7. Diamonds are Newsletter
Weird times, eh friends? And a weird email to match.
The Usual Explanation: If this is your inbox’s first time testing positive for one of my quarterly newsletters (this is now the 7th), know that they can be easily vaccinated against by emailing me to opt out. That said, I hope this mishmash of updates, thoughts and recommendations isn’t malignant enough to warrant excision and perhaps even serves a quasi-symbiotic function. Either way, hello!
An Abnormal Update: Usually I write these emails while sitting at my desk (or kitchen table if my desk is being too guilt-trippy about whatever script I’m supposed to be working on). Sometimes I write at coffee shops (if my whole house has caught nagging desk syndrome) or even at video village (but only if the director is truly amazing (or terrible). But then the film industry saw its shadow (in the form of reasonable requests by actors and writers) and voted to prolong winter.
I adapted by adopting a rigorous routine while self-isolating in my home. I completed a few personal projects that I’m very proud of (more on them in future emails) but by the end of my quarantine month I found my productivity (and satisfaction) waning and so pendulumed across the normalcy spectrum to a much more chaotic (and even less lucrative) lifestyle which has landed me, at this moment, mid-air, somewhere over someplace between Bangkok and London.
Sometimes these rambles and their ensuing lists have themes. Sometimes they don’t. This one will. And also won’t. As I navigate the Venn diagram of chaos and routine with particular focus on the ghastly ass-crack of overlap where so many of us find ourselves stuck (and unstuck). Anyway, here’s a list:
1. Resolution Charts – A decade ago I began posting my New Years’ Resolutions on Facebook in an attempt to crowd-source accountability. I still failed at most of these resolutions because… resolutions. That is, until I created a sort of scorecard to track my progress throughout the year. Complete success. So, I stuck with it, making the scorecards (which became excel spreadsheets) more and more complex each year. I’ve since internalized many of those goals and have pared down the spreadsheets to become more manageable ‘Don’t Break the Chain’ style trackers. I’ve continued to use a simple one to keep myself sane while bouncing around the temples and night markets of Thailand. If you’re interested, hit me up and I’ll gladly send you a few iterations of my tracking charts. Or check out apps like THESE (which I used for a while). A good way to get into a fixed routine. But also…
2. Break Your Routine – I’ve long since realized that whatever process I use to write a script will never quite work again. Reinventing the wheel seems to be part of my wheel, and I’m just beginning to accept this instead of beating myself up over it. The same goes for my daily routine. Whenever I shout ‘yes, I’ve finally found a system that works!’ I know that I’ll become unenthusiastic about it the next day. So now I lean into that. Of course, like an overly cumbersome task tracking chart that becomes a task in and of itself, spending tons of time trying to re-ignite productivity is alarmingly anti-productive. Fortunately, this can be curtailed to an extent by stealing…
3. The Routines of Others – In the past I highlighted the incredible book Daily Rituals which details the messy lives of countless geniuses, but for even deeper dives into creatives and how they work, check out the The Directors series by Robert Emery on Audible, Dan Simpson’s Writer’s Routine podcast, or this great Writing Cooperative assemblage of writers in their workspaces. The picture of Dalton Trumbo writing in his bathtub now adorns the wall above the tub where I spent daily hours during my isolation month stewing in creative ideation like a… I dunno, a roux or something. Often with…
4. Brain.fm – Which is an app that plays music ‘scientifically composed’ to aid varying types of focus. There’s apparently research behind it, which allegedly justifies the cost (69.99) per year, as opposed to the relative freeness of say, Lofi Girl or Binaural beats on Spotify or Youtube, or a cheap white noise machine (I always sleep to the sound of rain). To me though, the cost serves as part of the reason it works. Like a gym membership, the knowledge that I’m paying actual money for something, and the consequent feeling of waste if I don’t use it to its full potential, serves as a motivator to aid me in…
5. The War of Art – Aside from Daily Rituals (and of course, Cloud Atlas) the book I most frequently give as a gift is this short gem by Steven Pressfield. I was initially irritated by how vague it seems but I’ve since fallen in love with it as a motivational tool that personifies ‘resistance’ as the evil entity that stands between you and anything worth doing, whether that is writing, traveling, selling a kidney, deleting an email, who knows. For other books in a similar vein, check out Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones or Rick Rubin’s recent The Creative Act. My advice, as with most screenwriting guides: don’t feel obliged to follow ALL the methods in these books. Sometimes, one small nugget outweighs the rest of the book. For example…
