📝🎭🎺 how to be a creative 🧵🎨🎬

The first in a series on creative life, starting with dos and don’ts for people who are aspiring to write, make, perform, or whatever your calling in life is.

Welcome to the first of the How To Be A Creative™ series, which seeks to help you be ~ your best creative self ~ To access the full post, make sure you have a paid subscription!

We creatives need help, but I don’t mean that literally.

My whole life I’ve always been “a creative,” be it during my obsession with creating abstract paintings in high school or pursuing performance in college or working as writer (and sometimes performer) as an adult: being creative has always been “my calling” — but no one ever helped me do this. There have always been key figures and supporters to keep the ship running — from

The Fox Is Black

‘s constant hype person-ing to the countless friends (Cole! Kirby! Lindsay! Logan! Lynn! Maury! Monica! Rax! And many more!) who pop up to share thoughts — but there was never that mentor or creative parental figure who guided me along a path. I’ve always longed for that, which is why I’ve written about the subject again and again: there’s a comfort in knowing you’re walking in a path behind someone, someone who you can ask questions and advice. That’s how all relationships should be and yet here we are, longing to be held as we (I.) approach the very late thirties. This is to say: I have yet to be taken under a wing despite jobs, despite grad schools, despite asking and, while not bitter, I have learned that I’m not alone in such a desire — and I want to make space to help others in the ways that I was searching for. Be the change you want to see in the world, you know?

After the week before last’s de facto creative state of the union, a lot of people reached out, commented, and messaged similar feelings and gave thanks for putting their frustrations and desires into words. I make no claims of being some big fancy anyone, but I am blessed to somehow have gotten paid to write in my life — and I continue to get paid to write. I take this as modest success, even if I continue to gnash my teeth and press my head through a wall because this book isn’t published and that story isn’t in X magazine. It’s okay! Because my creative practice is not about that: writing and creating for me is about sharing, about helping, about crafting a better world by expanding minds. If I always have to have a day job to be in pursuit of that, so be it. That’s life, if you’re not-rich.

Thus, a new series called How To Be A Creative™ where I hope to do just that. These posts will have an eye for all creatives, but certainly will be most applicable to writers given my background. I’m going to aim to write a post like this once a month, to be released as a part of the Tuesday paid posts. This is also to say: you’ll have to upgrade to a paid account to get full benefits (explainer on paid benefits here). If you’re a creative who cannot afford a paid subscription, please do not fret: reply to this email (or click the message box below) and let’s talk about it. I’ll see what we can do! The only reason why it’s “paid” is because it’s outside of the Sunday / “free” remit — and it takes quite a bit of time out of otherwise paid work-work time to write these.

So! In our first creative how-to, let’s cover some basic do’s and don’ts for being a creative which, in a lot of ways, will serve as a bio of how I ended up in this position, writing to you. Whether you’re struggling or excelling at your craft, use this as a way to add structure to your practice. This can be applied to that of artists, filmmakers, performers, and the like, which I’ll try to note: just translate and apply the “writing” to your medium. Stay tuned until the end as well, as you can vote in a poll for what the next How To Be A Creative™ post will be about. Now let’s do this! It’s a long one!!

DON’T: Give into doubts.

I first started writing in the late 2000s. While I always had a blog and contributed to local publications, it wasn’t until out of college and in Los Angeles that this medium turned direct. I was working as an assistant in television, pursuing dreams of performing and writing when I was not-working. At some point in the group project-ness that is theater and film, I found myself unfulfilled because I wasn’t actually making anything: having to rely on other people, having to work for months at the speed of theater and film, only to make something ephemeral at best, made me batty. So, I started pitching stories to free venues, my first “clips” being in a queer horror blog called Camp Blood and a 2010s party blog Guest of a Guest (which, yes, I did get to party with the Winklevosses and Armie Hammer), both of which I became a regular contributor to. I did it all because I wanted to share thoughts — but I almost quit because I was too caught up in the doubts, which I know many creatives get caught up in. Mine were simple: Anyone can write. Why should I? It’s not special as far as a medium, it’s not the most creative, and it’s not anything that I really care about or can make a living from. (More on that later too!) I hated reading. Writing was neither exciting nor sexy and I found it to be quite boring. This battle between me and the doubts eventually yielded

