Creative Goal Setting for 2010

A. Make a list of your CREATIVE GOALS for 2010.

-- Any projects that you've started and want to finish, ideas you've had but never started, projects that pay the bills, projects that seem unrealistic, dream projects and forgotten scripts. Make a comprehensive list.

B. Now, prioritize those goals.

-- Number them starting with 1. Which is most pressing? Which is most urgent? Which is most important to you?

C. Now, starting with Project #1, make a list of the steps you need to take to take that project to completion.

Example:

1. Finish Ghostwriting Novel

-- Ten pages a day for ten days

-- Collect photo images

-- Ask agent about how to insert into manuscript

-- Notes from author

-- Notes from agent

-- Final polish

D. Do this for each project.

E. Now, go back and assign dates for each of these steps. The date by which it will be completed.

F. Now, put the list away and close your eyes. Which project has your heart? Why aren't you working on that one? What can you do to make room for that project?

G. Visualize yourself at the end of your creative journey for that dream project, your heart project. What does it look like? Are you holding an Oscar in your hand? Are you signing books at the Union Square B&N? Are you shooting a film? Are you staring up at the marquee with your name in lights?

DREAM BIG!!!!

GOAL SETTING FOR 2009

This is Part Two of our Personal Inventory as artists as we move into 2009. You can use the information you discovered in Part One to help you set goals for 2009 and beyond.

You will 9 blank pages. Write one heading per page:

SPIRITUALITY
HEALTH & BODY
EMOTIONAL WELL BEING
RELATIONSHIPS
INTELLECTUAL STIMULATION
FINANCIAL SECURITY
CAREER (BUSINESS)
CREATIVITY
FUN

Then under each of these headings, write:

10 YEARS
5 YEARS
3 YEARS
1 YEAR

So your layout should look like this:

SPIRITUALITY

10

5

3

1

Do this for each page heading. Once you have your structure set up, it’s time to fill in the blanks. Sometimes, it’s easiest to start with the 10 year mark and work backwards.

Where do you want to be in terms of your spiritual development in 10 years? If that’s your goal, what steps do you need to take this year to head toward that goal? What milestones do you think will mean progress at the 3 year and 5 year mark?

Ask yourself these questions for each subject heading. Feel free to jump around – no need to do them in any special order – and leave things blank if you’re just not sure. Again, there is no judgment in this exercise – this is about seeing where you need to focus new energy or where you are spending all of your time. Also, you can list several goals or you can just identify one goal per year – it’s entirely up to you to use this map in a way that’s helpful to plan your own life. There are no rules.

Also notice that I have separated business from creativity – as artists, we often get caught up in production or business concerns and spend our creative energy in those pursuits. Creating work is not the same as selling work! Look at what happens when you separate the two!

Here’s an example of how you might fill one out:

CAREER (BUSINESS)

10 Year

- MOUNTAIN MAMA Production Company: funding, producing, creating films, tv, books and plays that further the empowerment of women, artists and Appalachians.

- Nominations for Pulitzer, Oscar and Emmy

5 Year

- The Constant Creator series has become new Artist’s Way.
- Ability to produce other artist’s work
- Play on Broadway
- Commercial Xmas movie creates financing for indie projects

3 Year

- Shot feature premieres at Sundance with theatrical release
- TV show on the air
- Mentropy is best seller
- Constant Creator series is completed and sold

1 Year - 2009

- Become WGA member
- Sell TV project
- Constant Creator proposal completed

FREE ARTS TUNE-UP

ARTS INFORMATION FOR INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS & SMALL BUDGET ORGANIZATIONS

The Arts Tune-Up is free, but you do need to REGISTER through SurveyMonkey by clicking on this link: www.surveymonkey.com/lacac_atucc08

We are pleased to announce an "Arts Tune-Up" event for individual artists and small budget organizations. This free event is designed to put you in contact with arts consultants, working artists, and administrators who can provide information and answer questions on a variety of topics including fundraising, how to market and publicize your art, information on new loan fund programs for artists and organizations, benefit opportunities for artists, training programs for artists and organizations, board development for arts organizations, arts education resources, and much more.

Saturday, May 3: Culver City
10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Veterans Memorial Park Teen Center
4135 Overland Avenue
Culver City, CA 90230

Parking is available and free of charge

HERE IS HOW THE ARTS TUNE-UP WORKS!

There will be several tables set up with an arts expert/consultant located at each table.
Locate the table that has the topic you want to learn more about and join that table. Each table discussion will last for 25 minutes. After 25 minutes an announcement will be made, indicating that that session is over. Then rotate to another table with a topic you want to learn more about as the sessions repeat. There will be a series of 5 round-robin sessions of 25 minutes each.
You are welcome to come by for one session or stay for all five.

Schedule Registration and Check-in: 9:45 – 10:00 a.m.
Welcome: 10:00 – 10:10 a.m.
Round 1: 10:10 – 10:35 a.m.
Round 2: 10:40 – 11:05 a.m.
Networking: 11:05 – 11:20 a.m.
Round 3: 11:20 – 11:45 a.m.
Round 4: 11:50 – 12:15 p.m.
Round 5: 12:20 – 12:45 p.m.
Wrap up: 12:45 – 1:00 p.m.

Topics for Artists:
Artist Residencies & Live-Work Housing
Arts Education In-School Resources and Working in Arts Education (K-12)
Cultural and Community Outreach
Fundraising for Individual Artists
Getting Your Sh*t Together
Health Insurance for Individual Artists
Legal Issues and Contracts, Copyright and Collections
Marketing for Visual Artists
PR (for Performing Artists)

Topics for Organizations:
Arts Education In-School Resources (K-12)
Board or Bored: Practical Tips for Engaging Your Board
Cultural and Community Outreach
Fundraising for Organizations
Legal Issues and Contracts, Copyright and Collections
Marketing for Organizations

AND MORE...