6. Morning Pages – I’m not a fan of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, but the tool proposed in the first ten pages is worth the purchase price. Basically, sit down and dump your thoughts onto paper each morning. She recommends 3 handwritten pages. I prefer five-minute typed Microsprints (which I discovered via Chris Fox). But whatever works, run (or sprint) with it. Or vary it up. This or a version of it has been a mainstay of my tracking charts over the years. Whether the word purge is meditative and introspective, random and rambling, or targeted towards a specific project, I’ve found that just getting my mind gears turning and fingers clickety-clacking is a great way to clear the life fog. And then I send the output to everyone I’ve ever met. I’m kidding. Probably. But speaking of unwanted reading…
7. Read Against Your Beliefs – Like most people (or so I’ve read) I find comfort in reading things that validate what I already know or believe. Reassuring. But that’s not always good. For creative people to portray compelling antagonists, it’s key to understand that to them, their beliefs are rational. This is an invaluable mindset in life as well. So, I recommend reading things that run contrary to your views. And I don’t mean Twitter rants. Read the work of the most articulate proponents of the concepts you dislike. If you’re conservative, read Sapiens or People’s History of the United States. If you’re an atheist read the Bible, or better yet, C.S. Lewis. If you’re deeply religious, read The Selfish Gene. If you’re liberal, try The Rational Optimist, or check out the book I’m reading right now, 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson. If you know anything about me and Jordan Peterson, you’ll know that I find many of HIS views (especially about gender) abhorrent. But he’s also a deep thinker and makes many compelling points. Hell, the book focuses substantially on the theme of balancing chaos and order (though he irritatingly likes to characterize the former as a ‘female’ force which must be controlled) and I have sufficient confidence in my self-control to neither be swayed by some smooth but ill-founded words, nor to freak out and get kicked off this plane for throwing my Kindle at the flight attendants. But anyway… back to adjectives…
8. Thai ‘krap’ – I’ve spent the last month in Thailand picking up very little of the language (being nearly tone-deaf qualifies as a serious handicap there) but one construct I find fascinating is that, like the Southern ‘Ma’am’ or ‘Sir’, Thai has gender-specific respect terms, but unlike English, these terms identify not the listener, but the speaker. So, when speaking respectfully, you constantly gender yourself with either ‘ka’ or ‘krap’. I tend to object to the over-importance we place on gender, but I do like the idea of a system where linguistically you’re perpetually choosing what to identify as, rather than assigning labels to others. Seems like a clever way to help people navigate the complexity and chaos. Not unlike…
9. Travel Friends – A few years ago, I was bored on a TV show so when it ended I booked an impromptu transatlantic cruise. On the ship, I met English English teacher Isla McLachlan who, 5 years later, visited New Orleans for Mardi Gras and is now sitting next to me on this plane because of course, she orchestrated this amazing Bangkok/London trip which has already resulted in my acquiring new travel friends, Rob Bentley and Liberty Miles, truly amazing companions and tour guides for the first few weeks of our journey. I trust that all three of these folks will indefinitely be a routine part of my life but they wouldn’t be were it not for my abrupt departures from the norm. Of course, with all friends, old or new, one great way to get to know them better is…
10. Slander! – Yeah, there’s no link to this one. Yet. Because it’s a party game I’ve designed, a simultaneously structured and chaotic (fitting, no?) ice breaker game, that after a few playtests with wonderfully eclectic groups of friends, I think has real potential to scale. So uhhh… if you happen to have connections in the board game industry, hit me up! You know, just in case this whole film thing never resumes. Can’t fill all my time with Pad Thai and email rambles, can I? And on that note…
That’s ten things. An exceptionally normal number for an even-more-all-over-the-place-than-usual list. And speaking of place, now I’m in Newbury and about to adopt a new quasi-routine for the next leg of my lengthy voyage, so I must say Cheerio.
To those of you who’ve made it this far, thanks for reading, and I hope some of this has been, if not helpful, potentially entertaining? Maybe?
If you’re working right now, congratulations! I hope you appreciate the structure of your routine, but occasionally find time to mess it up (like Koh Phangan’s monthly Full Moon Party).
And if you who aren’t, congratulations! I know that things may be hard at the moment but I hope there’s some silver lining in the ability to reassess things you may have taken for granted, and I hope you’re able to inject your life with just enough stability to keep you sane.
And either way, I hope you reach out to me any time to say hello and keep me updated on what you’re up to (especially if you happen to be in Europe because… Hi!). I don’t know what time zone I’ll be answering you from, but I look forward to it!
Anyway friends, I wish you all the best!
Cheers, krap…
David