From our motel room:



You always hope for good weather when you're shooting outside. Actually, you basically COUNT on having PERFECT weather. "Good" weather doesn't always cut it. Like today, when I wanted it to be gloomy, but not actually rain or snow. Instead it's sunny. Bright blue. Too loud.

Delia's getting ready for me to shoot her but the light is just not right at all.

I could have a spycam on me right now in our motel room while I blog this but I don't want to.



*****

Sometimes it makes me nervous when I communicate shoot ideas/plans to people because I'm afraid they'll get their hopes up for something really creative and amazing based on how much work and planning we seem to be putting in it. And of course it never winds up being THAT great / is still pretty generic. At best everything is still sort of a rough draft of a good idea. Shows potential. Meets or exceeds a sort of bland standard of certain amateur porn things. We'd have to shoot a lot less to do a lot better or have a lot more resources and people working for us or stay up all day and night. People sweetly encourage me, "just shoot less! Shoot what *you* want!" but I don't think you can make money that way. The better and higher quality your work is, the less there is of it and the easier it is for people to "steal" and pass around. Have you noticed that on the internet? The more beautiful something is, the more people feel they have a collective right to enjoy it for free and share it with each other. This is great! Everyone should know about it! It's an extremely flattering compliment that can wind up starving you to death.



I could pull out a lot of things we do and present them in a different way to make them seem better than they are, but I can't seem to find time for that. And again, I'm still proud of mediocrity and just having potential. It's a very good thing to make pictures that make people happy every week, are genuine, straightforward, show promise, suggest a certain mood. I think I'm good at that: being suggestive.

*****

I have a hard time accepting compliments that make our work seem better than it is. I also can't help feeling defensive towards people who think what we do is easy or that they have solutions to challenges I complain about, solutions they are sure would work and certain have never crossed my mind or been attempted or dismissed because they wouldn't work for a variety of reasons.

I remember standing outside our local movie theater listening to some blow-hards talking about what THEY would do if THEY owned the local theaters. Why don't they do X and Y? It would be simple . . . if I owned it, X would be the first thing I'd do. I hate those people even though I do exactly the same thing. Maybe that's why I hate those people; because I can't resist being a stupid know-it-all either, even when I know I don't. It's people's way of being part of the conversation when they really are in no position to comment at all. I just really hate being the subject of other people's imaginary business-plan hobby-thoughts myself, but I guess I encourage it to a certain extent. Love it up to a certain point. I want people to think of the growth of our business as a serial novel, something they want to keep reading about and hope will end well and spawn many sequels. I just don't want them to tell me how to write it. But with some people you can't have one without the other. I don't blame them since I can't resist doing the same thing sometimes. And some of them really mean well. They really do.

Have you ever thought about X? I would totally read that! I'm sure it would make you rich! You know, I saw you on cam for ten minutes last week and I really think what your problem is . . . Hey, I'll bet if you did more of Z a lot more people would jack off to you! Z is totally where it's at.

*****

Every time we go away from home to shoot I go through a little process. First I'm anxious that we'll forget to pack something, that things won't go as planned, that we won't get enough work done. Then I realize everything is going to be fine, and if it isn't, I might as well enjoy the time away as time off, well-deserved. Then I get a fresh perspective since I'm away from home/work and a million distractions and have a little flexibility to think clearly. About what I want. About what I REALLY WANT TO DO. If I could only do one thing.



I'm at the point where I know what that one thing is, even when I'm at home and not away. But I'm not at the point of wanting or being able to give all my other work up in favor of that one thing and don't know if I ever will be. I still cling to the notion that it might be possible to do it all. Or that I should do other things first in order to make doing the one thing easier, foremost and full-time, without having to give a fuck what anybody else thinks of it.



If I could be good at any one thing -- if I were to invest 10,000 hours of practice in attempting to master it -- I know exactly what the one thing would be. I used to think forty-five would be too old to start being good at something, but now I think it would be perfect. Even fifty would be fine. Which means I don't really need to start practicing right now to be completely satisfied with myself in fifteen years. I'm comforted by this thought.

Labels: accomplishments, anxiety, fans, goals, PHOTOS, webwhore insights, work

posted by Trixie at 2/12/2009 10:47:00 AM -