And y’all better believe it when we say what he says here about the craft and business of earning your living as a creative is worth listening to.
See what we meant?
Category: Opinion
Bri Castellini: NYR 2019 Mid-Year Check In – @brisownworld
by Bri Castellini
- Write 5 new projects. In Progress. Hasn’t been as much time to write as expected, but I did write a mini series in the Better With You Universe, a pilot for a shelved Brains audio drama reboot, a set of rules and the first two adventures for a homebrew DnD game, and have started a number of other pilots and shorts, so I feel good about my progress here.
- Host 3 table reads. In Progress. This was on the list because I was allegedly “stepping back a bit from producing this year,” which hasn’t been true. Technically we had a Better With You table read, and I’m sure once Kailee and Amanda move to NYC we’ll have another one or two, so progress here as well.
- Post one blog and one YouTube video a month. Failure. Hah hah hah hah hah
- Cook dinner at least twice a week. Doing ok. While I’ve certainly cooked more this year than I have for a years, I probably haven’t averaged twice a week in a few months. I didn’t expect to be traveling so often so when I am home it’s usually in between trips and we haven’t been able to go to the grocery store. Now that I’m working from home full time though I expect to get better about this. I’m also traveling… less, though I will be traveling again as of August at least once a month.
- Start or end my day active at least three times a week. Doing ok. Another thing that’s been aided by working from home but hasn’t been 100% consistent for a while. Using the traveling excuse again even though excuses are for quitters.
- Release and submit for festivals both projects I have in post. Boom goes the dynamite. Buy In’s IRL festival premiere is TONIGHT and Sam and Pat has been released and being submitted to fests for months.
- Leave New York at least 4 times. Current tally with planned trips for the future included:
- January- Los Angeles, Washington DC
- March- Los Angeles again, Oregon
- April- Washington DC again, Northhampton, MA
- May- Utah
- June- Denver
- August (upcoming, probably)- Los Angeles again
- September & October- Colorado
- November- San Diego
- December- Colorado
- Save $2k. In progress. Had a bit of a finance scare this year for a variety of reasons I won’t get into right now (but suffice it to say it wasn’t on me this time), so this got interrupted because I had to take $2k OUT of my savings to pay rent and whatnot for a few months. However, my auto-transfer I set up at the beginning of the year has continued to transfer from checking to savings once a month so I have technically put $1425 into savings this year (though if this resolution had meant save $2k on top of my existing savings balance, I’d be at -$575). I’m hoping once things get back to normal I can put back what I took out of my savings to survive during the weird months, but even if I don’t, the point of putting money in savings is for emergencies like paying rent during weird income months.
- Pick my battles. In progress. The Great Financial Scare of 2019 helped a lot with this one, weirdly, because I had to learn to prioritize and set boundaries in ways I never had to before. Also with all the traveling I’ve done this year I’ve been too tired to fight as much as I used to fight, but I’m still counting this as progress rather than a reaction to exhaustion.
- Be a better adult. In progress. On non-travel weeks I’m generally pretty good about this, and in general Quinn and I have gotten a lot more consistent about chores and cleaning and whatnot. The day I wrote this post (a week in advance, like an ADULT) Quinn and I did a deep clean of the apartment/fridge and made some plans to tackle a bug problem that’s been there since we moved into this very old building. Mom, I swear, New York City just has bugs, it’s not our fault.
Not as bad as I thought! The resolutions that require a week over week lifestyle change I’m giving myself a break on because I’m human and I’ve still got a few months of the year left to change these habits, and calling them a failure in July seems unnecessary.
Bri Castellini is an indie filmmaker and Community Director at Stareable, our favorite web series hub. Watch the remarkable Ms. Castellini’s award-winning web series, Brains, HERE. See Sam And Pat Are Depressed HERE. This post first appeared on Bri’s wonderfully refreshing blog.
If we value artists, we should pay them benefits
Speaking of “How Authors Make Money,” this insightful look into the problems of new creatives of all kinds is from The Guardian in the UK. But its message is as universal as its reasoning is sound.
Britain’s creative industries are packed with people from privileged backgrounds. It doesn’t have to be that way
by Penny Anderson
From September, artists in Ireland will be permitted one year on unemployment benefit without having to look for work, to allow for time to pursue their practice, rehearse, or develop a portfolio. Keep in mind that the country’s equivalent of jobseeker’s allowance is worth £168.50 per week even before rent payments are added (in the UK it’s £73.10) meaning that even one year provides valuable security. That time, quite simply, will take the heat off.
