Publicity
I get asked a lot about publicity; how did I get so much? Why is my name/site everywhere? What did I do? How do I market? Who do I know? When I received yet another email about it, I realised I hadn’t ever really addressed it and so here is the question and my response.
Question:
Hi Alex! I found you via the long list of Women to Invite at Conferences on Personified* and am quite inspired by your blog! My sister and I are both creative types and I in particular have been thinking of ideas for a potential portfolio website for a while now.
My reply:
Woodey Allen Quote
Sometimes when the creativity has left me, I wonder if it’s because I’m doing less time walking in the world and more time wondering how long Brenda and Dylan will stay a couple and if Laura will ever get off the Prarie.
All Things Girl – My Interview
Edited to note: In the fall of 2006, the fantastic magazine All Things Girl asked to interview me. When they re-did their site a year later the interview file was lost and so I have pasted it below. Words bolded are ATG’s questions to me with my reply following.
We know you’re one busy girl. Tell us a little bit about the projects you currently have going on.
In the Spring of 2006, I decided that I wasn’t entirely satisfied with where I was creatively or professional. It was then I decided to stop taking on new projects and instead, have a quiet summer to figure out what my next move would be.
But reality stepped in and I’ve been busier in the past couple of months of “not working” than I have been in the past year. That’s because I’m in the midst of restructuring my company. I’m decided what it means to actually have your own business, what mine is going to be about, what my mission statement is, who I need to hire to make it work and what projects I will do.
I am also networking a lot right now which is very new for me and something I always thought was “dirty.” But I realized that I love connecting with people and there’s a way to do that in a genuine fashion and it doesn’t always have to be business related. Opening up to new friends I’ve discovered how to be more financially viable. Talking with my hair dresser I learned more about advertising. Talking with a man on the plane I had two new ideas for sites and so forth. I’m seeking answers to questions I didn’t know I had because I’m taking the time to listen now and that’s been one of the most valuable things. I love having coffee every day with new people – keeps me busy and working!
In August I’m driving across Canada for three weeks for the last of my travel assignments this year. That’s taken up a lot of time in preparation and obviously, will take up a lot of time in August. Because of this, I’ve not been able to jump into ideas as quickly as I’d like but I’m learning that this is a good thing. For the first time I’m letting things brew and mix in my brain without feeling like I must do something. Being held back is actually helping me move forward.
So, without being able (or wanting to) take on any new projects, I’m working on smaller things that I can do in-between. Things such as Girls Guide to City Life and launching a new lifestyle site Hygge House .
I’m also taking a lot of time to enjoy life right now which perhaps sounds cliché but it’s needed. I became so busy – too busy to call people, to go to the beach, to walk down a street, to sit and have a coffee. To busy for my own brain to ever rest. So now I take weekends off, I still go to Premieres and screenings, I’m connecting way more with people and I’m sitting at the beach a lot more often with an iced latte in hand. I believe that by working hard during the week, I can take guilt-free time off on the weekends. It’s needed. Without a break I’d burn out.
I’m a huge believer that you get results based on the effort you put into something; if you put a lot of effort into being miserable, you will be miserable. If you put a lot of effort into being overweight, you will be overweight. If you put a lot of effort into complaining about your current life, you will remain in your current life. However, if you put a lot of effort into moving forward and taking care of things you can take care of right now, you will move forward – even if it’s little steps done by even smaller movements.
If you want to have a different life but can’t jump into it completely right now, do something – even if it’s as simple as changing an old belief or picking up a pen to right down your company name. It’s the act of believing in your dreams and then acting on them that will manifest more and more. Just thinking about it, dreaming about it, wishing for it, won’t make anything happen. You must do something and keep doing something.
In order to grasp opportunity, one has to be prepared. So each day I do little by little – even if I don’t fully understand why.
You’re Right
“Whether You Think You Can or Can’t, You’re Right” Henry Ford
This sums up so perfectly a post I wrote several months back.
Money, money, money!
Money is a funny thing – so many people want it, few seem to have it and even fewer want to talk about it. I’m not sure why so many people are so tightly lipped about money but I think being quiet contributes so much to why people don’t understand it, are afraid of it or simply don’t have it. I think people should be taught fiscal management in schools instead of about the French revolution (and I’m half French) and I think people should really talk about money so they can learn whether or not they should be self-employed.
How I financially survive is probably the second most common question I’m asked. I do not have a sugar daddy (you wouldn’t believe how many people think this!), I do not have a trust fund, I do not have parents, and I don’t have lotto winnings. So how do I survive financially?
Here it goes:
How much do you enjoy?
When I stopped working in Hollywood months ago, I also stopped going to screenings and premieres. I thought because I wasn’t in the industry anymore, I shouldn’t go. I didn’t need to network, I didn’t need to see everything, I didn’t need to keep up. I had equated going to movies with work which I had equated to no fun.
Despite adoring movies and working on sets, my opinion of it all changed because others kept telling me that what I was doing wasn’t enough. If I wanted to be successful I had to take X job, get X title, meet with X person. As soon as I did that, they said, I’d have passed a level and it’d be onto the next one. I didn’t really understand what they meant because I loved what I initially did and became confused by the attitude that movie making wasn’t fun – it was business! And all that is one of the reasons why I stopped working. Unlike most of Hollywood, I wasn’t trying to prove anything. I just wanted a little fun.