The Fox Is Black

and a few other friends having to basically hold me down and slap me in the face to say “You are really good at this! People want to hear your point of view!” I didn’t believe them but, all these years later, they were right. If you let the doubts — Am I going to be successful? Who will read this? Does anyone care? — get to you, you won’t do anything. Write all of those concerns down, let yourself validate them — and then burn them or rip them up. I mean that literally! They are a waste of your time. Get them out of your system and move forward.

DO: Have a thesis.

One way that I solved these doubts was by having a “thesis,” a sort of guiding question in my writing that I point to whenever I wonder why I’m doing what I do. This can also chase away the “Am I any good?” doubt because your thesis is unique to you. I never consciously formulated this but, over a period of years, I found that I was drawn and writing about similar things, which I started to verbalize. Thus, your thesis which should feel like a pitch: My work looks at the absurdity in humanity and the humanity in absurdity. This means I’m interested in the divorce drama unfolding in a zombie apocalypse or how we live in a caste system based on financial upbringings. This drives me to learn more, to seek out things that make my brain itchy, which I then synthesize into fictional works like the story of a man whose face starts to appear on billboards or into essays on how Millennials are having trouble growing up. Having a thesis defines your point of view: it releases your doubts because it gives you an approach — which is key to doing anything creative. It helps to answer the question of “What do I make today?” and “What’s the point?” because, as creatives, you’re your own boss, production team, manager, client, etc.: no one is going to give you assignments but yourself. Your thesis helps you get shit done.

DO: Something publicly…

A big part of being creative is exposing others to the thing you make. That’s as frightening as it is exciting. Creativity is based in a contract you make with others: I put this out into the world, you react to it. If you’re doing something privately, for love of the game, that’s great and that’s laudable — but you’re also a very evolved person who isn’t doing creative items that you want the world to see. And that’s great! I love that for you! That is valid. But I want to create things for the world to see. I don’t like hiding nothing under no bushels: I share what I make. I say this because it goes back to that contract: you have to create something (a blog, an art Instagram, a TikTok to share your character, a zine you put in shops) that can be shared. Post it on Facebook! Email it to your friends! Share it with your coworkers! This sounds stupid but your sharing things publicly, especially with people you love, trains them to know that you do such a thing. If you’re a painter and no one knows you’re a painter, why would they call you a painter? Why would they hire you to do painting jobs? Your sharing your work is about creating an identity that others ascribe to you, which then helps you make more: you create a feedback system. This is why writers who don’t share their writing make me wild: no one except you and your computer and maybe the places you’ve submitted to know that you’re writing. This makes publishing an uphill battle, versus expanding opportunities laterally as you move forward. My example is a website I started called Los Angeles, I’m Yours, which was a way to write about the arts and share my love of Los Angeles. I started this in 2010 and it grew because I shared everything I wrote on my Facebook, emailing local groups to read, even putting flyers around the city: I shared it with anyone who could read it. This then helped me get more subjects to write about as people submitted their art or events for a post: doing something publicly creates a demand, at the most, and a two way street of audience-and-creative, at the least. Even if the audience is one person, that’s huge. But there’s a key to this being successful: consistency.

DO: …and consistently.

So you’re doing something publicly, from your point of view. But are you doing it consistently? That’s the problem, as you have work and family and friends and life in general. How do you do the creative thing that you love? This is the Sisyphean task that you set before yourself: being creative without burning out. Consistency is key for two reasons —

• It trains you, to ensure that you are creating. Set a time every day or week to do the thing you want to create. Make a realistic schedule and tweak it to figure out when you’re your best. Give yourself a hard deadline to publish or share what you make, regardless of if you’re proud. Your creative time and consistency in this should become something you miss. Like exercising, once you hit a groove, missing a workout feels like a crime: you feel bad, you crave doing it, you wish you could do that instead. That’s the point! Make being creative a daily (or weekly, etc.) habit.

