Advice from a Writer (a real one)

Last night I attended a speaker session hosted by my school, where four professionals in the filmmaking industry came to talk about their careers. Out of the four—among them a lighting director for Pixar, an actor, a screenwriter, and a producer—I found the writer the most inspiring.

Ed Solomon is the guy who co-wrote Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures, and pretty much everything he said at the talk was completely honest and hilarious. All except for the moment when he answered in earnest a question about how to start a career.

The advice he gave echoed that of Elise yesterday. He talked about how important it is to keep working and keep creating, and to always try new things. It doesn't matter that a lot of what you write might be crap; everything is a process, and following one idea might lead you to a next great idea. The important thing is to not get stuck in one place or in one idea.

He also advised us not to get stuck on some dream of becoming famous or a belief that what you are working on will be a masterpiece. The idea probably sucks, in reality. So all of your work can't be about some great vision of success; the important thing is to keep at it because you love what you do. You have to have passion, dedication, and experience.

I really took his advice to heart. Along with writing, I also experiment with some video editing, and I love it so far. I know exactly what he means by just going for it no matter if the result turns out less than perfect. I love the process of creation so much that I'll jump into any idea that seems good at the time. Sure, planning and absolute perfectionism might make the final product even better, but at the same time, I lose that spark if I wait too long to start a video or try to fix every millisecond before moving on to the next. This has happened to me a few times, and it feels horrible because I end up abandoning the project. Meanwhile, it feels so free to just run with an idea and see where it takes me, to overlook the mistakes and keep going.

I agree with Elise— perfectionism can be crippling for anyone trying to create, and it's vital that we stop holding ourselves back with excuses of some other time when I'm less busy or someday when I'm inspired. We need to get started, even if it isn't perfect, or else we never will have anything at all.