So when the work stopped, going to the movies stopped. But then a little while ago I was invited to a screening of Kinky Boots, and, since I’d once lived in Northampton where the movie is based and filmed, I thought I’d go just to see if I could see shots of the city. After the screening was a Q&A with the main actor which was just really thoughtful but also fun. It was after that screening I realised that I could go to a movie just for the pure fun and enjoyment and not because of where it’d get me or how it’d make me look.
Without having others opinions and meanings of movies or movie making involved in whether or not I enjoy something, movies began to once again equal fun. And in the past little bit I’ve gone to more screenings and premieres which, I must confess, have been not only fun, but useful. I normally wouldn’t see these films if I had to pay to go and I’d miss out on so many great little films and little bits of inspiration here and there. So I’ve learned that by saying yes to the fun, I’m saying yes to always being open to learning which is really saying yes to being personally successful.
So last week I was invited to a of Little Miss Sunshine and, without knowing much about the film, decided to go. Besides, Toni Collette was going to be there and I think she’s fabulous (and she was. So tiny!).
The movie was fun. I wasn’t expecting to laugh as much as I did – and if you see the last shot of the film, you’ll understand. But more importantly, the film also really got me thinking and confirmed even more.
The opening shot of the film is brilliant; it shows a man who is selling his “9 steps” to success. Using the mumbo jumbo self-help lingo, selling his words, using that selling tone. Then if flashes to his class – all six people. Then you follow this man home and his life is a mess, something I wrote about in a previous post which said a lot of self-help gurus sell their ideas but just don’t live them. (Which is why I think you should only trust ideas that make sense to you and you can make work but do not trust anyone who just wants to sell you a book – or seven of them). He has a daughter who, by default, is able to compete in a beauty pageant called, “Little Miss Sunshine.” The story is of this family and their trip to the pageant and then the pageant itself.
Win, win, win! Is what the self-help guru father is all about. He doesn’t want to be a loser, his kids to be a loser, his brother in-law to be a loser. He can point out which steps make you a loser, and which ones make you a winner. Everyone in his family is annoyed by his 9-steps yet, they all hold the same belief that you do one thing to make you a winner, and one thing to make you a loser. Each person in the family holds the belief that if they could just do X, they’d be winners. And when those things don’t happen, they fall apart. It’s actually a really well-done movie with real characters that, if you allow them, will get you thinking. Especially since they go from holding one set of beliefs about what success and life’s purpose is in the beginning to changing them in the end.
The interesting thing about the people in the movie is that the beliefs they first hold are common beliefs that most people have – and you can’t blame them, really. After all, I think in America especially, we’re set up for this. In school you’re taught to pass tests. If you study and answer X, you’re a winner. If you don’t, you’re a loser. If you do graduate from school – winner! If you don’t – loser! If you go to university – winner! If you don’t – loser! If you have a great big wedding before 30 – winner! If you’re single at 32 – loser! If you get a job with benefits – winner! If you’re an artists – loser! And so on and so on. We’re told that if we do x, y & z, we’ll be winners and so we try so hard to follow a pattern to make sure we “win” – after all, who wants to look like a loser?
Be Unique
Image by Hel Looks
One of the most common questions I’m asked is how I work. People want to know my routine, what pen I use, what papers are best, what time I get up, what tea I like, how long my day is and so on. I tend to disappoint people when I say I have no schedule, no routine, no favourite pen, no sleep schedule (but I do go on for hours about tea). This is partly due to my personality (I don’t like routine but I do love ceremony) and partly due to my career over the past year and a half (travel writing has me in different places every day as does working on film sets).
Often people who are beginning a creative career want to be able to cling to something that has been successful for others. It’s why so many creative self-help books are sold. The Artists Way, for example, lays down the law for getting creative. It tells you what to do every day, it tells you how to think, to be. Other books tell you what markers to use or how to wear a boa properly. Better yet, other books tell you how to think each and every minute to guarantee you that success you so badly want.
The problem with these books and most self-help gurus, though, is that they don’t tell you how to be you. They tell you how to become something that might work because it maybe did for them (I say maybe because I’ve met a lot of these successful self-help creative writer/artist people who have lives that aren’t wonderful, authentic or even joyous. They just know how to market their work, they often don’t know how to live it).
I find those kinds of books really disturbing and it quite literally breaks my heart when I see creative people trying to follow the footsteps of others. Why? Because being creative means you’re creative. You do things how you do them. You think outside the box. You put random things together. You do things no one else has done. You play, you think, you dream, you work your ass off to make it real. But as a creative person you don’t follow the foot steps of someone else.
A timeline of sorts
20 years ago, I failed art. Twice. Now my work hangs in galleries, sells as prints, graces book covers and has won design awards.
15 years ago I cleaned toilets in an historic, fancy hotel. Now I write about such hotels and get paid for it. I even was sent on assignment to write about the one I once cleaned.
8 years ago I moved to America. I made $7,000.00 that year and had to weigh apples to make sure I could afford them. Now, eat 3 apples each day. Sometimes 4.
5 years ago I was in a job I hated and wanted something else. Now, I choose happiness and everything else.
Today, I’m incredibly happy.
Getting Ahead
“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.” Henry Ford