Collaborations

Sometimes you need people to pull stuff out of you that you can't pull out of yourself.

As a university professor, I am accustomed to pushing my students to work harder than they ever thought they could. I write comments on their work that get them to think differently. Some of them resist it and those people would be wrong. But the ones who take the advice and consider what I am saying see a marked improvement.

I was talking to a friend today and her husband about a project that they're pitching that's very niche. He was arguing a bit about what's working. And I said, "Did you sell it? Then it's not working." The buyer has to know exactly what they're buying. And that can be an idea or a promise. It doesn't have to be a clear story per se, but they need to know what they think they're buying. And if it's not clear, you need to make it clear. I was getting a lot of push back from him because he felt he knew better. At some point, you have to say, "Fine." It's not worth arguing over who's right because ultimately this is not my project.

In our workshop for my play, my director Jen and I have a great back and forth. I totally trust that she knows what she's doing because I've watched her do it well. She's got a gentle way and I trust the results she gets. So I get out of her way. We talk privately. We have a lot of the same approach to things. That collaboration is easy because she makes some notes, I do the work and I bring results. It's really that simple. Jen pulls stuff out of me without being hostile or demanding. I think her strength as a director is that she cares so much and she's specific. But she's incredibly gentle. And looking at the work I did - four drafts in two weeks - is incredible. I work really hard for Jen because I know she's great at what she does.

With the TV project I'm working on now, I get a lot of encouragement from my collaborators. Sometimes I can't believe they like everything they like. But it lets me try things. It doesn't make me afraid that they're going to hate something. I have the normal anxiety that we all have. But I don't have any worries to show them something. I have been stuck all week on the beginning, middle and end of the first season of this show. Today something cracked. I just started with the first thing and the last thing, which I knew. Then I started writing more about the beginning and then I got to a place where I thought we'd end that first third, which is about nine episodes. Then I figured out the math to get to 26 episodes. If we did 9+9+8, that would be 26. But if we put the 8 in the middle, then we'd have the start as 1-9, the middle as 10-17 and the end as 18-26. I figured out some story for the middle that started to lean into the break that I knew was happening at the last third. Once I started playing around with the math, the story started to appear. I wouldn't say it fell out. But I definitely wasn't as mentally constipated as I had been all week. It started to be regular. I have a lot of work I want to do over the next two days. We're going to meet hopefully on Tuesday. But I have a full structure to the season, which I didn't have before. I printed out the 7 pages I worked on and now I'm done for the night.

I can go into Saturday and Sunday knowing that I can build on what I have. But I have a structure to the pitch. It's remarkable how much work went into just the seven pages I have so far. It will be a bit longer and I will revise what I already have too. Now I can recharge my own personal batteries and go somewhere and get some work done tomorrow and Sunday.

Good collaborations can lift us up and make us better. And when things are not great, well...those aren't people we should be collaborating with. But that's something we learn over time. My collaborators are keeping me on my toes, that's for sure.

My intention is growth.
My intention is to work.
My intention is to be open.

I am grateful for my collaborators.
I am grateful for the time it takes to get work done.
I am grateful for how hard the work is to do.