• It trains your audience. This is arguably more key and helps you build a deadline via accountability. If you post and share a blog post every Tuesday at 9AM, people will start to look out for your post. They’ll start reading your writing with their coffee, seeking you out as a part of their routine: your jobs as a creative is to create a habit that other people will form through what you make. That’s why I send this Report™ out at the same time(s) every week! It trains people to expect it and to want it. That way, if the post doesn’t show up, people seek you out, to check in and hold you accountable. This is why you do things publicly!

For me with Los Angeles, I’m Yours, this meant having two to three posts every weekday, to be posted at 9AM, 12PM, and 2PM, plus a cover story interview with an artist of note every Monday at 9AM. There were other items too but this was the bread and butter that people came to expect: a post for breakfast and lunch and maybe pre-happy hour. This goes into editorial planning, which is a whole other post. It all worked: in less than four years, the site had over 6K Twitter followers, was featured in Vanity Fair, and landed me a(n unpaid) column in Los Angeles Magazine, not to mention bring a springboard for many jobs. I wouldn’t be doing this newsletter if I didn’t do that website.

DO: Ensure you have the stamina.

To the above: make your creative practice sustainable. You have to work with yourself: are you a morning person who has an hour or two in the morning? That’s your writing time. Are you a night owl how can go to bed a little later? That’s your writing time. Give yourself a defined, regular time to create and you will create — but don’t make it endless and don’t be strict to the point that you burn out or force creation. Like a muscle, you have to build things up. If you decide to write every Saturday at 9AM, great — but make sure you can continue doing that forever. That sounds dramatic but I mean it: the minute your creative pursuit becomes “hard” or you slip as far as a schedule — that’s the moment you’re not-doing-it, the moment when your creative practice dissolves. Set yourself up for success by making a realistic schedule that you can stick to. Write during your commute! Write while you watch television! Write during downtime at work! It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you’re doing it without sacrificing your sanity — but you have to push yourself too. Otherwise you’ll never advance, plateauing at one post a week. You can do more than that, babes.

DO: Create a “format.”

This is another note on consistency — because this is the most important part! What I mean by “format” is building from your thesis and consistency to make the creative act easier. A format makes the gesture like filling out a form or filling in a coloring book: you have set your parameters, you have made your guardrails — now you get to play. This also makes creativity less sacred, which is another issue: if you put too much weight or honor on your creative practice, you’re creating barriers to create. Shit should feel like anything else in your life, boring and like work. For me, my format is the Sunday version of The Trend Report™ that I’m now on almost four years of doing. The format can change and take new forms, but this helps you get shit done because you’re not reinventing the wheel every time you sit down to write. (Which you should reinvent at points, once you get the hang of it — but that’s something else entirely!) A format helps your audience too, as it helps people understand what to expect from you. You could also call this establishing your brand, defining your voice, architecting an infrastructure, etc.

DON’T: Care what people think.

Like the doubts that create a failure to launch, you’ll start running into another form of anxiety after you start consistently sharing: what will people think? You will get people who disagree and you will get people who point out grammar errors and you will get people who generally are not-nice or critical of what you do — and that’s fine. It’s important to take that! If you cower or quit at anyone pushing against you, then kiss your creative dream goodbye: that is the point of the contract you’ve signed, in creating and sharing what you do. It’s not easy, but you have to stop caring what people think. Tuning out what people think is important because it trains another muscle of scale, making you immune to the countless rejections you will get when pitching stories, submitting ideas, applying for gigs, and all the other ways that you put yourself out there: it’s not special to fail, to lose, to suck. What is special is that you continue. This takes resilience, to not give a fuck what people think. If everyone is saying that your work is [Insert Recurring Critique], then they may be right and you may need to adapt. That is when you should care. If people say “I don’t like that you link to TikToks!” in reply to something like The Trend Report™, recognize that as a personal preference someone has that doesn’t fit in your format and move on. You have other things to worry about.