Make The Next Thing Possible

What happens when you stop waiting and work with what you have..

Tom Ashley and Lucy Scott Smith in Lovers Lane

My attitude to work has always been: tell me what you need, what you can afford and when it has to be finished, and I’ll find a way to create some magic within those boundaries.

I’ve been fortunate to make a living in the creative industries. I enjoy making things for other people, for their audiences, and striving to delight both. The goal was always to balance commissioned work with self-initiated projects. I’ve never quite given up on the ten-year-old who wanted to write and make films. But work can become all-consuming, and when it came to the things I wanted to commission myself to make, my ambitions seemed to put everything out of reach. I was writing screenplays that were simply impractical to produce within my means.

​I spoke to a coach about this. She was training, and so needed some low-cost clients to build up her practice hours. She was incredibly helpful in first getting me to talk about this, and then presenting a remarkably practical solution. 

I stated over and over how good I was at completing work on time, on budget and exceeding expectations. She suggested I act as my own client and develop a brief based on constraints. We discussed this and agreed I could manage two days, two actors and two locations. I also had a deadline: two months.  I wrote something that could exist within those constraints.

Creative ambition can be  paralysing: you imagine the finished thing but the money isn’t there, the time isn’t there, you don’t know the right people. Someone else seems to be several stages ahead of you. So you wait,  plan, improve the idea - tell yourself you’re working towards it.

 The question you are trying to answer is: how can I make The Thing. Sometimes it’s better to ask: How can I make Something?

 The larger ambition isn’t foolish, but waiting for an opportunity is. I hate the cliche, but to a certain extent it’s true: you do make your own luck. Sure, some people have it slightly easier - but lots of people have it harder. There is no use in comparing yourself to others, and making something is by far the best way to get out of the mindset that permission comes from someone other than yourself. 

One room, one afternoon, one actor, a tenner, five hundred words - whatever you have available is a constraint to push against. You don’t limit your ambitions by deciding to take the next step.

I hope I get to make some of the films that are currently just words on the page or characters in my head.

Making Lovers Lane reminded me that there is a difference between waiting for something to become possible and making something possible with what you already have