I know, I haven’t posted for months. This will be a little raw and a little rambling, but:

1. I need to do it for me; and
2. I will tie it back to the creative process (and theatre) for you.

One of the reasons I haven’t been writing blog posts is that I’ve been creating all kinds of other things, things that take a lot of time, thought and creative energy. One of those things is a new business venture tied directly to storytelling. Now, I’ve been telling stories for a couple of decades as a theatre artist, but I haven’t really tackled prose before. That’s what this business is built on: stories that help people who are somewhat isolated feel more connected.

One of the first things I do when creating anything is name it. Writing a paper? Start with the title. Creating a devised play? Identify the idea, theme or concept in a word or two. Writing a book? Call it something. Starting a business? Give the company a name. Naming gives me a focal point, a mission, a reason to get it done. Everything revolves around that. Finding the right name can make the difference between complete, fulfilling success and “meh.”

This summer, I came up with an idea for a business and invented a name. It was perfect; it embodied everything I hoped the business would be for people. I was thrilled with the name, so I immediately did a name search and registered it here in BC. All approved. I was very excited to get started!

Then came the logo, the colours, the domain, the landing page, the marketing images and video, the stationery, the story structure, the characters, the dialogue, and on and on. For the past few months, I have been creating it from the ground up—administratively, creatively and commercially—ready to launch at the end of September. I love everything about the company, partly because it began with the right name.

I even created a Facebook page that sat as a placeholder, without so much as a profile picture. It was what my best friend and marketing genius describes as “getting the real estate,” ready and waiting for the fall launch.

And that’s where the whole thing began to unravel.

I kept getting page likes, dozens of them, despite not having a single piece of content there. I wondered about this for weeks. Then someone actually posted on the page, and it all started to make terrifying sense.

The name was taken in the US, in a big way.  Wait, what?

Books had recently been published under the exact same name I had made up. People liked the books, and then they came to my Facebook page to let me know. Except, of course, it wasn’t my company they were responding to. And what that company did was close enough to what I was doing to create an undeniable conflict in every possible way. The only thing missing was my tagline.

There was no way around it: this would always be a huge point of contention, regardless of the international border between us. Big. Shit. Disaster.

I was completely gobsmacked and gutted at the same time. How could this have happened? And yet, there it was. I knew I would have to give up my oh-so-perfect name and undo all the administrative and marketing work I had put in place. I had to start over again. Not completely. I could still keep the colours, the paper choices and the story itself (thank the universe). But the name? The title? The focal point that had guided me? That was no longer mine.

I feel really sad today. I’m grieving, in fact.

I’ve tried to choose a new name, but the truth is that I can’t come up with anything. Not yet. I’ve been staring at a blank page for awhile now, but I’m just not in the flow of it. At all.

And this is where it ties back to creative work, including acting, because this kind of thing happens all the time in theatre.

Directors choose a play; imagine the set, lighting and costumes; cast the perfect leads and think about the smaller roles; and block their favourite scenes in their heads as they fall asleep each night. Then they find out they can’t get the rights. Dream killing.

Actors get cast and spend most of their time with their scripts. They find objectives and create fully fledged backstories; imagine the moments when their characters are shattered and how they will respond; and work their monologues with rich subtext, perfect verbs and beautiful blocking. A week later, they realize the director has a completely different vision. Nope,  not going to happen as planned.

For a brief moment, it can feel almost debilitatingly tragic to a creative person.

It happens in smaller ways, too. You mess up a moment on Saturday night after nailing it on Thursday and Friday. Or the scene you blocked last week was absolutely magical, but now it has gone off the rails and you can’t seem to get it back, no matter what notes you give your actors. Both actors and directors can carry these losses in their memories like unwanted splinters that just won’t come out. Even worse, one loss can become a self-replicating chain of missteps going forward.

The solution, of course, is to forget about it and move on, or you’ll miss the next moment, the next scene, the next name that guides all the work to come.

For me, that means focusing on details. That keeps my brain off of the missed opportunity and onto the fresh one.

For an actor, it means putting all of your attention on the next moment and being truly present so you can live it truthfully. Then that moment shines. Then you move on to the next one.

For me, it means focusing on my next book, examining the details and making sure it becomes precisely the resource I want it to be.

After the show—once those moments are no longer happening onstage—smart actors work through their disappointment, then examine what went wrong and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again. They determine exactly what triggered the problem, what happened in the moment before it, and what they can do to avoid the same chain of missteps. If they do that, they can return to the stage for the Sunday matinee with confidence. They did the work, fixed the problem and moved on.

The same goes for me.

First, I talk about it so I don’t shove my feelings down (thank you). Then I’ll spend the day working on Playable Verbs for Actors: A Practical Handbook. I won’t think about the naming debacle until the book work is done. When I’m ready to leave the old name behind, I’ll turn my creative focus toward finding a new one. Once I find the perfect name, I’ll make sure to check it in both Canada and the US before I submit another name search in BC.

That’s the process. Simple. Clean. Effective.

It’s okay, creatives. We all make mistakes. We also have weird and horrible things happen to us even when we haven’t made a mistake, like when a flat suddenly falls over during a show. You dodge the flat, but miss a line.

Shit happens.

What you do with it determines what happens next. That’s part of the thrill of theatre and entrepreneurship.

You and me, we’ll be just fine.