Finish Your Shit

the best advice i ever gave you

Hi there. I realise I’ve sent a mail out already today BUT I also realise that I’ve gotten a little off track.

Random photo:

This newsletter is here for struggling creatives, or creative lost souls even. It’s here to jointly commiserate in an unproductive but entertaining way, but it’s also here to actually help you become a … not struggling creative. A thriving and happy creative.

And this is the only real advice I feel creative people need… even when you’re so deep in the hole you’ve dug yourself that all advice feels like a punchline to the joke that is your life, this particular advice is like the sun that will pass over your hole once a day shining a little light into your otherwise dark and pathetic world.

Once again, I’m not being dramatic in order to make you sad or feel sad for me. I’m describing real feelings I assume other struggling creatives feel. The struggle is real. The world is against you. You must fight for your right to party as a creative in this world that, yes, well, runs partly on creativity with TV and advertising and so on, but is a little UNFORGIVING to creatives who have not sold themselves to a partciular form of commercial creativity early on.

Am I making any sense? I went to a new coffee shop today and got absolutely shit faced on hand drip. It’s amazing I made it home. That was 12 hours ago now and … well… you know the and by now.

Oh, yes, that light that passes over your dreary hole is currently blinding you:

FINISH YOUR SHIT

It’s hard to focus on a single project when you love all kinds of creative everythings, but it’s actually kind of important to manage this and make sure you’re not wasting your time, and the time of anyone who has any kind of emotional/financial investment in your life. Like a spouse. So FINISH YOUR SHIT because you owe it to the non-struggling non-creative people around you to at least be a sem-functional creative.

If you don’t finish things and get them out there into the world, it’s hard to look the people you love in the eye and tell them you tried. Because they will know, as you will know, that you procrastinated your ass off, flip-flopping to avoid the menacing potential of failure in the real-world.

Making sense? It makes sense to me because this is all I’ve ever done.

Some practical tips for FINISHING YOUR SHIT:

Limit the number of consecutive projects. It’s OK to have more than one, I think, but maybe not to have multiple long term or medium term projects. For me it makes sense to have a short term, a medium term, and a long term project. And this is only because it is absolutely, scientifically provenly impossible for me to do only one thing and stay sane/happy. You have to decide these things for yourself because they’re very particular to an individual, I guess.

Right now, I’m working on:

• photo zine (short term)

• new game (long term)

• this newsletter (medium term)

And then there’s some real world things like making a new resume to finding a new job because my current job has clearly forgotten I exist, which is also very funny to me, but I’m fine with it.

(As a side note, I’m extremely fucking proud of myself for having asked for that job in the first place, even more fantastically proud of my self for doing the actual job, and stupendously surprised and, yes, proud again, of myself for actually enjoying this job. I’ve renewed faith in myself as a functional human being. If I have to move on that’s fine, I’m moving on with a much better head).

I’m thinking of trying to find a design job again, or even a consistent design freelance job. I’m not yet convinced that I have no professional value as a designer, as hard as the world has worked at convincing me of this. Or maybe despite how often I have told myself this story? I’m not sure, I’ll ask my therapist.

OK over and out. I said “I” a lot in the last half of this email but whatever, I only really understand your problems through my own, so get used to that I guess.

One more thing before the sun inches away from your cosy grotto at the bottom of the hole you exist in:

FINISH YOUR FUCKING SHIT

I hope the emphasis feels appropriate. I will also endeavor to FINISH MY SHIT.

PS. TWIST! That random photo has a dude sitting on the top of the mountain (he’s about 3 pixels wide) enjoying a full face of sunlight. I don’t know if this will ever be us or not, but if we never FINISH OUR SHIT I know it won’t be.

Laters.