The scheme was announced by the minister for employment affairs and social protection, Regina Doherty, who stated: “In Ireland, we hold a very special place for the arts and I hope that through this initiative we can create some breathing space for creative people to flourish.”
If only we could do something similar here. Well, we used to, with the old-school enterprise allowance. Countless musicians, actors, artists and dancers benefited from this scheme, as they were able to start a new business, while being entitled to the equivalent of jobseeker’s allowance, without having to seek other work for one year.
That compares to the current situation where under the terminal basket-case known as universal credit, claimants – including artists – must spend 35 hours per week “work-seeking”, rather than “art-making”. There is a massive drawback to treating art as any other job. “Cultural industries” (and once again with feeling, all artists hate that phrase) generate plenty of income for the nation, while also encouraging tourism.
But not all artistic output can be sold, nor does everything arty generate income for its owner and maker – especially more challenging work, such as performance or conceptual art….
Bri Castellini: 2019, Noticed – @brisownworld
by Bri Castellini
Been a while! I foresee a handful of New Years Resolutions not being fulfilled this year, because this year has been… unexpected.
Last year was insane for me, one of the busiest years I’ve ever had, one of the most creatively rewarding, and one that I felt very strongly about not repeating right away. “2019 will hopefully be defined by boundaries and balance,” I stated in a blog at the end of last year. I even made my work Slack status “Boundaries and Balance 2k19” for a while, because branding is important.
And then 2019 actually started and I remembered that I’m me and that’s not how things tend to go in my life.
Work/Life Imbalance
First off, I really stepped up the #WorkTripLyfe, traveling out of state twice a month for all but one of the first few months of the year. I started my year in LA and went to DC for a week in January, traveled to LA again and Oregon for the first time in 5 years in March, headed to Massachusetts and DC again in April, spent two weeks in Utah in May, and spent a long weekend in Denver in June.
And that’s far from the end of my traveling year- I’m likely heading back to LA in August and I’ll be in Colorado for a few weeks at the end of September and beginning of October. Then my cousin is getting married in San Diego in November and I’ll be heading back to Colorado for Christmas in December. Like, damn. So already, my balanced year of relaxation and writing has gone a bit awry.
Then, some work things happened that put me in a new financial freakout (I have one of these every two years, apparently), resulting in some shifts in expectations for what my employment situation will be moving forward. I’m still working with Stareable but on a more freelance, remote basis, and am filling in my work week with a new part-time gig with Seed&Spark and potentially a new teaching position, both also remote and freelance.
Stareable no longer has a physical office space, at least for the time being, and as a result I’m now 100% working from home (outside of traveling for events or being on hand for local events, like Stareable Fest that’s happening NEXT WEEK!). This has been a strange but unexpectedly welcome change to my routine- as much as I liked going into an office and building a day-to-day around picking podcasts for my commute and a new regular coffee spot, I didn’t realize how much of my day I was losing as a result.
I now have more time to work out in the morning without worrying I’ll miss
my train, I spend less on transportation and coffee, I have more energy and time at home to help with chores and cooking, and I get to fully control and customize my work weeks without worrying where I am physically, which is useful particularly because Quinn and I plan on moving in the next year or two and it’d be great to be able to not have to job hunt.
Adjusting to life as a fully remote freelancer has been a full time job in and of itself- I have to find ways to motivate myself despite my new desk being in my bedroom, aka the room with my bed that I use to watch old Fallout 4 playthroughs. I also have to force myself to get up at the same time I used to, because I’m trying to swap the time I used to commute for working out. It’s not an understatement to say that I’m dangerously unhealthy, and I’m running out of good excuses to stick with that status quo.
Creative Successes
Creatively, this year has been amazing, if busier than anticipated. In January I accepted a job directing a web series for a female-led production company out of Utah run by two long-distance friends, Amanda and Kailee.
In May, they flew me out and put me up and we shot 7 episodes of a show called Better With You, a Halloween rom com that will be the most ambitious and beautiful thing I’ve gotten to be a part of. It’s the first project I’ve directed without also writing, the first full web series I’ve gotten to direct, and the first time working with a crew larger than three people. It was the best.
We also launched Sam and Pat season 2 this year, alongside two seasons of the Bri and Chris Are Depressed companion podcast, both receiving small but dedicated audiences. The Bri and Chris podcast has two more weeks of episodes to go up, and then…
Burn, Noticed
I made a joke on Twitter back in February about starting a podcast called Burn, Noticed, and then couldn’t stop thinking about how stupid and funny that would be, and then bullied Chris Cherry into co-hosting it with me.
