Border control
Oh, hi friends!
I’ve been thinking about structure. But “structure” isn’t a fun word. (Sondheim would say it’s not a very singable word either.) So instead let’s call this idea something else: borders.
Most projects need borders to exist. You have an idea to write something about, say, a grocery store. Is this a play? A sitcom? A research paper on food geography? I dunno, but you’re going to apply some kind of border, some kind of internal or external framing, so you can take the next step.
When things get hard, when projects aren’t progressing, when a job gets dull, perhaps it’s worth looking at their borders.
Do you need more? What if you gave yourself a deadline — this needs to happen by then or else I will do that. Or what if you created a goal that scared you?
Or maybe you need to ease up on the borders, to make them semi-permeable again, and give yourself a sense of play or fun. Maybe you relax your rule of limiting meetings to three people or only discussing headlines on Slack or your belief that your Instagram grid needs to “look” a certain way.
Smudge the borders. Or draw some new ones. But don’t think the borders you’re creating in now are the only possibilities. They’re not.
“I was doing it the old-fashioned way back in the ’90s: I had to buy $300 worth of envelopes and stamps and send these headshots to 300 different casting directors, and out of that, I may get one audition. And then I wouldn’t get cast from that one audition! It was extremely demanding and it required a lot of sacrifice. That was what I meant by having all this dust on my back from this journey. I had to keep moving forward, just to prove it to myself.”
Troy Kotsur is the first deaf man to be nominated for an acting Oscar (for his role in the excellent CODA on Apple+), but he’s been putting in the work for decades. Fantastic profile. I hope he wins.
Do You Know Someone Who…Needs a Gifted Writer Intern?
My friend Sarah Kelly is finishing up her MFA at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) and is looking for an internship in the professional writing world. Do you or someone you know need some writing help?
She’s looking for an internship that would run around March 28 to June 2 (approximately 15 hrs a week for 10 weeks); this would be unpaid for college credit. Sarah's working on a memoir for her thesis, and her broad interests include the literary publishing/agency world, sports writing/media/marketing, voting rights and progressive causes, and art (theater — we met in a playwriting class! — and fine art). Her last internship was at a digital marketing agency where she did copywriting, research, and report writing.
One lesson I’m learning in 2022 is to ask for what you want and need — Sarah asked me if I knew anyone, and now I’m asking you! Even if you might not have an internship for her, perhaps this will nudge you to ask for something you want and need today, too.
But if you *do* have a lead on an internship, please let me know! (Also, this might be the start of a new section called, “Do You Know Someone Who…”)
Do you like these daily emails? Please share with a friend!
You can also support my work by checking out my motivational journal, Do It For Yourself, designed to guide you through your creative and work projects, and my upcoming journal Do It Today, which encourages you to find time for the things that matter most to you.
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara