From Now On

Watching #The Greatest Showman and, like many others, each song has lines of lyrics that speak to me.

Everything from #The Greatest Show where one moment I'm one of the renegades in the ring, the next I'm anticipating the buried ache in my bones that will finally be exposed and, with it , the impossible will come true!

#Rewrite the Stars where love can change my fate, #Tightrope where I hope that who I'm trusting will catch me when I fall, #The Other Side when I'm in two minds about taking a new, crazy, opportunity (!) that could re-direct my life, and, of course, #This Is Me, the anthem of stepping into the light with confidence and pride for everything that I am.

But, #From Now On, the chant of turning around bad habits, appreciating those you love, and marching forward with the best intentions is the one with a lyric that caught me off guard, this one: "...and we will come back home." I had to examine the question, 'what is home?'. Do they mean the circus? Or each other's company? Or the sense of being part of something more than themselves?

Having lived in 6 countries over the course of my life so far, and with immediate family scattered across 4 of them, what is home? Is it the place I spent the longest period of my life? Is it the place I have the fondest memories? Is it the place I was born? The place I live now? Is it the people who give me the comfort of home? Or is it broader still, like coming home to your senses?

Home is a term that is taken for granted, used loosely, but what does it mean? The lyric gave me pause because, hearing it in the context of the song, expanded its meaning. Home becomes something of your choosing, a place (physical or ethereal) that will always welcome you back no matter where you've been, what you've been through, or how long you've been gone.

So, without further ado, welcome home.

In the words of Yoda...

"Do, or do not. There is no try."

I'm in the process of changing habits and one of the ways, as a lot of people say, starts with the language used to make these changes. I find myself saying 'try' a lot and am realizing that it's a way out of committing to whatever it is that I've decided to do. Some examples: "I'll try to get out today", "I'll try to call this afternoon", "I'll try to write". When I catch statements like this coming out of my mind or mouth, I correct it: "I will go out today," "I will call this afternoon", "I will write.". I've only started doing this since yesterday, haha! But I can already see how powerful it is. Even if I fail in the beginning to follow through, the intention of the words is so much stronger that I know it will become an instruction instead of a whim....and I follow instructions ;)

What tricks do you use to motivate forward movement, especially those of you who have a tendency towards laziness and/or procrastination, as I do!

Nine Eleven

Nine Eleven.

To those of us who were alive and cognizant at the time, those two numbers conjure a very specific meaning: September 11th 2001. The Twin Towers. Airplanes. 3000 souls.

Someone once pointed out to me that 9/11 is the American way of writing dates, but European countries will read this as November 9th. It's a small observation but interesting to note that two numbers, in that order, don't immediately symbolize the same thing to everyone.


On this day, the 20th anniversary, I can't help thinking about the fact that there are kids on their way to college that weren't alive on that pivotal day. I think about the difference between being a human who experienced a certain trauma or crisis, versus being someone who reads about it.


I grew up hearing about the World Wars, Korea and Vietnam but they were distant, intangible. They were dates in a history book, part of a bigger narrative to memorize so I could pass a test. In my first world comfort, living in a peaceful society, it was hard to imagine what my parents and grandparents lived through.


I remember the Cold War. I don't know that I was afraid of monsters under my bed, but the constant threat of something exploding between these nations gave me my own monsters. I imagined Russian soldiers patrolling the halls of our house at night. Every time I made a dash to the bathroom, I managed to escape their sight, and live to sleep another night.


It's strange for me to think that there are teenagers, young adults, and people yet to be born into this world who will only ever read, or see films and documentaries about something that I lived through. It wasn't just two AIRPLANES crashing into BUILDINGS in the middle of a city. It was NEW YORK CITY. It was AMERICA. It changed that feeling of being a country impervious to outside attacks. Somehow, this great power had become vulnerable.


It was so unbelievable, that conspiracy theories cropped up almost immediately. It was an inside job, it had to be! No other country has the capacity or the audacity to make this happen.


