What I wrote when I should have been working

Spoiler alert: there's a new show in town and I'm making it!

What I wrote when I should have been working: this Substack post <3

Life has been so damn busy. It began with all self-imposed work, the fun stuff. Life was in balance. I was working 2.5 days a week podcast editing & the other 2.5 was a mixture of mentoring film students and writers, marking papers submitted by students on the Writing for Performance MSt at University of Cambridge and I’d say a growing dollop of meetings that had me connect with creatives across fields, from writers, producers, directors, other actors, content creators and dream-makers.

We’d meet at BAFTA Piccadilly and share empathy-evoking stories about our recent successes, our recent pain-staking spiritual growth, how hard it is to make films in this industry and how important it is to find your tribe.

How do you know when you’ve found your tribe? I hear you ask. Well, they’re people who share your values, in my case - people who are ultimately honest with themselves and other people, they hold themselves accountable and are able to communicate their expertise. They’re grounded, humble and ultimately generous in spirit. They’re also funny and quirky (Tori I’m looking at you!) and want the best for the project. And all of this keeps their ego in check because they want the best for your project and you; knowing when these needs are met, their needs are met too. I could go on but maybe I’d be going on for too long. At least I’ve been finding my tribe. Or I could say missing my tribe - because of my own unavailability.

Making a feature film was expensive. Not only financially but emotionally and, you might say, spiritually. Bruno and I had to go an extended period of time not getting paid to work in order to prioritise making the film above all else if we wanted to shoot it all in one go, it wouldn’t get made if we were working on anything else and we both suffered for it. Now we’re working tirelessly to keep a roof over our head.

If the Creative Process (title case to be extra snazzy) is like a spiritual process, then I have been cordially invited by The Powers, to enter my next phase. Each step along this process of making our feature film, Darker Days (the irony doesn’t escape me), has been a rite of passage. From the feature film we tactfully constructed and was mere weeks away from shooting but we had to take to pieces - primarily for budgetary reasons (although the indie filmmaking spirit within me to the challenges we’re facing to complete it. The challenges have been non-stop.

So to keep a roof over our head I have been catapulted out of my own creative process and flexible way of living to and upping my days in the paid work, editing podcasts. The reality is I haven’t posted on here in months and I haven’t added to my scrapbook, or had a romantic poetic thought that I rushed to write down before I might forget it. It’s been work, work, work and editing Dinners on Me with Jesse Tyler Ferguson (the Modern Family guy), Kermode and Mayo’s Take (the film critics) and other Sony Music podcasts. I had really been enjoying it and soaking up the editing process. It inspired me really but not without a cost. The cost was time and space to be creative on my own projects, I have been actioning and operating from “the closed state” as John Cleese would put it. And as I type this to you, I am pushing through a very annoying pain in my wrists which is sabotaging the strength in my hands. I have been clicking and pushing buttons from 10-6 which is taking its toll.

Which is perhaps why I have been developing a creative project and creating when I should have been resting because I really want to make this happen.

I am making my very own video podcast. I am making my own talk show. I am literally doing what I was doing as a child and presenting to camera but this time, with really cool people next to me.

CAB CONVOS picks up artists, creators, performers, doers and dreamers who are in action heading to their film premiere, their exhibition opening, theatre rehearsal, recording studio etc. and in the back of our London black cab driven by our very own driver Cabaret Dan, we pick up artists, creators, performers, doers and dreamers who are in action - heading to their film premiere, their exhibition opening, theatre rehearsal, recording studio etc. - and we have conversations about what drives them and where they’re headed.

What has been DRIVING ME, has been creating this show. Something that I can have fun with, something that continues the conversations that I’d been having with epic people at BAFTA or in a funky coffee shop with coffee that lifts our minds.

I always have and most likely always will be a performer of sorts. Performance takes many shapes and acting on screen is the pièce de résistance and on parr with performing a professional one woman show that I got paid to do! Last year was a big year wasn’t it. Performance is also welcoming people and curating Q&As with Shorts on Tap which I’ve been invited to host for the last couple of years.

I love connecting with people. I love hearing about their stories, their dreams and their hard-earned insights, what challenges they’re facing in their process and what is inspiring them and getting them through it. What are they learning about themselves?

How to be Human was my first major project. Darker Days (coming 2027) is my first major feature film and Butterfly, Reverie, W.A.R.S: the immersive experience and The Public Eye (coming 2027) are projects I’m proud of and Cab Convos is a way for me to continue trusting in my process, doing what I love (performing, creating) and hearing about the life lessons of others (triple win).

I’m now putting what I’ve been learning on the social podcast side of things with the players at the top of the podcast game and putting it into practice. Not to compete with others, just to find my audience for this show and participate in the fun. I have a lot of ideas for this show and am excited see where it takes me, maybe nowhere but maybe it brings all of my passions, projects and interests together in one tidy black cab package.

For now, I need to go and get on with my workwork as these film scripts that have been sent to my door to feedback on are calling me.

I am truly grateful for my role as a creative mentor and if you or anyone who know could benefit from one-to-one guidance, that might just be the way that I am able to have more time healing my wrists and creating with my spirit, motivated to support others to do the same.

* this is just a (private) test-drive episode and was created as a way for me to test the concept, and the equipment and editing style. I hope the next video I share with you will feature my first guest! *

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