Art is a Symptom of Passion

Hello wallabies, 

 Housekeeping first: If it's quite all right, I will be collecting your patronage this month. I've got the ghost of a script I kind of like and the glimmer of an idea. This one's going to take lots of stock footage and that's generally been what I put your patronage into. Obviously a huge thank you for the support and please skip to the bottom of this post for plenty more fawning and thanking from me. 

 (No audio file for this post, I'm afraid. Currently out of the country and using a laptop with Satan's microphone.) 

 So. Every month or so I pluck up the courage to go through the YouTube comments sections of my stuff. I've noticed the same questions generally keep coming up. I've tried to avoid occasions in which to just openly bang on about myself, as the fact that you already watch my stuff is fairly ego-stroking as it is and the last thing anyone wants is a self-styled I Ask Me Anything. Still, if you like, I may as well put the more common questions to bed for those of you kind enough to support me. 

 Why are you living in Bulgaria?  

 
 Because it is indubitably the finest country in the world. They have a wonderful history, an interesting intellectual culture, and the people are some of the kindest you will ever meet. Also I came over on a whim several years ago and forgot to leave.
 

Why are there such big gaps between uploads? 

 I don't know how other folks are making their stuff. In my case it takes about a 4-7 days to get a script to where it's not totally shit, and that's assuming one has a decent idea in the first place. For every script that makes it to a finished video, 4 go in the bin. I'm incapable of moderation so I usually take 3 days off or so after uploading, do some hiking or party a bit, then return to work for at least a fortnight straight. If one is enjoying their work then the work is simply is not work. The feeling of waking up in the morning knowing one is going to spend the day making something that actually comes from the 'inside' -  if I can be so pompous – is one of the best feelings I know of. 

 Once the audio is recorded, it takes me at least 2 weeks to find footage and music and splice it into something hopefully resembling a video where someone knew what they were doing all along, which I never do. In other cases the process takes over a month. The and then we'll be okay video took about 4 months of jiggling the script because it was crap. I had previously tried to make it into a novel and a short story and it was all shit, but I just couldn't let the idea die. Then it took another 2 weeks of playing with editing styles, giving up, trying again, giving up, then finally putting photos through a watercolour filter on Photoshop as a desperate last attempt and thinking, “Oh, actually that might work.”   

 The only coping mechanism I have found to keep sane during the weeks when something isn't working is to remember that on every other occasion in which I persisted through those weeks, it's always been rewarding when I finally worked it out. I hope this tactic is applicable to whatever creative or professional troubles you may be having yourself. It almost always works.

  Where do you get ideas for stuff? (Or, often posed as some variation of: How does one find an idea?)

  I've sat here a while now wondering whether to include this question because it's just so fucking pretentious – me lecturing you on creativity or artistry or something. No, a youtuber giving a 'this is how to be an artist' lecture. The audacity. But it seems to come up lots so I will.

  I really do believe there is a science to 'finding ideas' and I think if you pay attention, you can occasionally notice your brain doing stuff that other's peoples' brains may not have done before.   

  I'll tell you what I do anyway. Lots of coffee, lots of reading fiction, lots of running, and attempting to keep a social circle of humans I love, and who, if they're telling the truth, also love me.   

  What happens next is an occurrence you will be familiar with. You mishear a line in conversation, or two ideas from last week's dreams connect, or for whatever reason, in the most lovely twist of neurochemistry, something falls into your head and you're halfway certain no one has had that exact idea before. Or if they have, you plagiarise it so loosely they don't notice.   

  I am not the person to tell you how to do your art. Only you can go on that adventure. But the general principles that have helped me have been: read/watch a lot of great artists' stuff (Chernobyl, the TV series, is fucking great by the way - check that out), attempt to find some space where you can be properly alone for a while – whether it's out running or in the car in a traffic jam or whatever, and finally: persist. And persist. And persist. And persist. And persist. And don't forget to persist.   

  Various questions about music

  I took cornet lessons as a kid and persisted because the teacher was so terrifying I couldn't bear to tell her I was stopping. I got to Grade 8 which literally never came in useful and romantically speaking no one was ever, ever impressed by competency on a brass instrument. However, if one can read music, it makes learning other instruments way easier and since I grew up in a village and the English school holidays are long, there was plenty of time to experiment with other instruments. I also took violin lessons for a year or so and fucked around on the piano for about 15 years but without proper tuition and so I'll forever be an amateur and can't even read the bass clef properly and will always regret this.
 

  What's the deal with Norway?   

   Jeg vet ikke...?

    Is YouTube your main gig?

  Yes. I do some academic-ish things on the side occasionally, but the majority of my time is spent either on the new book or pushing pixels around and shouting at you.   

  Various questions about recommending stuff

  Just as I'm sure yours does, my tastes change as the years go on, but I've made a little effort here to pick out some things I keep coming back to. Some art is a passing fling and in a few months you're bored. Other stuff you fall in love with for life.   

  My favourite album is called Ys by Joanna Newsom. I've been listening to it for over ten years now and regularly still find new things in there. I would understand if it's not up your street, but personally it still blows my head open. (Particularly the end sequence in Only Skin.) I'm sure we all remember where we were when we found some piece of art we liked. In my case I was in a park when a friend played me Newsom's song, Emily. I'd never heard of her before. It got to the line, “Everything with wings is restless, aimless drunk and dour; butterflies and birds collide at hot ungodly hours,” and I knew I'd found my musical hero.

  My favourite movie is an Argentinian flick called Wild Tales. I've watched it tens of times and it still does the trick; some of the best writing I've ever seen and I hope you like it too.

  Book-wise, the one I keep coming back to over and over and over is Fahrenheit 451. I know it's popular and popular is boring somehow, but I think it's one of the single greatest pieces of art of the last century. It's not too short, not too long. The metaphors are fantastic. The pacing is perfect. And the moral of the story is simple enough to catch easily, but not so simple as to condescend. If you've read any of my stuff you will probably have noticed I've inadvertently plagiarised entire scenes and plot structures from Fahrenheit.   
 

 Ace, that's enough banging on about myself for this month. I hope that wasn't too self-indulgent. Book, movie, music, videogame, whatever – recommendations are always welcome and I've found loads of cool shit through you guys. I've been playing Knights of the Old Republic 2 through again recently and fuck my life it's good.

  So. I took a load of time recently to just focus on the manuscript of the new book. I finally have something I like, or at least don't hate, and I'm very excited to share it with you when it's done. And alongside that, the new video obviously. I couldn't just swan about making stuff if it wasn't for you – as I hope is very readily apparent by now. The only goal I have these days is to put enough soul into stuff that it'll actually resonate on your side. I hope it's working. And more than that, I hope you're currently on your own creative or academic or professional or travelling adventure.   

  There's another Joanna Newsom line I've always liked which is: Love is not a symptom of time, Time is just a symptom of love.   

  In that same vein, when it comes to making stuff, I've found that passion isn't a symptom of art, art is just a symptom of passion. For those of you asking how to get into making videos or writing or whatever, the honest answer is: it might be for you and it might not. I would strongly recommend locating what one is passionate about first, and then just following it blindly into whatever weird avenues it takes you down. Or trying a million things just because you can and seeing it if lights you up. And if one of them is writing, or making videos – well, that's just grand.

  All in all, and above all, just thank you for the support. It's always meant the world before and it still does, and I hope you're doing well. 

  All the best, 

 Ex.