Embrace Your Weird
Page 15
It was hard, but I noticed that after stints of unplugging, I would start to be inspired again. I began to brainstorm new projects. I spent way less time doing my hair for selfies. I’m not saying everyone needs to go cold turkey from tech in order to give their brains daydreaming R&R. But let’s face it: “Eureka!” will never come from reading a Facebook status update. Unless someone literally types in, “Eureka!” In which case, use the smiley face option as a response.
Even simply building in twenty minutes a day to take a walk or gaze at the sunset is sending an invitation to our brains to play. Like dropping our dogs off at the dog park. “Have fun! I won’t interrupt. Just let me know what you discover, please. And if you poop, I’ll clean it up!” When we give our brains a little room, we’ll never know where they may wander. And what they may discover.
We don’t have to be completely hands-off, though. While maintaining the freedom to explore, we can start to nudge our attention in certain creative directions. “I really want to learn how to do figure drawing. Let’s go to the museum and look at boobs in paintings to see how they evolved over the ages. Fun, artistic, AND scientific!” As long as we maintain the spirit of play in our ventures, we will always find fertile ground.
I took a stand-up class a few years ago and was, naturally, terrified. I’m very good at sharing my opinions from behind a computer screen, but in front of real humans? Possibly fatal. I was delighted to discover that writing stand-up comedy, at the heart of it, is just allowing our brains to look at the world in their unique way and recording those observations. Particularly the snarky ones. It’s one of the purest ways to channel our weirdnesses. (And at free open mic nights, where comics try out new material… it’s definitely possible to see a LOT of weirdness.) When I forced myself for a few months to walk through the day, pen and tablet in hand, I was astonished at how much my brain actually produced. Especially with the snark. How the material was received is irrelevant. (They laughed. Generally.) But mostly I was just struck by how much potential creativity we all leave on the table by not giving our brains room enough stretch.
* * *
Take a day and embrace boredom. Every time you reach for your phone, stare at a tree instead. Let your brain sit in idle whenever you can. It’s only one day, you can do it! Write down whatever occurs to you throughout that day. Any weird thought that separates you from the mainstream. Anything that makes you smile.
Think about it: all of the above is just a fraction of the creativity you could have if you gave yourself a DAILY dream break!
* * *
In essence, play is the fuel that gets us out of our comfort zones and into the unknown with minimal scariness. Yes, we have to “go to there” in order to be creative. But why use force when we can samba? I’ve taken improv comedy classes on and off for over a decade. I do it because it helps me be in the present moment, relaxing and reacting, with no plan in hand. (Which is very hard for a savant-level control freak like me.) Minutes on stage feel like HOURS when it doesn’t go well. And often it doesn’t. But when the magic happens, it’s surreal to have something come out of my mouth I never knew I had in me. “Who’s in there, and why is she so relaxed and funny?” It’s freaky and awesome. And shows me that, with the right attitude, we can tap into so many unexpected thoughts and dreams. I hate to introduce the douchey word gamify into the book, but wherever you can infuse gameplay in your life? Do it!
Drive home a different way every day. Secretly wear weird underwear with unicorns on it. “Why does Bill have that odd smile on his face today?” Challenging ourselves in big ways and small to play with the world can only yield more creativity. “I challenge myself to get that can of soup from the cupboard before the refrigerator door shuts! I win… nothing! But I won!” There are infinite sandboxes we can play in!
* * *
Go to the mall and make up a game for yourself to play there. For example:
Count how many people wearing band T-shirts you can find in an hour.
Shop for the outfit you’d wear on a date with your fave movie star.
Spot five people who could secretly be spies and/or ninjas.
Browse the makeup store for the name of a potential cartoon nemesis (“Hex Appeal,” anyone?).
The only requirement is to come up with a game that makes you wear a secret smile while you do it!
* * *
Pick an object in the room with you. Describe below as many uses for the object as you can think of, other than the uses for which it’s intended. The more ridiculous, the better.
Then name ten things that it would NOT be useful for. Again with the ridiculous thing!
* * *
Write an online dating profile for your pet in the first person. But make them someone NO ONE would want to date.
* * *
Imagine you’re a time traveler.
Where would you go first?
Where would you NEVER go?
What would you bring with you?
What might you encounter that would surprise you in a good way? In a bad way?
What’s the one object you would steal?
Who would you take a selfie with?
* * *
It’s counterintuitive, but something as simple as narrowing our choices can activate a feeling of play in an amazing way. It’s what I love about writing comic books. It’s a very restrictive format. There are a set number of pages, only so much space per page, and no room for too much talking. (But lots of explosions and hidden identities!) It’s almost easier to be innovative when we have to work within strict limitations. That’s why the TV show Chopped is so satisfying. They don’t offer the chefs the whole pantry; they give them jackfruit and pig’s feet and expect them to make magic. It’s amazing what people come up with. And it’s surprising that, however good a chef someone is, they’ll absolutely never in a million years make me want to eat pig’s feet.
