We recently connected with Joshua Bennett and have shared our conversation below.
Joshua, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
How to keep the flame of creativity alive was something I was fortunate to discover early on in my artistic journey. Remaining curious of everything, believing that at least some people out there would be curious about the same things as me, and developing a method of organizing my ideas have been my greatest allies in not losing my inspiration to create. Due to this, I routinely write down my ideas and use a curated method to organize them, allowing me to remain focused on how to keep track of my creativity and implement my ideas. Those principles give me hope that my ideas can become a reality.
That hope keeps me from giving up and allows the flame of creativity to remain alive, since I know there is always an artistic medium for me to implement my ideas. I find that one of the biggest reasons people give up on the creative journey is that they either don’t believe their ideas will see the light of day or that it’s not worth it for them to bother creating anymore. I put art on a pedestal, valuing its influence on myself and others very highly, so the fact that I can turn ideas into art makes me very grateful and excited. Art has influenced me in many positive ways, and I’m humbled to be able to play a part in creating my own artistic works to hopefully inspire someone in fun and interesting ways.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I’m a storyteller who likes to use various mediums (books, films, poetry, etc.) to tell my stories. Up until recently, most of my artistic journey consisted of honing my craft and finding my voice. What that search led me to was finding my unique voice that is drawn to the universals of life that connect us all and then applying those things to stories of some of my favorite genres, such as sci-fi, fantasy, and comedy. My recent book entitled ‘Imagination Unchained: Poetry of Reality’ tells the tale of finding universal things that connect us amidst a fantasy/sci-fi landscape, which is told across multiple storytelling mediums of short stories, films, poetry, essay meditations, and visual arts.
While I was earning my English degree, I developed a passion for studying the best writers/storytellers and the most influential pieces of storytelling throughout history, and I found that often the most influential writers and works of literature combined multiple storytelling forms. Whether it be Shakespeare, the Holy Bible, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, or William Blake, I found that there was often a combination of multiple storytelling mediums that led to the most influential writers and/or works throughout history. So, I wanted to create a work that honored the writing traditions before me and tell a tale that discusses the things of the 21st Century, which took me many years of seeking and creating.
‘Imagination Unchained: Poetry of Reality’ not only became my first professional work but also my attempt to categorize an entirely new storytelling genre that I named “Reality Quests”. It’s a genre I didn’t create just for professional writers/storytellers but also for the everyday person to take a personal quest to find meaning in life and travel to new places around the world. I outline how to do that in my book and on my website www.JoshBArtistry.com. It’s my hope I can inspire people to have a safe space and artistic outline to explore life in all its depths and forms by using the most universal methods of storytelling humans have used for 1,000s of years and continue to evolve to express and enrich the human experience.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The three things that were most impactful in my creative journey were:
1. Making the decision that I would be a writer for the rest of my life, which started as a screenwriter and led me from day one to purchase books on screenwriting and begin analyzing films based on the new knowledge I acquired on screenwriting. I made the decision and acted upon my decision immediately.
2. Having a filmmaker I looked up to give me this piece of advice: “Flip the words ‘filmmaker’ backwards and it says ‘make films’. A filmmaker is someone who goes out and makes films.” The truth behind his words was so clear and profound that I immediately purchased a camcorder and created 13 short films in 1.5 years. Four of those short films were broadcast on TV across the world and led to me giving live TV interviews. Again, I took important knowledge and acted upon it immediately.
3. The final quality, and the toughest one to exemplify, was being able to receive criticism of my works that would be helpful while also knowing when to stick to my guns and go my own way. There were plenty of people who believed in me strongly and also those who strongly believed I would fail and loved to let me know that. By having a thorough understanding of what makes great storytelling and how it works, I was able to process criticism from as non-biased a perspective as possible so I could hone my craft.
Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?
Currently, my biggest struggle is maneuvering how to get my artistic works in front of as many people as possible while continuing to develop new works. Recently, I have been attempting to have a TV show created, and I also have my new book to promote, along with many other projects I have waiting in the wings. All of it takes time, money, and hard, well-thought-out work. After all, if it was easy, anyone could do it at the snap of their fingers. I’m grateful I have creative works to take on the challenge, though, and I believe gratefulness is one of the most important attitudes to have when facing obstacles. Otherwise, it’s easy to get discouraged and give up.
Making in-roads into Hollywood to eventually get a movie or TV show produced can easily seem like an impossible obstacle to tackle. I’m going to give myself the best possible chance by submitting my work to film festivals, attempting to get representation, and continuing to create my independent works. After I start submitting my TV show to film festivals, I plan to begin work on a docudrama film that is already half-filmed, which I also plan to submit to film festivals. The one thing I can control in this process of getting my work to be viewed by as many people as possible is continuing to fearlessly put my work out there and seeing who would be interested in promoting it and/or creating new, exciting projects.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.JoshBArtistry.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialjbart/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@officialjbart
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