Unfinished Business
(Shooting in Chicago, Photo by Shawn Miller)
“You cannot be an artist and stay in hiding.” –Michael Rabiger
Above is a quote from Rabiger’s book, Developing Story Ideas. I picked it up last week and immediately related as an audience, because it’s essentially a self-help book on overcoming creative obstacles. His philosophy is that the most impactful stories are made by writing from within, as opposed to writing from the “outside” - in other words, to the tune of another person’s work. He walks the reader through some helpful brainstorming exercises designed to create story prompts that you can then expand into a novel, film script, etc. Although I want to attempt some of the exercises, I’m more interested in what he has to say about the creative topic I struggle the most with: finding my artistic identity.
“Finding your own direction takes curiosity, a hunger to make sense of things, and a need to resolve the psychic marks and wounds left by key experiences. This is your unfinished business, a bundle of mysterious proclivities that we shall call your artistic identity.”
I love that he gave a name to what I’ve been basically struggling to define my entire life, ever since stories clumsily began forming in my head as a child. An artist’s ambition has everything to do with expressing their “unfinished business” – the same force compels me to want to create and tell stories in my own way. Now that I have an idea of what’s pushing me to be creative…I’m hopeful that at some point in the near future I can stop focusing on the “how” or “why” and start concentrating on doing the work.
So, in the spirit of “less thinking, more doing”…I’ve started working on my first Kicking the Habit assignment. I was at a work trip in Chicago this week and decided to put myself through a quick-fire challenge of writing a simple narrative that took place in the hotel and shooting it when I could find the free time. Since I was spending the week in a different city, I felt compelled to bring home some footage that I could make something out of. It was difficult at first to even put words to paper…but eventually I woke up one morning with a prompt. This weekend, I’ll spend some time editing and will be posting a short video!
Since my goal is to get back into the habit of making creative videos, I really needed to commit to reading about the story writing process again. The last time I bothered being interested in the subject was film school. Back then, I was self-assured enough in my writing ability to believe that it was the only thing necessary for crafting stories. It turns out that I was just being arrogant, and by not exploring my own experiences or trusting my perspective on life, I was actually limiting my ideas.
Creativity is a nebulous concept and I could probably spend the rest of my life having never figured out what my unfinished business is all about. However, at least now I have something to work towards and I don’t feel so aimless about what I need to do from here on out. I’ve thrown myself into the fire and although the first couple of videos may be rough around the edges, I’m hoping to find my stride in the coming year. Time to work on self-examination and trusting my instincts…