* * *
Look up from this book, name the first object you see in the room, and write it below.
Now write a title of a movie with that word in the following genres:
Western:
Action:
Horror:
Romance:
Fantasy:
Science Fiction:
Oscar-Worthy Drama:
Slogan for Dish Soap:
* * *
Write a story starting each sentence with a different letter of the alphabet.
* * *
Brainstorm ten new dishes based on your favorite ingredient.
Which sounds the tastiest to you?
Why not give it a shot? There’s always takeout if it fails!
* * *
Fill in the dialogue below. Give yourself a five-minute timer.
Congratulations. You just made a comic!
* * *
When we make a habit of living our lives with a playful attitude, we can be secure in knowing that we have a tiny SPARK kindled inside us (one that we can rev like an engine) to get us over and through the bumps we encounter in our creative projects. Because however satisfying it is to challenge ourselves with “Make a list of everything that’s yellow!” we all probably want to build toward something bigger. Whether it’s sewing a quilt for your mom’s birthday or making a movie in our backyard on our iPhone, we can choose to treat any act of creativity like a maze. When we reach a dead end we can either A) try to bash the wall in front of us with our head to get through, or B) say, “That didn’t work. But that looks like a fun way to try over there!” I have done a LOT of head bashing in my day.
But what if we have a vague idea of a bigger creative project but don’t even know where to start?
Well, we can use others’ work to give us a playful boost! No, I’m not encouraging plagiarism; please don’t go write a script called Star Tracks and tell the lawyers I said it was okay. But in order to spark play, we can use other people’s work as a springboard, to whatever degree we need to feel joy while creating. Training wheels aren’t for sissies,
they’re for EVERYONE. (My grandpa told me that at age six and he was right!)
From reading a dozen Westerns for research because we want to tell a story with someone in a cowboy hat but don’t know where to start, all the way to something more direct, like using the characters of Harry Potter to make hand puppets, or painting fan art dedicated to Breaking Bad (cool meth lab, bro!). If someone else’s work helps us get in touch with our inner sense of play, there isn’t a moment wasted in our using it to PRACTICE.
Without my love of games, I wouldn’t have created any of the web series I did. Gaming was an inspiration that gave me a jumping-off point to get into filmmaking. I’m GRATEFUL for it! It’s similar to why coloring books are so satisfying. We’re given a head start with the underlying drawing to fill in something unique to us. There is no embarrassment in enjoying them. Hell, I’ll do it in public. With crayons.
I can’t tell you how irritated I get when people sneer at fan art and fan fiction, or put down someone’s creativity because it’s “derivative.” In more high-brow galleries, there have been whole art exhibits dedicated to the works Picasso inspired. The director Quentin Tarantino is famous for inserting shot-for-shot homages to old movies he loves in his own. In my opinion, homage/fanfic? They’re just cousins who can’t marry legally because they’re a little too close. It’s all a question of degree. If Buffy inspires someone to write a book series about a woman who stabs things… in my opinion, there can never be enough lady-stabbing, so have at it!
Tweak a recipe! Rewrite a famous poem for fun! Try on different creativity and see how it fits! We don’t always need to start with a blank bolt of cloth and make an outfit from scratch. We may only be ready to decorate an existing jacket with a fancy pin at first. But if we do THAT enough times, we may be able to build up the confidence one day to rip it into pieces and remake it completely into a dress. Or a jumpsuit. That style is in, but it makes me look stubby, so I’m a pass, but you do you, dude.
Whatever degree allows us the most fun is the RIGHT degree. Bottom line, we’ll never know if a creative area is a place we want to play unless we try!
* * *
Draw in weird expressions on the faces below.
In the empty space, draw your own figure from scratch in the style of the others.
Use inspiration wherever you can find it to start creating!
* * *
You win a vacation to go inside your favorite fictional world. What is the world and what do you do there? Do you encounter some of the characters from the original creation? Write what could happen below when you interact!
* * *
Find a painting you love. Draw your own version in the first box. Then do a copy of your copy. And then a copy of a copy of a copy.
Do you see how your own identity comes out as you get further and further from the source?
* * *
Take a song you love and rewrite one stanza of the lyrics.
Now make up a slightly different melody to go with it.
Then make it more different. Then more different.
At what point does the song start to become yours more than theirs?
