Brian Koppelman On the Tension of a New Craft
“I write songs, and one of the reasons I write songs is because I’m primitive at it. It’s hard. I love doing it. It fires something in me creatively that nothing else does. The reward is that I get to feel like I’m creating in a risky way, and I know it bleeds into the other stuff.
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The previous quote was a snippet from a fantastic interview Brian Koppelman conducted with Seth Godin on his podcast, The Moment. Koppelman’s film credits include Rounders (writer), Ocean’s Thirteen (writer), and The Illusionist (producer). With credits like those, Koppelman could easily stay in his comfort zone and focus on the film industry. But artists tend to crave the tension a new craft brings into one’s mind.
Once you are many years into an art form, you begin to lose the sense of excitement and discovery that it had in those first formative years. I’ve been playing the guitar for 20 Years, and more often than not, I play the same songs I’ve known for years because I’ve grown too comfortable with the instrument.
Artists need to have an art form they are continually engaging in that makes them feel primitive. I’ve created a way for artists, and even people who don’t consider themselves artists, to sample different outlets over 30 days. I call it the 30 Day Buffet. It’s a list of tasks designed to find a medium that you didn’t know you would love.
30-Day Buffet
Here are a few ideas for a 30 Day Buffet of experiences:
Day One: Draw a nonsense creature ☐
Day Two: Write lyrics to a song; don’t worry about structure ☐
Day Three: Try yoga for 30 minutes ☐
Day Four: Buy an instrument ☐
Day Five: Write a one-page story ☐
Day Six: Take 30 photographs and post to Instagram with the hashtag #30picturesaday ☐
Day Seven: Sign up for a free Crossfit session ☐
Day Eight: Sign up for Codeacademy.com ☐
Day Nine: Buy three albums outside of your normal genres ☐
Day Ten: Spend an hour learning to act ☐
Day Eleven: Write a poem ☐
Day Twelve: Watch a random documentary ☐
Day Thirteen: Join Meetup.com and join a group ☐
Day Fourteen: Listen to a Tim Ferris Show podcast ☐
Day Fifteen: Take a business course on Udemy.com ☐
Day Sixteen: Check out one hobby book at the Library ☐
Day Seventeen: Sign up for VolunteerMatch.org ☐
Day Eighteen: Watch three videos on Ted.com ☐
Day Nineteen: Ask an Author for a 10min conversation ☐
Day Twenty: Sign up for a class at an art museum ☐
Day Twenty-One: Free write for 30 minutes ☐
Day Twenty-Two: Google “Nobody Tells This To Beginners” ☐
Day Twenty-Three: Watch ’20,000 Days on Earth’ ☐
Day Twenty-Four: Film a tutorial video on something you enjoy doing and upload to Youtube ☐
Day Twenty-Five: Google ‘Newspaper Blackout Poetry’ and try doing your own ☐
Day Twenty-Six: Ask a friend to borrow one of their instruments and learn to play it for 30 minutes ☐
Day Twenty-Seven: Audition for a part in a play at your local theater ☐
Day Twenty-Eight: Buy Seth Godin’s book Purple Cow and read the first two chapters ☐
Day Twenty-Nine: Spend thirty minutes writing a dialog scene between two people ☐
Day Thirty: Reflect back on this 30-day exercise and what you’ve learned about yourself. Journal your revelations ☐
These are just a few ideas. I’d encourage you to make your own or a hybrid. If you tried the 30 Day Buffet I would love to know the results. Shoot me an email: jason@unfinished.life