There’s a Patton Oswalt bit in his stand-up special, Lollipops & Werewolves, that always stuck out to me as a creative. If you tune in to comedians then maybe you’ve heard it before. In the bit he’s comparing his movie-writing creative drive to that of the screenwriter of the 1977 movie “Deathbed: The Bed That Eats People”. Without spoiling too much of the whole bit, the part that stuck out to me was this segment*:
“…This guy thought up “Deathbed: The Bed That Eats People” and fucking FINISHED IT! — That means one of two things happened: he either NEVER had a moment’s doubt — just hit that typewriter every day, just going “Yeah! Then the pillow starts to smother them…! And — AWWW THIS IS AWESOME! Reach down, God, give me a high five! Boom!” — Well, here’s what’s worse: what if he had moments of doubt and then FUCKING WORKED THROUGH THEM!? That’s so much worse for me…!”
*(It’s really hard to write out a stand-up comedy bit and do it justice. Stand-up is for sure a spoken art.)
In short (and to totally annihilate the actual comedy), the bit is saying that someone out there wanted to write a screenplay which the main concept, from the sound of it, sucks to high heaven. HOWEVER, they believed in themselves enough to actually write the whole thing to completion, and then pitch it, and then it is ultimately cinematically actualized. Whereas, Patton is sometimes in the process of writing up to ten screenplays at a time but can’t find the inner fortitude to complete hardly any of them.
I guess the reason I bring that up is because I think those moments of doubt are so commonplace in the creative process that eventually you stop noticing them. If you believe in yourself as a creative and believe in your work as something worth seeing through, then moments of doubt are just part of the routine. That isn’t to say they don’t have stopping power, but I’m just getting really used to hitting walls and knowing that I’ll probably find some way to trudge forward.
The bit above is, unsurprisingly, an inspiring story in disguise. Sure, the movie (I haven’t seen it) is probably a real stinker, but heck, it got made, right?
Sheesh.
This is not a very good blog post this month…
It’s clear that I’ve hit one of those “moments of doubt” again, but this one is a tiny one. It’s not even the reason I’m a little late with this month’s post. It’s been a busy month and I seem to have only been able to put forth mental energy into this project.
That being said, I have started thumbnailing. That’s… honestly a really huge step! I’m looking forward to when the change happens in this blog. The change from ruminating on the challenges of the creative process, to the real progress. I can’t wait to start showing work instead of fruitlessly cataloging frustrations with my creative ineptitude. I’m going to win at this someday.
Punching out, now. We’ll be back next month with another update. There just isn’t a whole lot to say right now.
Still alive. Still aiming for the future.
❤ Casey