It was puzzling, tragic, horrifying, terrifying, and it changed freedoms that we had taken for granted for so long. Being able to get on an airplane without a full body check, seeing a bag on a bus, in a subway, on the street, without assuming it was a bomb. Looking at everyone with suspicion, especially if they had a big backpack.


Will there ever come a time when each generation doesn't have a date (or dates) emblazoned in their collective memories because their whole world changed, and everything that was lost could never be regained?


If it must be so, let the next date be because we lost something that no longer serves us in a positive way, and everything we gain from that loss makes us collectively better to ourselves, each other, and the planet.

Make Do and Mend

How many of you are 'make do and mend' types?

People make fun of tendency to save things (not hoarding!) assuming I'm just keeping garbage. But most of the things I save are because I can foresee a future use for them. That extends to my way of making a meal out of disparate things in the fridge that most people wouldn't see as 'mealable'*, and re-purposing random items for my needs.

*The other reason it's easy for me to do this is because I have a very simple palette and a lot of times these 'meals from nothing' are actually throwing together a bunch of items I like and eating them all at once instead of individually.

Here are a few examples of what I mean.

I tend to collect boxes and you’ll see what that has stood me in good stead recently.

Example 1

I don't currently have a place to keep my sheet music so I'm using a fan box that comes up to windowsill height, and fits perfectly in the corner next to me by the piano. Worst case scenario, I get a nice table runner and hide the box under it. No one needs to know!

Example 2 and 2b

I've been waiting for a piano stand for over a month. For reasons unknown, the first two that I ordered never came and the only note I got from Amazon was 'underliverable'. Mkay. I've now ordered a third stand, waiting to hear what's wrong with this one. In the meantime, after seeing my poor piano languishing on various couches, I decided to use my bar stools as a stand, and a piece of wood board (that I saved from a mirror I put together) to extend the music stand so I could clip entire pieces of music along the board instead of having to turn pages in mid-song. Winner!

I've done the same thing with a makeshift bedside table until I get a proper one.

Example 3

It's summertime and it's hot and humid where I am. I ran clean out of ice cream and couldn't go out to get more for a few days for various reasons. I looked at my peanut butter and thought 'that'll freeze, right?'. Pulled out an empty tray of ice cubes, put a dollop of peanut butter in each one, topped with chocolate syrup, and put them back in the freezer. A few hours later, chocolate and peanut butter ice cream cubes! Full disclosure, I did not get the proportions right for my taste, a little too much peanut butter to chocolate but you get the gist! Last summer I did a similar thing by making coffee, letting it cool, filling up an ice cube tray, freezing it, then throwing it in a blender with milk and chocolate. Iced mocha!

So, most of these are pretty simplistic placeholders but they do the job. Shout out to all you who find ways to make things work where others just see garbage and peanut butter :)

Let’s hear your creative solutions!

Cardboard  music holder and sheet music board.

Cardboard music holder and sheet music board.

Bar stool piano stand.

Bar stool piano stand.

Placeholder nightstand.

Placeholder nightstand.

Sweet peanut butter and chocolate ice cream.

Sweet peanut butter and chocolate ice cream.

Drawing a Character and Giving Them a Life Coach

There is a lot of great material out there about how to create believable characters that readers care about. Any combination of questions can help you check how robust and dimensional they are for instance:

Who wants what?

Why can’t they have it?

Why do I care?

While questions like the above are valid, they are very broad so in some ways trying to answer them can be overwhelming. Having said that, even when questions get more precise, I find myself shoehorning answers in to fit the question which means one version of the character is not correct.

It’s common knowledge that we don't all take information in the same way, so exercises that might work for most people, won't be as effective for others.

As an example, when I heard someone describing elements of drawing ie: overlapping, negative space, contrast, proportion--it resonated with me in a way that other exercises haven't. Here were my initial thoughts:

Negative space.

