Julia Kupiec: A Few Of My Favourite Things

In truth, my workspace is more a collection of habits than objects. 

Filmmaking is such a nomadic life, and my creative process goes through seasons: some are flurries of activity and others are far more sedentary. I sometimes race towards projects, and other times I have to literally drag my limp body towards a desk.

Do I work at my desk a lot? Yes. 

But I also work on my sofa. 

And in libraries. 

And in cafés. 

And in my childhood bedroom. 

Increasingly, I’m trying to construct my life around whatever seems to point me in the right direction. Sometimes that’s screenwriting. Sometimes it’s essay writing. Sometimes it’s watering my plants. Sometimes it’s binge-watching Chernobyl and becoming far too well-informed about the signs and symptoms of radiation poisoning.

For now, these are a few of the things that help me get going. 

This is the season I’m in.

The Rocket Appartamento

I am now an espresso snob in the worst way, and I’d like to apologise to the universe and to all the coffee shops I can no longer call myself a patron of.

That said, I love this machine more than I’ve loved any other – except maybe the Volvo station wagon I drove in high school.

My current routine is to wake up at 7:30am, make a cappuccino, and sit down to do my morning pages (three longhand pages of stream-of-consciousness writing).

Perhaps the whole world has heard of The Artist’s Way and Julia Cameron by now, so I won’t say much beyond the fact that it really is wonderful.

Morning pages have become a pillar of both my creative practice and my sanity – and I’ve realised that those two things are largely the same for me.

The Completely Unrelated Creative Practice

Recently: painting. Before that: essay writing, crochet, guitar, and so on.

I was a kid who immediately gave up on anything I didn’t show extreme promise for from the start.

I had to teach myself how to learn as an adult – how to move through phases of confusion and insecurity and simply sit with my own lack of understanding until it passed.

I now like to have a hobby that throws me into a state of being an amateur again.

These hobbies are often as frustrating as they are rewarding, but they always teach me something about creativity in general.

For example, I’ve learned that paintings always go through an adolescence: a period in which they’re ugly, angry and insufferable. And I just have to keep going.

If I do, they often transform into something truly rewarding.

I imagine how sad it would be if I had stopped – if I’d abandoned them in their awkward phases.

I try to apply this kind of thinking to filmmaking too: to sit with the problem, not fear the awkward middle stages, and trust that they’ll move if I just keep going.

The Personal Decrepit Church

I don’t sit at this table very often, but I do come out and say hello to the church and my plants every day.

I find tending to my mini balcony garden soothing and symbolic – something to do with patience and nurturing, and maybe just a bit of sun and hydration too.

I come out, sniff a flower, feel the sun, and it recharges my battery.

The Books & Plants

Maybe I heard it in an interview or read it somewhere, but the idea that reading widely and well is as good as any college education has really stuck with me.

The older I get, the more I believe it’s true.

The hard part, of course, is forcing myself to read widely – to stretch beyond what I already know I’m interested in.

It’s easy to pick up authors I’m already confident I’ll enjoy.

So I try to strike a balance: to feed some of my known passions, but also to throw myself into unfamiliar waters.