Emerged from the Black Hole

I’ve been in a funk this past month. And I say this because it’s important for any aspiring artist who might read this to know that down periods will likely happen. Maybe you’ll be able to avoid these better than I did. Laying in bed helps no one. Get up, take a shower, do something nice for yourself. Much of this is mental, you have to push through that voice in your head saying that it’s all for naught, the odds are too great, the work you do doesn’t matter. If it matters to you, then it does.

I don’t think anyone can really know what these funks are like until they go through it themselves. If you are going through one, whoever reads this, just remember that it’ll pass, but that the desire to write/take pictures/dance/film/whatever will still be there when the cloud lifts, except two months have gone by and that’ll be time spent without making art. You know, after the funk is over, you’ll be feeling better, but it’d be nice to have that section of the script completed, especially as you can’t get that time back.

At least, that’s my perspective. Maybe the funk lifts for others, and they realize that their life is much better with or without those extra pages in existence. And while I am feeling better now, I wish I could have had those pages written.

Again, the primary purpose of writing about my funk experience is to make other artists aware of the nature of such a depressed state, so they can hopefully get through it with a certain amount of grace and dignity when the time comes, as well as a minimum amount of sadness felt and work lost.

• Working on: The Nothings, storyboarding a short

• Watching: Stoker (Park Chan-Wook), I’ll End Up in Jail (Alexandre Dostie)

• Filmmaker: Eve Symington

• Update: Swing Away progressed to the semi-finals of the Screencraft Screenwriting Fellowship, and no further. I am still very grateful.