This makes me think of what a character is NOT saying, and what does that tell us about them?

Overlapping

How do they fit in the world with the other characters?


Contrast

How distinct are they from the people and environment they're in?


Perspective

Where is this person coming from, where are they trying to get to? What are they seeing in their horizon line? What are they missing, or seeing more of because of where they're standing?


Essentially, they're the same questions, but when I think about it in terms of how this character fits into an image, I can see it more clearly. The hilarious thing, dear reader, is that I can't draw for shit....which is why I write ;)


Another approach I discovered more recently is thinking about our characters as if we're their life coach. Due to being in some form of lockdown for almost a year now, I ended up sitting in on a 5 day course which included some training with Millionaire Success Habits writer Dean Graziosi. I continued to follow Dean on a few other training courses and came across one of his exercises to help find out about yourself, and what it is that really drives you.

The exercise is called 7 Levels Deep, and it's basically asking ‘why’ to a question 7 times, until you get to the truth of your first answer.

Here is an example.

We'll take this character from a story I started earlier this year called Lucy. Her estranged sister has disappeared in search of their father, and Lucy goes looking for her.


1) What is important to you about finding your sister?
Making sure she's okay.


2) What is important to you about making sure she's okay?

To know I haven't lost her.


3) What is important to you about not losing her?

She's the only tie I have with my dad.


4) What is important to you about your dad?

Understanding why he left.


5) What is important about finding out why he left?

Needing to know why his books were so much more valuable than his family.


6) What is important about knowing which is more valuable?

I always had the feeling he was taken, not that he left.


7) Why is it important to know which one is the reason he left?

It will define me.


Yikes! So, on the surface, she's trying to find her sister because she wants to save her, but underneath it all, she needs to find her sister so she can find her dad and confront him to finally understand who she is. Therefore, her superficial journey will follow one line of inquiry but the negative space, the contrast, the perspective, will unveil a different story.


For those of you looking for other ways to find your characters, hopefully these are some helpful tools to add to the character development arsenal!

Good luck, we’re all counting on you!

2021 Begin Again

Well, it’s not actually beginning AGAIN but continuing to begin.

Even though I’ve had two and half weeks to fully focus on personal projects, I’ll be honest, I’ve pissed the time away. But, maybe it’s okay?

Maybe taking your foot off the creative gas pedal gives you time to allow ideas to percolate. Sometimes an unexpected piece of music, song, news sound bite, film or tv show you’ve never seen before, presents you with a missing piece of something that you didn’t realize snagged your mind.

I’m not sure what obfuscated my thoughts this time. It might have been the holiday season, thinking of friends and family, making plans for the coming year, and being blindsided by flooded cupboard that contributed to my block.

Having said that, the most likely culprit was the nagging thought that kept circling which had to do with my current manuscript. I keep wondering if it’s worth finishing. I ‘finished’ this story years ago but have overhauled it about four times since then. This is my latest rendition and I’m aiming for a March deadline to submit it to an online publisher BUT as I work through it, I just wonder if it’s worth re-writing at all? Or if I should just let it rest in its latest form, and start something fresh?

If you feel like you’re wasting time with a creative endeavor, it makes it very easy to get distracted! It seems that the first thing I need to do is commit to the idea that this is worth re-telling right, and keep trucking!

For anyone else feeling stuck—We’re all counting on you. Keep going!!

2020 Ending

This year has been surreal to say the least but I, personally, cannot complain. I was lucky enough to not get ill and, being a closet hermit, meant the quarantine did not affect me much.

While I can’t get my head around the number of people who have lost their lives in this pandemic, not to mention the even bigger number who are worse off physically, mentally and/or monetarily, I feel like I need to focus on the positive things that have come from an otherwise dreadful year.