There will be lots of basic information for individual artists and small arts organizations. While seasoned artists, arts administrators and board members are welcome to attend, the information is geared more toward those people who are earlier in their careers and are looking for some basic ideas to help them with the business side of their work.

The Arts Tune-Up is free, but you do need to REGISTER through SurveyMonkey by clicking on this link:
www.surveymonkey.com/lacac_atucc08

the loop

Daily Creator G.G. produces The Loop: a FREE weekly posting for playwrights and for those who support playwrights. The Loop lists production opportunities, submission guidelines, residencies, contests, seminars, editorials, etc. all over the country, if not the world.

The Loop also features profiles of playwrights and theatres around the country, investigative articles on issues that every playwright is concerned with, advice from fellow playwrights, rants and raves on trends in the industry and feature articles that exam some area of writing new plays or forging a career in the theatre.

To subscribe to the Loop: http://garygarrison.com/loo.htm

opportunities

Affordable Healthcare. If you are working in the performance, writing or visual field (as a practitioner, technician or administrator) you have access to healthcare at an amazingly affordable (sliding scale $15-60 per visit, prescriptions $10) rate through this program started by Dance/NYC. There is also the opportunity to exchange performance in the hospital for 'healthcare credits' which you can redeem for FREE healthcare. They've got you covered from dental through acupuncture, it is worth checking out! http://www.dancenyc.org/topics.asp?file=news.

The Fire Dept Salon Series is looking for scripts for staged or semi-staged readings to be presented in non-traditional spaces that encourage post-performance dialogue. Scripts should raise challenging questions and address issues of contemporary social and/or political relevance. To be eligible, plays may not have been previously produced in New York. Accepting submissions immediately and hope to begin the series some time in February, but the process will be ongoing and we will accept rolling submissions until all the slots have been filled. We expect to do 10 to 12 plays in all, approximately every 6 weeks or so. Please emailscripts and any questions to thefiredept@gmail.com.

The Lark is looking for a sublet for an international writer in March or early April. If you know of anything in NYC, please contact Company Manager, Amanda Berkowitz, amanda@larktheatre.org, 212-246-2676 x28.

The Lark and the Indo-American Arts Council are seeking playwrights from the South Asian Diaspora for Playwrights' Week and a year-long Playwright Residency Program to commence in September, 2007. Submission Deadline: February 15, 2007. For info and application, please click here.

Lark Internships. Lark is seeking interns for the following areas: Literary Management, Artistic Programming/Special Events, Artistic/Producing, General Management, Arts Administration/Development and Marketing/Communications. As an intern at the Lark you'll join our small staff in helping to cultivate new plays and support emerging playwrights. For more information please click here or e-mail anna@larktheatre.org.

The New York Musical Theatre Festival's 2007 Next Link Project will be accepting submissions from January 1 - March 1, 2007. NYMFis the world's largest annual musical theatre event. The Next Link Project is our central series of new musicals, accounting for 18 of the 30+ productions in each year's festival. We maintain an open submissions policy and a blind evaluation process to ensure that writers from every level of the theatre community, from working professionals to those whose work has not yet been produced, are given the opportunity to participate. The 2007 New York Musical Theatre Festival will run from September 17 - October 7, 2007. For more information on NYMF, The Next Link Project or the submission process, please visit www.nymf.org.

The Playwrights' Center invites committed professional playwrights to apply for the Core Membership Program. Created in recognition of the particular needs of emerging and established writers, Core Membership confers additional benefits intended to significantly further a playwright's career. Core membership is available to writers both locally and nationally. Deadline: January 12. Application and more information available online at http://www.pwcenter.org/core_membership.asp.

Theatre Communications Group Announces 2007-2009 NEA/TCG Career Development Programs. The National Endowment for the Arts and TCG are pleased to announce the 2007 deadlines for the 2007-2009 NEA/TCG Career Development Programs for Theatre Directors and Designers. For more details on these programs, including guidelines and online applications, please visit the Grants page on the TCG website.

inventory part two

Let’s continue with our Artist Inventory.

Think about these seven aspects of your life:

Your Personal Relationships
Your Physical Health
Your Spirituality
Your Career
Your Financial Security
Your Emotional Well Being
Your Thirst For Knowledge

Which of these are most important to you? Where is most of your time going? Does it match up? Think about the changes you might need to make to spend your time on the most important aspects of your life.

TODAY’S CREATIVITY CHALLENGE:

Pick your top three from the list above, such as:

PHYSICAL HEALTH
FINANCIAL SECURITY
PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Then pick several short-term goals, long-term goals and a “stretch” goal for each, such as:

PHYSICAL HEALTH

Short Term Goals
- Stop Eating Sugar
- Take a Daily Walk
- Get Health Insurance
- Find a New Doctor

Long Term Goals
- Join a Softball League
- Have a Healthy Pregnancy
- Eat 6 Mini-Meals A Day
- Braces

Stretch Goal
- Learn To Surf

As you create your goals, keep in mind our agenda for the month: PLAY, LOVE, LET GO.

personal inventory

The New Year is just a few days away - a good time to take our personal, artistic inventory.

You don't have to turn this into a "list-making" exercise - you can just think about these questions, keep them in mind as we move from 2006 to 2007.

* Who are you as an artist?
* What do you want from life?
* What matters most to you?

TODAY'S CREATIVITY CHALLENGE:

From the answers to those questions, create a "personal ad" for yourself as an artist, something like:

Talented, risktaking artist with creative, profitable career seeks spiritual wisdom and personal courage to support a loving home full of laughter, creativity and community.