This week, we explore what it takes to give a project the experience of being trusted. Lindsey named it best—creative self-trust has nothing to do with believing a project will be great. It’s about accumulating evidence that you keep the promises you make to yourself. As always, this is an unscripted conversation—two people reporting back honestly on a week of creative work, including the homework neither of us quite did. In this episode 00:00 — Mixed metaphors and giving people grace Lindsey confesses her favorite thing about Matt is the way he mashes two turns of phrase into one (”now we’re rooting you on”). Which turns into something more useful: how hard it is to say anything perfectly out loud, and how much grace that earns other people when a line gets pulled out of context. 02:12 — Shout outs Kelli brought her characters together in scenes, drafted working titles, read comps, watched films alongside their scripts, started thinking about the proposal—and applied for two scholarships and got both. She also shared the realization we keep coming back to: stop beating yourself up for not making it ten years ago. You’re a stronger writer making it now. Jenny’s movie star recipe cards are coming along (photos, please), and she’s watched Listers twice since it came up here. Fran wrote in about how much actually changes in seven days. And Therese, who began on a permission-to-play quest of collage and fragments, found the real work happening in her journal—which led her back to a project she’d let go dormant, and to the fragments she’s been writing for years without knowing what they were for. 05:56 — The document instead of the deck Matt’s homework was to personalize the pitch deck, have real conversations, and get a camera person booked. He did approximately none of it. What he did instead: made the 16-page concept doc more visual, took about 90% of Lindsey’s line edits, and put it in front of five people—a director, a food writer who’s developed for TV, a novelist friend, his dad and his brother—some sent, some soft-asked first. On choosing the fuller document over the more impressive artifact, and why the deck can wait until somebody actually asks for one. 12:41 — Writing it as if it’s already real The energetic shift from “here’s something I’m kind of thinking about” to a flat statement of fact. Matt on the feeling of inevitability, and the fear directly underneath it: he still hasn’t touched the actual work. Can he hold it on screen? Will he even enjoy doing it? Plus the thing he’s slowly relinquishing—the belief that he has to be able to do every part of it himself. 19:11 — Montana, and deciding before you’re certain There’s a window to shoot something in Montana. Rather than wait for the conditions to be right, Lindsey says: commit, I’ll look at flights when we get off this call. Matt sketches three tiers of what a sizzle could be—full concept piece, something smaller, or thirty seconds of B-roll and him walking. Aim for the biggest. Settle for the smallest. Maybe make all three. 23:36 — 100 things (and two books that weren’t the book) Lindsey did the exercise she gives everyone else and rarely does for herself, and reports it’s the reason she spent the week thinking about her own project in spare two-minute gaps. The list produced scenes, questions, formal constraints, possible structures—and, unexpectedly, two more book ideas. She now has three ideas she’d be genuinely happy to write. 31:01 — Self-trust, and keeping promises to yourself The realization of the week: early-stage creative work isn’t about making the project cohere. It’s about building a relationship with it strong enough to survive until coherence arrives. Matt on the creative impulse as a voice you either listen to or slowly stop being able to hear. And Lindsey on the screenplay she’s been describing aspirationally for five years, and what it would mean to give that project the experience of being trusted too. 38:41 — Receptivity you can carry Lindsey traveled this week and skipped the contemplative practice entirely—and found she was no less receptive. Ideas kept arriving. Plus her plan to go and visit the actual world of the book, with a list of questions for the people who live in it. 46:53 — What happens after week five We’re one week from the end of a five-week experiment, and we’re not sure what happens next. Closing it as a season feels right. Both of us also admit we’d selfishly like to keep the container. We’d genuinely like your opinion on this one. Mentioned in this episode * Doireann Ní Ghríofa, Said the Dead * Lindsey’s conversation with Doireann at London Writers' Salon * Julia Cameron’s Artist Date * Steven Pressfield’s Foolscap Method For next week Lindsey: write out the three pitches properly—succinct enough to say out loud, clear enough to take to her agent—plus a loose architecture of the novel. Movements, not an outline. Matt: keep sending the doc to people who might have something to say about it, and make a real plan for Montana. Dates, interviews, a camera person, possibly a drone. The Quest Log If you’re running a side quest of your own, take a few minutes with these: * What did you actually make this week? Not the ambitious version you wrote down last week. The real one. * Where did you choose the useful thing over the impressive thing? Or where are you still polishing something nobody has asked you for? * What promise have you made to yourself lately—and did you keep it? Self-trust is built out of evidence, not intention. * What have you been describing aspirationally for years? What would it take to give that project the experience of being trusted? * What’s the smallest real version of your project, and what’s the biggest? Aim for the biggest. Commit to the smallest. Tell someone which. Tell us in the comments. We read all of them, and we’d love to see photos of what you’re making. And one more this week: we’re deciding what happens after week five. Should this stay a five-week season, or would you want an ongoing container? Say so below. Until we quest again, Matt Trinetti & Lindsey Trout Hughes This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit creativesidequests.substack.com