A number of standard practices had to change due to lockdowns around the world, the biggest ones being working from home, and slamming the brakes on vehicular activity which, among other things, is a contributor to climate change. Now, if you don’t believe in climate change, that’s fine but this isn’t the forum to argue it. We can do that another time over a coffee or a meal when a proper discussion can ensue :)

On the WFH front, many industries that up to this point laughed in the face of anyone who suggested a remote work situation, have managed to pull out all the stops in short order and carry on (almost) as normal. This includes my industry (visual effects).

Now, I’m not going to sit here and say it was cake. It was not. There were challenges, obstacles, frustrations, and extra hours.

We work as teams, sometimes very big teams, and communication between departments is crucial for time sensitive deliveries to clients. I spent more time on video calls than I would normally spend talking to humans on the floor, and this was because in the office my team would be in proximity of each other so you can listen in on relevant conversations, holler out to someone, or look over the shoulders of the crew to see how they’re getting on with their images.

None of the above is happening in my apartment. I’m blind.

We had group catchups twice a day when we looked at images, but who knows what was happening in between! Some could steer off course for half a day or a day before you caught it. If you want to share information that is easier to explain than writing a dissertation on one of five messaging systems, you have to get on a call.

We spent a lot of time on calls.

But, we muddled through. We got a system that worked and, despite ongoing frustrations, we did deliver our show on time. What this proved was that it was possible for an industry obsessed with NDAs (non disclosure agreements), total confidentiality, and team work to work from home.

Studios and facilities getting on board with WFH opens up a world of possibilities, both for the facility who can now increase their crew capacity without having to pay expensive city prices for seats, and for individuals who can have a better work/life balance.

I love my job, I love working but even I couldn’t complain about the extra time I had in the morning to wake up, exercise (maybe), have some breakfast, and ease into my day. I loved making my own meals, being able to calibrate my day to suit how busy it was, and really loved not coming home late every, dang, night. My commute isn’t bad, roughly 45 min door-to-door but when finishing work at 7.30p or later, suddenly my evening is gone by the time I get home.

The combination of talking to people (many) times a day, and being a closet hermit meant that I did not feel the full effect of isolation. I’m only now, after 10 months, beginning to feel the edges of cabin fever creeping in.

Hopefully next year is 100% better than this year, whatever that looks like!

On the pollution front, I only have the information I’ve heard about dirty cities shutting down, cars off streets, planes out of the air, and the immediate effect that had on our skies. I’m hoping that, as with the WFH, industries that chose to put us on a 30-year (or more) plan to less pollution, can use this as a kick-starter to start the change sooner, and bring the timeline in.

I saw a very inspiring film called 2040 (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7150512/).

I do understand that there are massive infrastructure issues that need consideration before we all just ‘go green’ but I also know big money industries will not take hits to their money lined pockets for the greater good. The film 2040 sets out how, if we start right now, we can change the world by 2040.

And here is one little way to start, use Ecosia (https://www.ecosia.org/) as your search engine. They plant a tree for each search. I’m in! Are you?

One thing I cannot forget about 2020 is seeing people coming together to support each other whether for the frontline workers, the supporters of Black Lives Matter, people helping their neighbors who were unable to mobilize, people taking the time to talk to friends, family and strangers about their mental health, and any number of other things that remind us of how beautiful we can be.

Finally, I have taken some time (many hours!) to revisit this past year and take account of the good, the bad, and the ugly. There was much more good than I anticipated. If you have the time to assess your year, what are the positives you can take into the next?

Why the Name?

The full quote, which I’ve pilfered from Airplane!, goes something like this:

“I just want to tell you both, good luck. We’re all counting on you.'“

Why have I chosen it for this blog (for now)? Because it amuses the crap out of me.

On the one hand it’s an encouraging statement to let the pilots know everyone is behind them, on the other, it’s a warning. “If you fail, we’re all dead. Good luck!”. How you receive the message says more about you than about the message.

How do I take it? It totally depends on the situation! In this case, I’d like to say we’re all counting on each other for whatever we can offer our communities and this world.

So, carry on, friend! We’re all counting on you ;)