I put a lot of pressure on myself
Shocking. I know.
That's why I drink a fuckton of coffee. Also, outside in - get it? Cuz coffee is on the outside? And it's going in me? All the time? Like I'm a human coffee filter? Guys? Get it?
When I write, my ideas must come from me and the must be unique and free of any other influence I am original and my voice is unique, dammit!
...except, you know, everything is influenced by everything else and what the fuck would make me think I'm any exception!?
Stubbornness. Ego. Masochism. Choose the word you will.
And this is how I drive myself crazy. I keep reinventing the wheel for no reason. Well, my main compelling reason is that if I do it all myself, I will have definitely internalized it, but I think that's a false goal.
At this point in my life, I'm very adverse to coaching. Not input - I listen to what a lot of people have to say and I enjoy mulling over ideas and techniques that never occurred to me before. It's more as soon as someone tries to get me to do something, try and put me on some sort of track, my reaction becomes, "NUH-UH, BITCH, U DONT TELL ME WUT 2 DO."
Maybe it's a misguided attempt at self-reliance. It's just that a lot of people in Los Angeles think they have things figured out and love to blow smoke up my ass and tell me that there's this one way to do things and all it does is make me want to slap them around.
What we have are two problems that fall under the purview of one larger problem: insisting on internal creativity and refusing a mentor for my career both fall into the category of insisting everything come from the Inside Out.
Everything I do MUST COME FROM WITHIN ME: every idea, career move - I ALONE MUST BE THE SOLE ORIGINATOR.
What bullhonkey. Yet, I buy into this mythology constantly.
So I've started trying to break out of it. I'm already a voracious reader; I don't take notes, I try to osmosis good storytelling into my bones. But I also read a lot of stuff on writing and acting technique and listen to podcasts and audiobooks that make me think about work differently.
More recently, I've turned to mythology, as mentioned a couple of weeks ago. I can look outside for ideas that are provably much bigger than just me. I have a massive dictionary of symbols that I can flip through at random and it will stimulate a story idea.
What I'm less good at is the whole mentor thing. I'm dipping my toe in the water with a project I don't feel like talking about at the moment, and I think I may need to shove my foot in it soon, but I'm trying. I don't need to reinvent the wheel. I don't need to go it alone. There is a vast library of knowledge out there in the world hidden in books, in people.
All I need to do is pay attention to it. And let the outside stimulate the inside.