without the blood, sweat and tears that go along with being a Creative. If you want it you got to go and earn it. Give it everything you got. Work for it. Do what needs to be done.
You have to have courage and dedication. It’s going to take a while. The ability to create is something we have all been given. But what you do with THAT dictates the work you produce.
You need to take the ideas you work hard for and put them into action. It’s a cycle, a never ending process, one you need to push through. If you want it you’ll work for it.
There’s no other way.
“It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take a while. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” – Ira Glass
ALONE
***
A couple of drunken karaoke nights, or loungeroom singing with your hairbrush won’t do. It takes more than that. More than some pipedream and a lucky break.
When everyone else is talking about what they’re going to do, what or who they’re going to be, that rockstar, that superstar, the best selling author, the rest of us are sitting alone doing our thing.
Because for those with ambition, we know it takes sacrifices to get what we want. That talk is cheap, everyone can dream big but only dreams worked hard for are ever really realised.
And sometimes it takes Isolation to get there.
Keep yourself fed on with adventure, be social, share ideas, collaborate. But when you need to take action take that time away to get it done.
Time spent alone doing, is time well spent.
Shutting yourself off from the world, doing what needs to be done. Having the courage to make things happen, the strength to move things forward, the will to take it on, time and time again, in isolation is a path not taken by many.
But it’s a path you may just need to travel.
IT TAKES A LIFETIME
***
I could probably papier mache my home a few times over with all the work I have accumulated up until now.
For weeks me and my brother would build lego cities, that would crumble and fall when we introduced Crossbows and Catapaults. Histories would take place within hours. We would work for days before I began to dream about it and have to stop. Take a break for awhile. It’s like these whole lifetimes would go by in dog’s years, or Narnian years.
The key was to keep going, even when things fell down or didn’t work out. Even though it was only days, for a child that seems like forever. And forever is what it takes for you to ‘finish.’ And then finishing means nothing more than you not be able to go on. Maybe because you’re dead. (sorry to sound so morbid)
The thing is you’re never DONE. you’ve never made it, completed. To be any good, or to have any amount of work done, it takes a lifetime. Of learning, of creating, of exploring.
You just don’t get there in a day.
There are no shortcuts. There are no easy roads. The key is consistency. Even small amounts over time. Even when it feels as though you don’t have the time. It takes years figuring out what you love, and doing it. It takes years trying things, making mistakes, taking risks, failing, succeeding and having the time of your life.
And it takes time to get good at things.
Because what you don’t always see are the hours and hours spent before hand. The things that have been thrown out. The many film takes, edits, thrown pieces of paper.
The late sleepless nights, and that insane desire that drives us on, time after time. The Practise. Bleeding for your art.
It’s not something that just happens to you. It’s more than an hours work, more than a days work.
It takes a Lifetime.
“Building a body of work (or a life) is all about the slow accumulation of a day’s worth of effort over time. Writing a page each day doesn’t seem like much, but do it for 365 days and you have enough to fill a novel.” – Austin Kleon
BE AN AMATEUR (keep learning)
***
Always have those L plates on. Never be satisfied with settling with what you know now. Be hungry for more. Have that beginner’s mindset.
Your ‘natural affinity’ probably came from finding something you truly loved and becoming obsessive about it. Doing it over and over. At the time it may have felt more like play rather than work, because you just couldn’t get enough. It’s always been an obsession.
You don’t have to know where it will take you. Be curious. Be open. Try new things. Want for more.
You’ll get there. And when you do. Keep going.
There’s always more to learn.
“An expert is a man who has stopped thinking because ‘he knows’.” – Frank Lloyd Wright
Lose the I’ve already learnt everything mentality and get obsessed again, be open, find that enthusiasm. It makes it all feel less like work and more like play.
WORK, BITCH
***
Well…
You can. But you’re going to have to work damn hard for it.
So like Britney said.
“Work, Bitch.”