A few months ago I made a big decision. After over twenty five years I was beginning to feel a bit burned out by my profession.
It wasn’t the creative part of writing that was frustrating me the most, but rather the promotional/marketing aspect of it. Selling self-published books and freelance articles is getting increasingly difficult for a variety of reasons that I won’t go into the details of here.
But it wasn’t just that. After a quarter century of trying to paint pictures in people's heads with words I was beginning to feel a bit constrained creativity-wise. I constantly felt myself yearning for more brushes, a larger palette of colors, in effect more tools to paint those pictures.
The decision to learn something completely new at age fifty wasn’t something that felt easy, no matter how much I tried to convince myself that it would be. Yet nothing I’ve ever done in my life, personally or professionally, that felt “easy” ever amounted to much of anything.
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The past few weeks I’ve been taking Casey Neistat’s film class. It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions…it’s been – exhilarating, defeating, rewarding, and exhausting. Most of all it’s been fun and I know, without a doubt, that I want to do more of it.
Here’s my very first short film, a class project. Shenanigans Hour was shot on my iPhone SE (2020) and edited in iMovie.
The imperfections and mistakes in this first project bother me every time I watch it. I realize I have a long way to go and much to learn but it feels pretty damned good to have taken these first few steps.
I hope you enjoy this! Thank you, Casey, you’ve been a wonderful teacher.
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-Eric Vance Walton-
(Gif sourced from Giphy.com)
Poetry should move us, it should change us, it should glitch our brains, shift our moods to another frequency. Poetry should evoke feelings of melancholy, whimsy, it should remind us what it feels like to be in love, or cause us to think about something in a completely different way. I view poetry, and all art really, as a temporary and fragile bridge between our world and a more pure and refined one. This is a world we could bring into creation if enough of us believed in it. This book is ephemera, destined to end up forgotten, lingering on some dusty shelf or tucked away in a dark attic. Yet the words, they will live on in memory. I hope these words become a part of you, bubble up into your memory when you least expect them to and make you feel a little more alive.
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Most of us have experienced a moment of perfect peace at least once in our lives. In these moments we lose ourselves and feel connected to everything. I call these mindful moments. Words can’t describe how complete they make us feel.
These moments are usually fragile, evaporating in seconds. What if there was a way to train your mind to experience more of them? It’s deceptively easy and requires nothing more than a subtle shift in mindset. My new book, Mindful Moments, will teach you to be much more content despite the chaos and imperfect circumstances continuing to unfold around you. Upgrade your life experience today for only $15.99 on Amazon.com.
