Slow, Imperfect Progress Is Better Than None at All

"When you drive a person who wants to be perfect, you are ashamed to shoot a gun, and you are scared of this driver who irritates the back seat." Brené Brown

Sometimes I feel like a girl crying about a movie.

I first wrote a blog post introducing Tiny Buddha Productions three years ago, and besides my determination, love and enthusiasm, I only have one film to show for myself.

While working on this short, which engraved part of my house - in my bedroom, between worn-out clothes and shoes in my closet - I felt alive and more in harmony than I had ever felt in years.

I was doing something I wanted to do from college, LA, a mecca of filmmaking, and a group of talented people that I loved and respected.

I was telling a story that sounded deep and real to me, sometimes I went through the back of the camera because it finally happened, after months of planning, failure, and trying again.

Sounds like Jerry Maguire's moment. I wasn’t my dad’s son anymore, but I was me too - I was the one who felt most at home among the lights, costumes, and makeup, even though I was standing back watching other people light up. I felt like I belonged to a family of oddball actors and hard workers who looked like me personally.

After that we released a brief. And it seemed to sympathize with the people. I was proud of what we did. Proud of who I will be. And I couldn't wait to write next. Unless I could not.

I didn’t think of another idea that felt good enough. I would start thinking, judging everything I had written as a cliché and uninspired, and then erasing it all, like a frustrated child writing with a page of a colorful book filled out of lines.

The endless blank pages made me laugh and piss me off, telling me I was a sad scare for the screenwriter and I’d better meet you soon because time was running out.

It was as if I was setting aside time to run the mile, except that I was very nervous about not being able to move my legs. So I just stood there, staring at the finish line, losing my confidence as every second hit the loudest stoppage inside my short white short fist.

It took me a year to finally commit to a certain idea, my boyfriend and I had researched over the years, this time to find a film. This story seems to be intended for me to write, given the themes and similarities of my life experience. And again, it felt like magic.

That thought was swallowing the whole track, the rope and the stopwatch just filled up right away, circling me in a big open space of motivation and possibility. And it filled all the boundaries of my available brain space. Even though I was cleaning, collecting laundry, feeding my fish, I would photograph it on my head.

The characters, plot points, and symbols came to me with amazing familiarity, and even though the words didn’t always flow, when they did, it was just me and them. The atmosphere of glorious visions I was floating in, weightless, unaware of the world of pressures and difficulties I left behind.

It all sounds kind of corny and overly popular, I know, but it was. Life can sometimes feel unbearable, stressful, and urgent. Just like one fire that will be extinguished after another. But when we build, time seems to stand still. The flames become ice, far away, and all we see is what we feel in our hearts about what we are healing.

It took me over a year to write this film, with the help of a talented mentor who taught me things I didn’t know I needed to learn and showed me opportunities I didn’t know I could create. But I did it. Still drafted after the renovation, I created something that sounded meaningful and beautiful and authentic.

Then I rewrote the parts after getting a budget to make it much easier to film.

And recently, again, I stopped. To be honest, I am currently very young, and I am pregnant, which, as you know, can be physically and emotionally stressful. But I also postponed the practical steps to do this because I felt overwhelmed and scared.

I’ve asked if this is a real goal, given that so many people try to raise money for films and fail.

I have no doubt in my production suit, reminding myself to have worked alone for over a decade and have the skills to communicate with a wild cat.

I’ve also thought that maybe I’m actually a talented blind man who deceived himself into believing he had something new to offer, and in fact he’s the only blogger who should stop thinking and stay on track.

All this time I have been crippled by endless comparisons, defining the portfolios of bright filmmakers against my embarrassing IMDB page.

I knew for a while that I needed to write an investor forum, and I had a lot of open windows where I could start working on it. But instead I read the celebrity gossip. And I emailed my sister about internal health events that don’t need to be redone. And I checked my growing stomach for easy marks while eating small cups of cereal, as if five small cups were somehow better than one medium bowl.

But this week, I did the opposite. This week I made one small choice that kept me out of my way: I decided to stop judging and start acting.

I decided to stop judging my work - to stop my disbelief as to whether it was right and to pretend I knew.

I decided to stop judging - to stop beating myself up with skills that I thought I lacked and to focus on the task at hand.

And I decided to stop judging this process — looking at how maybe all the slow, embarrassing steps happen exactly how and when they are needed, so there really isn’t a reason to be embarrassed by the embarrassment.

Then I wrote one short section of the field. And one the next day. And one the next day. I wrote down what I could do, as far as I could, in the small windows of time that seemed to be out of control, until I lost all my energy and focus.