Be More Fringe
Guys, I’m at the Edinburgh Fringe!!! For anyone who doesn’t know it’s the world’s biggest arts festival. I’m so excited. I’m already booked in to see two shows later today, I’m living with amazing artists and my best friend, I’m currently sat in a cool coffee shop next to a man with funky tattoos designing and illustrating a cocktail menu by hand - and I’ve never felt more creatively stuck. Bereft of ideas. A barren wasteland. So what are we talking about today? Exactly that feeling.
I’m sure most of you will have felt it before: your brain is a wild west dessert with a comically oversized tumbleweed swirling through. You thought you had an idea but maybe it’s not a good one, or maybe someone else already did it, or maybe someone else already did it better. Or you have the ideas but you have no motivation, no kindling has taken up your creative spark, and it is simply left to smoulder out. If it makes you feel any better I’m feeling it too, and basically all artists are at some point, but what are we going to do about it?
First things first I’ve put my big girl pants on and started writing this natter about not having anything to write about. In about an hour that means I will have written something. I think sometimes it’s important to remember when you think you have nothing to say you can just say anything (within reason). You can fill a whole notebook page describing the current view out of your window, you could write about the smell of your favourite perfume, you could just keep writing rhyming words until there are no more rhyming words. What Einstein and every stand up comedian I’ve ever heard talk about writing said is true: success is only a tiny bit actually having a genius idea, and almost entirely actually sitting down and doing the work you need to do. Hopefully it doesn’t take an Einstein to tell I’ve paraphrased that a little bit, but the point still stands.
And when you’ve got the idea? Stick to it, believe in it, nurture it like it’s your little baby. I’ve been experiencing a fair amount of the old impostor syndrome while setting up for fringe and my brain has been repeating one big question: what actually makes the performers ‘better’ or at least different to me? They have stuck to their creative convictions. Stuck so hard that they’ve moved to Scotland for a month with bubble mixture and stickers and hoola hoops and slime and a dream. Maybe someone else has a similar show, or did a similar idea in 2016 or 1998, but theirs is the one they believe in, that they’ve given their love in the infant stage, till it’s a fully fledged show running around in fake blood and feathers. At first I was intimidated by that but after a while you can’t help but be inspired. I’m sure plenty of you reading this never have the desire to put on a one-woman show, but imagine if you put the energy into your ideas that any fringe performer does. Imagine if you let yourself start that etsy shop, or try that new recipe, or go to that dance class. What’s the worst that could happen? In many ways I think what actually separates the ‘creatives’ from the general population is that they have the courage of their convictions, and I think we could all use a little bit of that.
I hope if you’ve read all of this you go away and try something. That’s what I’m going to do. And when I’ve found it I’ll just keep showing up, because that’s the real secret, that’s the real hard work. Fear isn’t going to take us anywhere, but the dogged determination of a character clown might. My takeaway from today? Feel the fear, then be more fringe.
Niamh Duncan is an author, theatre maker and knitter living in Norwich, England. Having graduated from the University of East Anglia with a first-class degree in creative writing, she is now engaged in answering life’s big questions, namely how do you pay your rent with a degree in creative writing. In her spare time Niamh loves drinking tea and cocktails (usually not simultaneously) and going for long rambling walks.