SIX at 6: The Boiler Room, 20 Years of Not Writing, Nightmares of Failure, Expectations of Success, Chair Upholstery, and The Delusion of Perfection - Billy Oppenheimer
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SIX at 6: The Boiler Room, 20 Years of Not Writing, Nightmares of Failure, Expectations of Success, Chair Upholstery, and The Delusion of Perfection - Billy Oppenheimer
Whatever else happens, stay busy. (I always lean on this wise advice, from the seventeenth-century English scholar Robert Burton, on how to survive melancholy: “Be not solitary, be not idle.”) Find something to do—anything, even a different sort of creative work altogether—just to take your mind off your anxiety and pressure. Once, when I was strug
... See moreThe funny thing is, sitting alone thinking doesn’t “look” like work. Even more so if it’s away from your computer. However, my own process for brainstorming and ideating often looks like this:
Sometimes an artist comes to me and they’re like, “I’ve made all these things and I’ve been really successful, but I’m lost. I don’t know what to do next.” And then it’s, like, “Let’s figure it out together. Tell me, what do you like? What do you feel? When was the last time you were really excited by it? What was the first time you were really exc
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