Try Hard

ENTERTAINMENT
I am not doing this for you, dear reader. I am doing this for me. This is the thing that artists and creatives rarely say but is obvious to me. For all the altruistic-sounding mentions of community and connection and the metaphysical ideas around healing and the resiliency of the human spirit, what creatives rarely acknowledge is this: I am simply doing this for my own entertainment.

It’s January right now, and after a busy year of touring with my band, Arkells, I am home for a bit. I get the news­paper delivered in the morning and read it with my coffee. I go for walks and catch up with friends. I try to be a better uncle, son, and brother. But I am restless. Since I was a teen­ager, I’ve always been driven to pursue tangible goals. But it’s only in the past few years that I’ve been able to keenly identify having a project as the thing that makes me tick.
Having a project on the go keeps me happy, fulfilled, and focused. When I don’t have something to work toward, I get irritable. I get anxious. And that’s how I’m starting to feel right now.

I have identified two times during the year when, like clockwork, I become irritable. It’s the first three weeks of January and the last week of August. Nobody in the music business seems particularly interested in working, and fair enough. Emails are greeted with an out-of-office response, texts are slow, and I am clearly annoying everyone.

This type of malaise is my enemy. I imagine most people— regardless of their jobs— experience a version of this. It’s a creeping sense of boredom or frustration with their daily work. But it’s in the pursuit of not being bored that I’m al­most always motivated to try something new. You might think, “Easy for you to say! You’re the singer of a band. By definition, you have a fun job!” But most jobs— including my own— are kind of the same: you offer your spirit and talent, and you hope you can move the project or goal a little further up the road. I’ve come to learn that those who thrive demand that the work evolves and remains invigorating. I think this is the key.

I feel most alive when I’m involved in conversations about ideas. The size or commercial appeal of an idea is mostly irrelevant to me— and many of them go nowhere, but that’s not the point. The point is the exercise itself. There is an electricity about a new idea that runs through me. Understanding how rewarding this feeling is, I end up seeking it out. It’s a gift to have something to aspire to. But aspirations are rarely served up in a bow. I’ve got to find them. All day long, I am poking around in every conversation for some­thing to light me up.

Beyond my unquestionable need for a project, the idea for this book came from a simple place: whenever I explain the nuts and bolts of my job to people I meet, they find it more interesting than I expect. Maybe a book could act as an exten­sion of those conversations. Some people might even find it useful. And if I could write with the same enthusiasm I put into my daily work and lean into a key ingredient of anything I’m a part of— which is acquiring a lot of feedback from smart people that I trust— then I might be able to get the project to a place I can live with. Something I might be proud of.

I should note that the idea of writing a book originally seemed stupid to me because the premise was wrong. Who am I to write a book? Sure, I’m a guy in a band, and folks seem to like rock ’n’ roll biographies. I do not. People assume that I have wild stories to share. I do not. Most daunting, there is a lot of agony and complaining involved in writing. The idea of locking myself away in some remote place to “write”— or to create anything for that matter— sounds terrible and iso­lating. Over the years I have been offered many cabins by friends to “get away from it all” so I can let my “creative juices fly,” and I would simply prefer to not.

I like to be in the action. I like to bounce around and keep each moment of the day fresh until it’s time for a nap around four p.m. As I conceived of the book, I began to think about how it might slot into my day. How would it make my day feel? What would I get out of it? Do I have the talent and patience for this? There were two anecdotes I kept going back to that changed my mind about writing a book and that I think get at something bigger about creative work.

The first is from my favourite writer, Michael Lewis, au­thor of The Big Short, Moneyball, and the rest. I have read almost all his books, and I’m lucky to know him a bit as well. When I interviewed Michael on my podcast, he described his process in a way that made me feel like writing could be joyful. In fact, it sounds like a lively experience. Michael typically listens to music while he writes. He puts his head­phones on and writes along to a playlist of “happy songs.” (I’ve learned that Arkells have at times been included!) He told me that when his wife is within earshot, she hears him laughing while he’s working, something he wasn’t aware of. He’s making sounds. He’s reacting to the words he’s creating on the page and does not hear himself laughing because of his headphones. What a nice thing to admit and an aspiring way to create.

The second is from Stephen King’s book On Writing. I have never read a Stephen King novel nor do I know much about his movies. Horror scares me. But On Writing is about his literary process. I read it several years ago, and in it he explains something very simple that resonated: try to focus on a daily word count or number of pages per day. If you do this for a few months, you’ll have enough words for a book. Simple math! Some days will be easy and the words will flow; others will be more challenging. But you will make progress just by starting. Word by word. He succinctly demystified his own work, describing straightforward and accessible strategies for any aspiring writer. He made me feel like any old fool could do it.

These two anecdotes embody the way I feel about creative work. First, it should be, to some degree, enjoyable. Michael Lewis reminds me that it’s not against the rules to sometimes create with a smile on my face, whatever I’m doing. A kindred spirit. Stephen King reminds me to stop thinking about working and just start doing with a goal in mind each day.

As I began, my mind was consumed by writers and how they do it. Does a writer get inspired the same way a musician does? In my case, the effect of a great song is that it immedi­ately draws me to the piano, inspiring me to write something of my own. Do authors react the same way? They must. While I’m a slow and often distracted reader, I have always admired writers— real writers— and their ability to make words jump off the page. I approached this project very hum­bly. I began writing with the hope that I could just get better. Writing with punch, brevity, and a voice that feels uniquely my own. But I wasn’t inspired only by the greats; I also thought about my non-writer friends who rhyme off text messages in group chats with a prose style that is enviable.

So, here I am writing a book because, so far, I’m enjoying it even more than I thought I would. If the first 1,500 words had felt like a real inconvenience, I simply would’ve stopped. But quickly and unexpectedly, writing became a part of my day that I craved. It offered a new purpose. It gave me some­thing to think about in the shower, waiting in line for a coffee, or walking through a park. It’s been a great surprise in my life.

I know I came in hot off the top, explaining to you how this is for my own entertainment and how artists are kind of full of it when speaking of the healing power of art and creativity. But I wasn’t being totally honest. While entertain­ing myself with this idea, other events began to unfold. What was originally an indulgent exercise revealed itself to be much more. It happens every time, and it feels like magic to me. The process goes like this:
1. I get pumped on an idea.
2. I start to fiddle with it.
3. I begin excitedly calling friends to workshop it.
4. Moments of connection, collaboration, and discovery inevitably follow.
5. All those lofty sayings about community and resiliency and the human spirit end up being true.

As you might be able to gather, there’s real enthusiasm here for the project itself. I’m picking up steam! The title of the book— if you couldn’t tell— is a double entendre. I thought it was funny. Try hard is traditionally a pejorative, like “Max is such a fucking try hard.” I imagine some people might think that about me. But I have concluded that anyone who gets anywhere in this life is exactly that: a try hard. More to the point, if you have gone through the trouble of invent­ing a project for yourself, why wouldn’t you try hard? So, I’m taking the term back. The title is also instructional. You must try hard to get anywhere, especially as a creative. Really hard. I don’t know if being a creative person is a hard job, but it’s a job where you must try hard.

I hope what’s to come will entertain you. This is one of my goals. I’m also hoping that along the way, this book of­fers a path for anyone who wants to entertain themselves. If I can try something new, you can too. Maybe you’re shy, or you think you’re not good enough or don’t have the talent to create something new. Or you’re someone who wants to pursue a creative endeavour but might not know where to start. Start here: start with finding what entertains you and interact with those feelings. Just try it and see what happens.