* * *
One of the most successful pieces of content I’ve ever made was the music video “Do You Want to Date My Avatar.” It has almost thirty million hits on YouTube. (Not as many as “Baby Shark,” but respectable.) The reason I wrote it? I was bored one day and, for fun, I made a playlist of all the cheesy dance songs that made me happy when I was procrastinating from my “real” work. Then I thought, I can do this myself! I studied probably thirty of them (DANCE PARTY!) and then wrote my own version. On a lark. But it turned into something more. Because I had so much fun with it, I was sure other people would too. And they did! My outfit from that video is now in the Smithsonian American History Collection. It feels pretentious to even type that, sorry, but it’s true!
We can never tell what the result of our creative ventures will be. But if we feel that sense of play while we work, we can always rest assured that whatever direction we go is the right one for us. So when in doubt, ask, “What would a clown do?”
Actually, please don’t. Stephen King does that. It’s the stuff of nightmares. Let me rephrase: Look at any problem as an opportunity to play.
What is that? I literally said DON’T do the clown question! Ugh! My illustrator has gone rogue. Oh well. At least they seem to have fun. Drawing a clown.
I’m going to go shower now.
Oh God, the clown is in the shower with me!
Help!
7 QUESTS
It’s time to gather what we’ve learned about ourselves and set out on an epic journey toward a more creativity-filled life. WOOT! FOREVER ROAD TRIP!
* * *
Write ten words below describing how you feel about “creativity.”
Now compare what you wrote to the list you made on page 17.
Is there more positivity? More hope? Less “blah”? Great!
* * *
Our creative makeover is almost finished. We look fabulous and are ready to attend the ball/rave/Lovecraftian portal-opening party/etc.! Head-to-toe buffed. We. Look. Gooooood!
Um… where do we go from here?
Hark! A Quest!
Rather, several of them. That will never end.
I’m scaring everyone, aren’t I? Let’s reset.
We’ve done a deep dive into ourselves. We have the tools to get our voices out in the world that we didn’t have before. We’ve faced our fears and can brandish our weirdness with pride.
So what quests can we embark on to make sure we don’t forget everything we just learned? Like when I swear off carbs, then eight hours later I’m stuffing a baguette in my mouth.
Make Room
It would be great if, after reading this book, we were all so taken by creative urges that we spent every spare minute working on them. But that’s probably unrealistic and/or unsustainable and/or borderline obsessive. (Kudos to obsessives, though. I ate oatmeal every morning for two years once. It was good for my colon and probably not much else.)
Most of us have full-time jobs and can’t quit to start leatherworking for a living. There are children and pets to feed, so forget sailing around the world in a self-built pirate ship for now. As we age, we become overburdened by obligations. Our Facebook feed epitomizes this. I mean, how often do we actually talk to that person from college who posts dozens of updates about their cat every day? We don’t CARE about Casey McWhiskers, but we can’t seem to bring ourselves to unfollow. In the face of all that, how can we add creativity and personal growth to our schedules? How is this going to work? Does Kohl’s have a special on space/time pockets we can escape into?
Everything we do is wrapped up in a series of checks and balances of our time. And one second spent on something we don’t like is a second away from something we’d love.
Yes, bills need to get paid, families fed, but it’s also necessary to be vigilant about our need to create. Like any garden, our lives become overgrown. We need to take time to trim back and make room. For the army of garden gnomes who will come alive in our hour of need if there’s a magical apocalypse… wait, what? Uh… like I said, trim back and make room! Forget everything I said after that.
* * *
Picture yourself as a tree. Write what is most important to you in the trunk area. What you can’t live without. Now start drawing branches and on each one of them, write something that takes your attention away from the trunk. Jobs. Hobbies. Nonessential relationships. Social media. Chores. Make a branch for everything that takes up your time and clutters your life. See all the things that are draining your roots? It would make any real tree topple! Your branches have to be pruned in order to make room for your new, more creative Hero-Self. So let’s make another tree.
In the trunk, write your life essentials again. Then start drawing branches, but only include things that are a priority for you. That enrich your life. Include the kinds of creativity you want to
prioritize. The more specific, the better.
Compare the two trees. What’s missing?
Now you know areas that need to be minimized or lopped from your life in order to make you freer to create. If there aren’t enough differences, don’t worry! Trimming trees too drastically can harm the trunk. (I say that with all the authority of someone who doesn’t know anything about arboriculture.) ANY trimming can allow you a little room. And all you need is a little to make progress.
* * *
Nothing is written in one fell swoop. This book was typed letter by letter. No matter what we have to deal with in our lives, we can keep moving toward our creative goals as long as we keep pushing forward. Just push it. Push it, real good.
* * *
What could you do for thirty minutes a day that would help you accomplish a larger creative goal? Fifteen minutes? Five minutes? Two?