Creativity Conundrum #5: 
Missing the Boat

A creativity conundrum I thought of today relates to the book I'm currently working on. It's calledWhy I'm Not Famous Yetand it's a parody of the cash-grabbing memoirs 30 second celebrities come out with just before their time in the spotlight completely burns out. While it is a humor book, it does actually play off of many important creative moment in my life during which I could have been famous but missed the opportunity to. I'm certainly not the only one my age or older who thinks that if I had made a few decisions differently, I could have been filming the latest romantic comedy in Hollywood. I think the fact that I've been relatively successful with my books after experiencing some of these opportunities proves that even if you miss the boat once, you can still be successful creatively.

Sometimes us creative people think of ourselves much like the high school superstar quarterback might when looking back on his athletic achievements. If we had moved to Los Angeles at the right time or if we'd hung out more with that friend who got a job working for Pixar, we might have made the leap into a more successful creative career much earlier. The creativity conundrum here is that these people think there won't be another opportunity that comes around. Here's the thing, y'all. Not everybody is going to get a lucky break. Sometimes, you need to create your own luck and your own creative future.

My book will detail several instances such as an audition for the show "One Tree Hill," a one-man show I produced and directed that took my college campus by storm and a television show I wrote that could have been the next big Internet sensation, which could have propelled me into the spotlight if I had gotten a lucky break. Since that lucky break never came, I have needed to pave my own way and this website and my books have been the hard work and dedication I needed to pull myself up by the bootstraps. Maybe I'll never get famous and nobody will even read my book on the subject. Maybe a million people will read it. All I know is that the creativity conundrum of opportunity shows that if you've lost out on some golden opportunities in your past, the only way to press forward is to create your own luck and your own chances to be creatively successful.

Luck is a wonderful thing and when it works out in your favor, it can feel like magic. If you screwed up some good luck that was working in your favor, that doesn't mean squat. If you invite me to a pity party, I will not accept your invitation. Get over it, get working and become the artist you've always wanted to be. 

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