93. life doesn’t last forever

This video is an interview with the writer of Battlefield Earth, often considered the worst movie of all time.

He was a young writer, afraid of failure, afraid that no more jobs would come, so he took a big paycheque to write the script, and it spiralled out of control. He talks about how embarrassing it was to see his movie come out to terrible reviews and box office failure - and he felt his career was over.

Soon he realized that his career would survive this mess but he couldn’t keep making decisions out of fear!

Battlefield Earth showed him what happens when you don’t find your artistic centre and work only to avoid failure.

When his father died he realized life doesn’t last forever - a feeling that I have not had to learn yet. The grief is intermingled with the most obvious epiphany we all have to learn. Life is finite. Change is inevitable. Don’t waste your time acting out of fear - see what you want, what you believe in and act on that.

I believe somewhere along the way I started living in fear creatively and I have been pushing against that for years. I focus on details and learning techniques which is, ya know, lovely for growing as an artist but I want to actually use my tools to say something! To do something.

This blog is great as a place to document my epiphanies and in only 8 posts I’ll be done. The idea is to write 101 things I have learned on my journey to being an artist and creator. It is all true but there is one epiphany that needs to happen.

Hit record! That will be my next post.