‘Keep on Trucking’ Simon Callow’s advice to me

I was at the Theatre Royal Haymarket fundraiser dinner and Simon Callow the actor was at my table. You will of course know him from Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shakespeare in Love and his recent show about Shakespeare ‘Man from Stratford’

I have heard him speak about his life as an actor before at talks and he tells some great stories plus has also written 7 fascinating books about his acting life and others such as ‘Being An Actor”. (I have popped some Amazon links at the bottom of this post for some of his others). He is a profilic writer fascinated with the theatre greats and the acting life as well as being such a great actor. He is a real example of someone who cannot help but create.

Whilst of course he is a great actor who can and does play many characters, Simon has used large parts of himself to create that gregarious man in ‘Four Weddings’ who of course dies so as you can imagine he is a great dinner companion.  Towards the end of the dinner I asked him what advice he could give me as an actress and performer, how to deal with the ups of lots of work when everyone seems to love you, and then the downs of nothing. His answer was quite brilliant.

‘Keep on trucking’

This has really stuck with me. Yesterday, Easter Sunday, my 17 year old cat had a violent seizure in front of me. She has never had anything like this before, she has got thinner since her brother died of cancer in November (sob) but the vet checked her out recently and she is fine, just old ;-).
After the shock of not being able to help her as she convulsed on the floor at my feet, and then rushing her to the emergency vet where she promptly sprang out her basket like nothing had happened, I brought her home.  She ate loads and then slept for the rest of the day.

I could have used this horrid experience  to eat loads of chocolate Easter Eggs, pop out to drink with friends but instead I chose to stay in, watch over her and edit my very first podcast.  This was scary, I did the interview last week and I had so many fears; about listening to it, editing it , it not being good enough, it being boring, hating the sound of my voice, maybe I was not clear enough, I don’t know how to post it on iTunes or on my blog, how on earth do I get a RSS feed for it, why do I even need a RSS feed for it… so many thoughts.
However I had set a deadline of editing it by the end of Easter, so watching over my little cat Safra sleep, I edited it.

I have wrote and recorded albums so using Garageband was relatively easy. I am using as my background music, a song of mine called ‘Londontown’ that is currently being remixed by Andrew Hyde. I had to record a spoken front and back section and discovered I had lost the use of my tongue, I gabbled, confused myself and had to stop and rerecord so many times for the intro. I don’t do scripts unless paid 😉  plus there is this pressure of how I start my intro, I had no clue. I just had to just guess and do the best I could.

However I did it, I finished it and sent it off to Jason Hewitt the author I interviewed to have a listen to it, whilst I fought the good fight of working out how to post it on my blog and then setting up this RSS feed so others can find it on iTunes, Stitcher etc.

So I did keep on trucking, the Easter eggs called, the fat new novel called (written by someone else), friends rang but no, I just kept on trucking. Of course, as with all creativity once you start you seem to fall into it so time passed, the world shrank to me, my Macbook Pro and my little Bengal who has not got long left for this world but is happy and comfortable right now.

This morning I was listening to a Podcast by the Accidental Creative with Todd Henry interviewing Michael Hyatt and at  17.18 mins in Michael Hyatt says this
‘Your art matters, you are a unique expression that will never exist again.. so treat your art with great respect. Its fragile, its previous and it matters more than you think….. when I want to throw in the towel, i look back at my ‘why’, why I write…… So always look at your ‘why’, the reason you have got to continue.’

So lovely world out there KEEP ON TRUCKING!

Do you have any great examples of managing to keep on trucking with creative projects?

Having to turn up at work when horrid things happen takes strength but managing to move forward with creativity, writing, practising, marketing when there is noone or no pay cheque making you….that’s a different kind of strength, one that comes from knowing that your art is indeed precious.
I hope you had a lovely Easter weekend 😉 I’d love to hear any comments on your successes, no matter how small. Appreciating what we have achieved, especially wins over obstacles is important.

Other links to books written by Simon Callow