It starts with the small

An itch, an idea, a connection, something - this is where creativity lies. In the minute parts of small things.

May 01, 2024

I pulled a thread deep inside me on Monday last week. A play came a-knocking with a persistent fist. I told the play it might like to enter a residency that closes April 30^th. And while I laughed, the play took me very seriously.

From a small shell and a bit of feedback, out plopped 12,000 words. That’s over an hour of theatre for those playing at home. The play wrote itself and threw scenes in jumbled disorder in flashes during my daily walk, begging me to hold tight to threads and get to my desk after hurdling bemused dogs to my journal’s safety. Thursday’s Anzac Day saw a march and a play bubbling, bubbling. It licked feverishly in my head during the minute’s silence and ignored the promise of café breakfast or club two up to land out of order and without stage direction to the tune of 5500 words. TOOL playing on repeat, gentle, insistent, dark, and like the play, with melancholic intensity.

I took the Friday off and worked some more. By day’s end, 9000 mewling, naked words stared balefully at me.

By Saturday, I was sick of the sight of it, but I added a play like shape, it’s writerly swaddling.

On Sunday I tended to the play’s voracious appetite with happy intentions and exhausted acceptance.

12,000 words finally made sense. The words DRAFT ONE appeared along with the cover page.

And now, it doesn’t matter what happens.

I have the first play I have written in several decades to massage and tinker with.

Freelancing small

Scale is out, small is in.

Paul Jarvis spoke of the Company of One. In Slow Productivity, Cal Newport takes that even further to challenge work versus visibly working.

I feel like I have to find a digital bolthole and rally a resistance, such is the nervy edginess I feel at the sound of big tech AI butlers turned harvesters.

Such is the way of modern-day freelancing.

Jack Conte, founder and CEO of Patreon, stood on a stage to announce the end of the follower. Conte spoke of Patreon as the alternative to these changes and big box mentalities.

As a person who funds part of their creativity via a Patreon, I’m inclined to agree.

Audiences are changing.

Our audiences are sick of the slick, big chain pub vibes and the indistinguishable décor of large tech companies. They feel largely ignored and commodified, like we do.

We’re sick of being the Podlings of the Dark Crystal, lined up and juiced, in analytics machines. We’re exhausted by the constant assault of noise. Sick of not seeking what we want. Of being skewered on irrelevant content.

Image: thinking back to the days of a farm lake in Tilba looking at the mist and noticing the small in everything.

I’m exhausted, aren’t you?

I must believe in exhaustion is opportunity. To move away from the vibes of a sweaty, boring nightclub crammed with cheap shots and too many bodies.

I came across this gem from Seth Godin:

“We happily give up our freedom and our income in exchange for having someone else take responsibility for telling us what to do next.”

· What if that doesn’t suit me anymore?

· What would happen if we just stopped listening?

· Would the sky fall in if we took our fans and followers off these unblinking, voracious, indifferent platforms and took them to somewhere we called home?

· Are any of the genuine freelance jobs coming from them anyway? Really truly?

· Are there other places filling the void and vacuum?

Ask yourself:

· Does social media feel useful – or like homework to me?

· Is it dictating too much of my creativity?

· Would my audience follow me?

· What digital real estate do I like that gives me intimacy and freedom?