Month: May 2019

By Brendan O’Meara

The people we admire are rarely farther away than a tweet or an email.

My suggestion is to find a way to thank this person with no expectation for anything in return (I mean, didn’t they create the art the inspires you? Isn’t that enough?).

If you can track down a mailing address (footer to a newsletter), write a thank you note.

If you can’t do that, send an email thanking them for the work.

If you can’t find an email, write a physical note, take a picture of it, and tweet it out or post to Instagram tagging them. Again, don’t do this for any reply, but do it from a place of genuine gratitude.

That sort of energy will ripple out. It’ll feel good. You’ll do better work. Then maybe someone, some time in the future, might send you a note thanking you for doing what you do.

By Brendan O’Meara

Whatever the craft, all drafts are rough, some are just rougher than others.

The people who succeed, or the people who are able to keep playing the game, are the ones who can endure all the bad work to get to the good work.

When you realize this, it’s incredibly liberating. The more bad work, the more bad track you lay down, the greater the likelihood that something good will stick.

Art is a numbers game. There are nine bad, unpublished novels behind the author’s brilliant “debut.”

But she had the courage to write badly. Remember, all drafts are rough.

By Brendan O’Meara

A few years ago my niece was home from school. She was sick and watched the movie Frozen on a constant loop. You probably did this as a kid too. You re-watched things you loved because you loved them. Unapologetically.

At some point you think that it’s no longer good enough to watch a few things deeply and you want to watch as many movies as possible or read as many books as possible.

But what if you tabled the idea of reading fifty books a year and instead read the same book twenty times? Or, pick your favorite book and read it once a year every year. I do this with The Great Gatsby. I read it every year in December, Ol’ Sport.

In any case, sometimes we think there’s no time to re-read books or re-watch movies because we could be consuming something new. No matter how many lifetimes you’re granted, you won’t be able to read or watch it all.

So should you come across something you love, study it. Immerse in it. See that book’s family tree: What authors did the author read that informed it?

It doesn’t matter what it is, but reclaiming that child-like zeal for a piece of art might be the key to greater enjoyment instead of trying to stay on an ever-quickening treadmill.

By Brendan O’Meara

After taking Alexandra DiPalma’s great podcasting course on Creative Live and having her on CNF, one of her fundamental questions for any novice podcaster is: How will you define success?

Is it downloads?

Is it listeners?

Is it reach?

Is it money? (A bad one, admittedly, but that’s a metric for some people).

Point being if we define our success in realistic terms, approachable terms, then maybe some of the bitterness and resentment won’t glom on. Maybe you’ll have fun again.

But if you have some nebulous idea of what success is, or an atomically unrealistic metric, then you will grow bitter and angry.

Define what it would mean to feel successful and fulfilled. And go after it. If you hit that mark. Celebrate, then recalibrate, reengage, and get after it again.

By Brendan O’Meara

That’s a quote from Goethe. I found it in Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life.

It speaks so strongly getting a lot of work done, if you think about it.

Tortoise and hare.

Don’t rush. Plug along. Drip by drip. Don’t stop.

Go faster by slowing down.