I’m glad it worked out, because we’ve now recorded five episodes and I’m genuinely enjoying revisiting one of my favorite procedurals as well as deconstructing television on a regular basis with my most frequent writing collaborator. Plus, Chris is moving to LA in late August and this is a good excuse to keep in touch and continue creating together.
Burn, Noticed will launch the day Bri and Chris Are Depressed season 2 ends, meaning that I’ll have been releasing new creative content at least once a week since the beginning of March, which is a first. There was nearly a year between Brains seasons 1 and 2, then a few months after season 2 before Ace and Anxious was released, then another few months before the extended universe projects premiered, then nearly another year before Sam and Pat and ANOTHER year before Sam and Pat season 2.
I like podcasting because it’s a significantly lower-budget and lower-effort way to continue to be creative on a sustainable basis, which is important because if it’s going to be a while in between major film projects, I need something to keep my brain creative and my audience aware of my existence. I have over 1,000 Twitter followers after all. I have a RESPONSIBILITY.
Jokes aside, Burn, Noticed has genuinely been a thing I look forward to every week, and has been surprisingly useful in keeping my storytelling muscles toned. I hope people listen to it, because it’s also a pretty good show outside of a good thing for me as a person and creator to work on.
Bri, Burned Out
As you might imagine, a second year of rushing at breakneck speed to do as many things as possible is starting to wear on me. I’d like to think post-Stareable-Fest will be more chill, but I’d like to think a lot of things that aren’t realistic.
I’m staring down the barrel of four part time jobs in the fall, plus more traveling and work events and Better With You premiering in September and Burn, Noticed needing to go up every week and Buy In continuing its festival run.
The only solution I have currently is a highly specific weekly schedule I’ve made for myself that creates structure and uses my new working-from-home existence to reprioritize my health and the boundaries that will keep me sane and productive.
Will it work? Time will tell. But I’m really excited for all these new projects and work opportunities and now that living in New York has an end in sight (either mid-2019 or early 2020), I have hope that this unexpected non-break of a year might go my way after all.
Or I might have a massive breakdown like I did last year! Time will tell.
Bri Castellini is an indie filmmaker and Community Director at Stareable, our favorite web series hub. Watch the remarkable Ms. Castellini’s award-winning web series, Brains, HERE. See Sam And Pat Are Depressed HERE. This post first appeared on Bri’s wonderfully refreshing blog.
5 Reasons Grammar Purists Can Go Fuck Themselves
At last! A click bait headline we can get behind. More than get behind, actually. This TVWriter™ minion wishes she’d written it…because I totally agree with what Lucy V Hay has to say here:
F Off, Grammar Purists
by Lucy V Hay
Grammar purists have always nestled like alabama ticks in every dark corner of the internet. In the past year or so, they seem to be everywhere! These guys police statuses, tweets, threads and then call those out they feel are ‘unacceptable’. (Why anyone who doesn’t like colloquial speak online would follow a platform like B2W, I have no idea. Some people are their own worst enemy, yet point fingers at others as being ‘the problem’. Le sigh).
But this phenomenon is not only related to B2W. It seems internet-wide. It started with basic corrections of typos and spelling. Now apparently informal, colloquial speak on social media is considered WRONG by some writers *full stop*.
Well, you purists better have to time to DUCK … Let’s go!
1) Context is everything
Starting with the obvious. Writing on social media should not be subject to the same critique as a piece of screenwriting or prose. C’mon, this is basic. This is why I don’t accept complaints about typos, grammar or punctuation on the B2W social media. It’s also why I won’t allow ‘helpful’ corrections of other members’ posts in the Bang2writers Facebook group.
Making assumptions about someone’s level of education or competency based solely on their social media posts is absurd. There are some incredible minds out there who may not see the world the same way as you. They may not have had the educational advantages as you. They may have extra challenges, like being a non-native English speaker, or dyslexia. Or maybe they’re just shit at typing. Whatever.
Moving on from social media … Yes, critique of actual writing submissions may include assessment of grammar, spelling and punctuation. Sometimes, this is justified. Sometimes it is not. It depends. Good readers should know how to differentiate (plus they should also be inclusive, see point 5 on this list).
Realising the above and reminding yourself of it is the key. Purists don’t, which is why they are dicks.
2) Understanding counts for something
Who cares, as long as the receiver is able to realise what is meant? Some great writers can’t spell or punctuate for shit. Some can, but just don’t give a shit in various contexts (as above). Others make their writers’ voices stand for something specific. Why not….
