Well, it’s been a minute. I disappear from my “creative projects” a couple times a year because of work. In previous years, it was because I was literally working more than my usual full-time hours, and just cannot make time to do anything like record a podcast or write a blog post when I am dragging my tired butt home at 7 or 8pm every night. But this past year’s festivals, in September and right now, the difference is not just the amount of hours I am putting in, but the amount of work, and the variety of work. I just couldn’t really sink my teeth into anything during my work-from-home hours when I knew I had all these other things on my task list to get done (and that I’d enjoy doing more). I had to give myself permission to put most things aside, so that on any given day, I could make my day job the number one priority, not just in hours spent on it, but in my mind. Knowing I had nothing else urgent or important to do that day helped me settle in and focus, for as long as I needed, on a task.
But, the festival is now underway and, unlike IRL film festivals, it is not 14 hour days of physical and mental exertion. Some of our team is running live events, but my part is pretty much over; the films are scheduled, the website is correct and complete. I’m not overwhelmed, is what I’m saying. Phew! I can get back to regularly scheduled programming outside of work.
I’m just going to write that annoying blog post about all the things I’m doing and will be doing instead of writing anything actually introspective. Let me ease back into these, okay?
I am devoting my life to fairy tales from now on. Well, for the next three-ish months. After putting things aside for a few weeks to focus on work, I started putting things back on my plate, but it didn’t feel good. It’s not so much that I’m doing too much, it’s that I’m working on too many projects at once. Which means I’m only able to give very little to each project. I felt like I was doing a lot but nothing was getting done. I was writing for an hour on 3 or 4 projects every week, but had nothing to show for it. Every time I opened up the file (OMG I got Scrivener- I’m in love) I would need to reacquaint myself with the project in order to start writing anything. I consulted with my Boops (the Break Up with Your Bullshit group) and found everyone also works on what they think is “too many” things at once, but they would get bored only working in one medium. I felt the same. Through their responses, and my own thought process, I’ve decided I need one Primary project at a time. And, since I already created that Content Planner for myself, which is divided into quarters (13 weeks), it made sense to choose a different primary project for each quarter. I think it’s long enough to really dive in, even knowing you’ll have a few “bad” weeks in there, but not so long that I feel I’m putting off other projects indefinitely. So, for the second quarter (starting April 4), my primary project will be Rated F for Fairy Tales; video essays about fairy tale film adaptations.
I’m very excited to really dive into the research, writing, and everything that comes with it. I already feel this lift of guilt off me. That unhelpful feeling that, whenever I’m working on anything, it means there’s something else I’m not working on enough. Impossible to satisfy! But with this primary project plan, I don’t have to feel guilty about not writing my novel because it’s not novel writing time right now. And it’s not me putting off things forever and never doing them, it’s all part of a plan. I will guilt-free spend my creative project time reading fairy tales, about fairy tales on screen, and watching fairy tale movies. And at the end of the quarter, I will, if things go as planned, have three video essays, three other fairy tale videos, and three of my own tales done and ready to be published throughout the next quarter.
I have a plan! Will I stick to it? Stay tuned!
Coincidentally, I recently bought big noise-cancelling headphones like those because I also can’t work when my neighbours play their movies too loud, or yell, or play the freaking drums.
Sharing is Caring: Of course I’m going to just tell you to check out IFFO, the International Film Festival of Ottawa, which is happening until March 21! Still so many amazing films to watch! Only in Canada, sorry, eh? You can, right now, actually see me in one of the films- my friend Jed’s short film Goodbye, Papi screens with The Seeds We Sow.