everyone’s got an opinion
Oh, hi friends!
Finish lines can move. Or dissolve. Or get past you without even realizing. Like maybe you didn’t know that was the last conversation you were going to have about your short story. Or perhaps the project you were so passionate about somehow got sidelined a few months ago, its finish line buried under the weight of other obligations.
So what makes a finish line stick? Here’s a few ideas.
Make it public.
If you tell people, they’ll expect you to do it.
Make it non-negotiable.
What if it’s the ONE thing you have to do?
Tie it to someone else.
If they’re waiting, you’ll deliver.
Throw money at it.
Pay an entry fee or book a rehearsal space and you’ll show up.
Remember how it feels.
Think of the last time you sailed toward a finish line, aware that you did your best. Felt good, right?
Remember you can — and you will — find your finish again.
No matter how successful you are, you'll always get critiques from randos from your past?
Slave Play playwright Jeremy O. Harris posted this on Twitter — a guy he met on OK Cupid years ago recently sent him a Twitter DM telling him he “read the first third of the play” and was a “little disappointed” and that he should “study scene construction” because his play is “difficult to read or produce.”
YES, THE SAME PLAY THAT WAS ON BROADWAY and made Harris the toast of the town. I can’t stop laughing?
Some readers of this newsletter might remember last spring, when all I could write or talk about was the Falcon Cam at 55 Water Street in Manhattan. We all watched two falcons, Adele and Frank, tend to their eggs (let’s be honest, Adele did most of the work) until they finally hatched. Then we watched baby falcons grow from cotton ball fluffs to mature falcons and finally flying falcons.
All that’s to say, I have a new obsession and it’s this gorilla cam. If you need a break in the middle of the workday, watching gorillas eat leaves and sit on plush green hillsides is much more relaxing than, say, scrolling Twitter.
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Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara