We recently connected with Tracey Jane and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Tracey, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
Giving up has never been an option for me. Maybe because I spent most of my infancy in and out of body casts due a congenital hip defect that postponed me walking, I think my brain just desperately searches for the things I CAN do.
When I found myself figuratively immobile after many years of marriage, I rediscovered my love of creative writing. Short plays became my outlet. My therapy. My escape. It took me years to accept the hardship and conflict of leaving, but meanwhile, I poured my unmet needs and longing into my little stage stories. Into characters who made me laugh and became my friends.
In the heart of the pandemic, like the rest of the world, I felt helpless. We were all literally unable to go places. Out of this bored desperation and desire to make something fun in the middle of “unparalleled uncertainty,” I decided to put on a show of my short comedic QUICKIES on Miami Beach’s beautiful Biscayne Bay at The The Barnacle, an historic house. That was December of 2020, when COVID was at its peak. But I filled The Barnacle’s broad lawn with socially spaced people and relished hearing them laugh.
I later was challenged to turn my pen to film. And my first three attempts each won “Best Picture” nods and 20 total awards with Orlando Independent Filmmakers (OIF), an organization of some 9,000+ local passionate creatives. Most recently, however, I’ve frankly been devastated by grief that nearly drowned me (and yet might). That is, the loss of a great love, a person with whom I shared two happy years. An actor and my motivation for becoming a filmmaker, a cherished partner, a muse.
While I was in shock for months, I also instinctively knew I had to embark on a new creative project. It felt and still feels like my very life is at stake. And although I wanted to take the easier path to adapt an already-successful play, my Director of Photography, Gregory Mohn (who recommended me for this article), balked and insisted I had to write something new. Because “some of the greatest art has been created out of pain.” So it is we’re preparing to shoot THE HEARTBREAK soon. It’s a short comedic sci-fi story about getting over it, bringing to life Elvis’ iconic Heartbreak Hotel.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
By day, I’m Copy Director for Marriott Vacations Worldwide. I lead an inspired team of copywriters, and together, we get to write about travel. So that’s pretty great. Especially love seeing how families use their vacations to create those little moments that become indelible memories. Talk about meaningful purpose. Like most of us, I can still recount random funny stories from vacays growing up—and later my own kids.
So my “real” job truly empowers me to live a more fulfilling life. My disposable income directly fuels my films. It gives me incredible satisfaction to be able to pay people at least something myself. Telling stories is my purpose, whether at work or at “play.”
My flirty QUICKIES stage stories are united by my now-signature “brand” of female-empowered comedy. Lots of word play, double entendres, puns that make me giggle, and other fun literary toys. That’s carried over into my films, which include a sci-fi favorite BUILD-A-BOB, about making your perfect mate at the mall. “Because finding is love is hard, but making love is easy!” You get the idea. Someday, I’d love to create a feature film and be able to pay a whole team what they deserve while creating a larger screen story that could be shared with a broader audience.
I guess I’ve kind of reverse-engineered into finding my creative purpose. But here it is: I tell stories to make people laugh. And as a woman, it’s natural that I have a different lens for viewing the world than a man. Life is meant to be enjoyed. Entertainment is a big part of that. Creating quirky characters in funny circumstances has become my best way to find resilience, channeling my own frustrations and longings in this life into universal comedy.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
First, I’d say I wish I had understood the fundamental importance of self-love earlier. Worth, esteem, confidence— whatever you call it, our unconscious value of ourselves determines the value of what we can create. This is different than “happiness.” Even when others reject us, ESPECIALLY THEN, when they leave us with our dignity on the floor, that’s when we need to love ourselves the most. That’s when we need to practice, to consciously exercise, the act of self-compassion. We must strive to preserve a flailing-but-never-drowning belief in the longest and most impactful relationship of our life, the one with ourself.
Secondly, I’d say emotional presence is key. Many call this people skills, others emotional intelligence. When we approach others with a genuine interest and desire to understand them, to be present with them in a moment, we create something greater than any “skill” could affect. We create a relationship that fosters commonality, comfort, and the pursuit of shared goals. A big part of this for me is humor. I’ve always been a joker by nature. We don’t need to be a stand-up comedian to tap this powerful tool. In fact, it’s more about creativity and comedy. When do employ humor in our interactions, we diffuse tension and set a relaxed tone that’s more conducive to creative collaboration than when everyone takes themselves and the task at hand in complete seriousness. Boring. Who wants that?!
Finally, and connecting the first two, I think it’s useful to believe you can do anything. Nothing is off-limits. And never give up trying. I know, it sounds simple and cliché. But start with one specific, tangible project—ideally one with an external deadline! And determine one specific, tangible step. For me, finding a film location is like this. I start with a dream place. Then I keep asking and searching, in ways that will benefit the other party, until I can make a happy match. This doesn’t mean we’re rigid in pursuit of our dreams. Quite the opposite, we believe so strongly that we can do this thing that we stay flex and open to where the universe leads us. We watch for where other people can help us. That’s why I love filmmaking; it’s so collaborative, and the more you’re open to others’ ideas and suggestions and previously unseen possibilities, the greater the storytelling becomes.
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
This is a big question. It took me a long time to celebrate my strengths and guiltlessly develop them instead of obsessing over my weaknesses. And using them as excuses. I told myself my weaknesses were barriers, the things that stood between me and success. If only I could actually read and write music, my songs could be shared with the world. If only I were more focused, I could’ve finished my novel by now. If only I weren’t so emotional, people would respect me.
Here’s the deal: we each have superpowers. It takes courage to use them. Superman can’t spin a web. Spiderman can’t create a sexy ice palace. But they’re both heroes, and so are you. In my case, I came to accept that my emotions are my energy source. My ear for music and words are unique to me (as your gifts are unique to you!). And other people have the skills I don’t, to arrange my musical. To film my story. To own a theatre to put on my plays. The funny thing is, when you give yourself permission to focus on your strengths—and work with others who have complementary strengths—you do become more “well-rounded” over time and experience.
But about this idea…Well-rounded means perfectly proportioned, complete in all parts. In contrast, I think a theme of my life has been asymmetry and compensation. Born without a left hip socket and a femur that was 180-degrees backwards, my mobility was greatly delayed. So I moved in other ways. Listening, singing, talking very early, observing others. I thankfully am physically mobile now. But my physical anatomy has been my greatest weakness, or at least the most outward one. So I’ll leave you with this story…
When my daughter was young and taking ballet lessons, one of the teachers announced she was starting a ballet Pilates class for the moms just sitting there. I explained to this strong, confident woman who had danced for Balanchine and been in the original Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo how I had a “deformity” since birth and hence horrible turnout, etc. Stella assured me that every ballerina would tell you of her limitations and “everyone starts somewhere.” Too powerful for my “lame” protests, Stella wrote my name down for the class and told me to “just do what you can.”
Having an excuse gave me freedom to do just that. Within two years, we had a little troupe that went en pointe and performed for local charity events. My body was transformed, strong. Being left-handed and right-hipped, I became Stella’s left pique turner, powering across the stage, imagining I was lifting out of my shoes, as she’d tell us to do. That’s how I began to realize, if I could get good at my greatest weakness, how much more powerful could it be to develop my strengths. If only I had been born with just nine fingers, I’d joke, I could’ve become a great writer. And so my sauté back into writing began. For some reason, at least for those of us recovering perfectionists, it can take more courage to pursue the things we know we’re good at. But when we work hard at those things, we find ourselves freed into the creative flow of a river that’s running with us. Because the river IS us, that is, who we truly are.
Contact Info:
- Website: traceyjanecreates.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/charmingthemuse/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/charmingthemuse/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charmingthemuse/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/charmingthemuse
- Other: https://newplayexchange.org/users/23459/tracey-jane
Image Credits
Jorge Barba (group shots) Scott Dentinger (profile photo shared)
