Felicia Day discusses creativity, embracing your weird, and more
Felicia Day is known to Supernatural fans as Charlie, but there’s far more to her. In this exclusive, she talks about her upcoming book Embrace Your Wierd: Face Your Fears and Unleash Your Creativity and much more.
Felicia Day is a woman with many projects on the go. If she doesn’t have multiple projects on the go, she doesn’t quite feel like she’s doing enough. Two of those projects are Embrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash Your Creativity and Voyage to the Stars Season 2.
Day talked to SPN Hunters exclusively about the two projects, one of which she’s extremely passionate about and will be out tomorrow. Yes, it’s all about the book (which is definitely worth buying, by the way).
Embrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash Your Creativity is an interactive workbook that’s designed to help you be more creative and put it out there. It doesn’t matter how you’re creative. We all have something, and it’s time to stop the enemies like fear and procrastination get to us and start fueling ourselves.
Ready to find out how Embrace Your Weird was created? Want to learn more about the second season of Voyage to the Stars? Check out all the details in this exclusive.
SPN Hunters: Thanks for taking the time to chat about both your upcoming book and Voyage to the Stars Season 2. Let’s start with the book, Embrace Your Weird. I love the title and got the shirt from the anti-bullying campaign with Represent. Where did the idea of the book come from?
Felicia Day: Oh awesome, thank you! Well, actually, that Embrace Your Weird shirt is what inspired my book. I came up with the phrase as a sort of catchphrase for my memoir You’re Never Weird on the Internet…Almost. I gave all the money from the campaign to an anti-bullying charity because I felt we needed to make a difference in the world, and we can do it.
Small wins are just as valid as large ones. I heard a lot of stories from people about my book, and how they started creating because of it. That resonated with me and it made me understand that creativity is about how we can affect other people in a positive way.
Embrace Your Weird is an interactive workbook where I talk about things and I share stories about my life, but always in the context of helping the reader discover that about themselves as well. The tone is very whimsical, and funny, and geeky.
But underneath, I really want people to explore who they are on a fundamental level and what they want to say about and to the world. I want people to overcome all the things that keep us silent because that doesn’t do us or anybody else good. If we don’t get our creativity out in the world, we can’t affect other people and we can’t help ourselves evolve as artists.
SPN Hunters: But people fear that others won’t want to hear or see their creativity.
Felicia Day: Well, no video is like every other video, right? Because it all affects us in a new way, hits our emotions or attacks something inside of us emotionally. It’s so wonderful that we can do that with each other.
When I meet somebody at a convention and they start crying when they see me, that’s the biggest compliment anyone could ever give me. I made something from nothing or I played a character that was just words on a page. It isn’t real, and yet you’re feeling something about that. That’s the biggest compliment ever, and we can all do that with our creativity.
SPN Hunters: So, Embrace Your Weird is an interactive book. Why did you opt for that and not the traditional read-through and go on your adventure afterward?
Felicia Day: I’ve read a lot of psychology books and I have a daughter now. Learning how people learn is very interesting to me. The best way to absorb something and learn is to not just to listen to it or read it. You have to do something about it, and when you do something, it gets into your body and your consciousness on a deeper level.
I really want people to go on this journey with me. And it is a journey because the book is laid out in a very precise way. I talked about the need for creativity, but I also want people to understand it deep down so they absorb it and prioritize it in their lives.
Even if it’s drawing, writing fanfiction, or doodling on a piece of paper, or gardening, those things are important for our souls and our spirits.
We then go on a journey so readers can discover themselves and examine who they are, what makes them excited in life. From there it’s about the enemies that spring up on our quest to be more creative, like procrastination and fear, jealousy and failure.
From beginning to end, I hope people will feel a lot more empowered and confident about being themselves and getting their voice out there in the world.
SPN Hunters: Sometimes, it can be hard to fight those negative emotions. I write online all the time. Strangers read my stuff and I don’t care too much about negativity. But if my parents or in-laws want to read something, I’m like, “nope, not a chance,” in fear of judgment.
Felicia Day: I talk about this a lot. Sometimes you can love somebody but they’re not safe around your creativity. That’s okay! You just have to protect yourself. It’s like building the armor and knowing ourselves as creators, about what fuels us and what makes us shrink.
This is a fun book. There are a lot of far jokes. But at the same time, we are important inside. Each one of us is important and has something different to say from everybody else in the world. I think that’s important to get our voice out there.
It’s important to face the fear, but if a relationship isn’t conducive to your creativity, it’s important to protect yourself from them. That’s a legitimate reason to put your foot down.
Voyage to the Stars — Acquired via Motiv PR
SPN Hunters: There are so many ways we can be creative too. You act, you write, and you also have a podcast that’s all ad-libbed. Voyage to the Stars Season 2 just recently premiered. I loved the first season and can’t wait to start listening to where this journey is going. Has it been more comfortable now that you’ve had the chance to get to know each other better?
Felicia Day: Yeah, absolutely! You know, I think that when you improvise or when people have been improving for many, many years, you have a shorthand with people you’re working with and it’s always so much more fun.
Getting to know my co-actors and settle in, improv has become a contest. I want to make you crack up and laugh. So, we are a lot more comfortable with each other and will push each others’ buttons. We have a more relaxed, funny time together.
I do think this season is way funnier than the last season, which I was super proud of. And we have some great guest stars, like Angel Kinsey and Oscar Nunez from The Office, Paul F. Tompkins, and so many awesome people, as well as a new cast member Kirsten Vangsness from Criminal Minds.
SPN Hunters: I love her. What’s it been like having a new regular on the show?
Felicia Day: Wonderful. She’s so fun! She brings this tension between Tucker and me, especially. She plays this alien, red panda hybrid kind of things, so there’s a lot of humor to be had with a red suit and a very adorable cat-like alien. She’s really funny and uncensored, so it adds a cool element to the show.
SPN Hunters: Can you tease what’s in store for the season? I know it’s a longer season this time.
Felicia Day: Yeah, we have a lot more episodes and it’s really fun. We’re on a quest to save our planet. Not only will there be big set pieces and antagonists popping up here and there, but we also get to know more about the Earth of this world, which is very different to our world.
There’s a lock of funny, wacky world-building, things I think Ryan has really dived into in a cool way and I think people will have fun with what’s in store.
SPN Hunters: What about Elsa? What’s in store for her this season?
Felicia Day: She has this conflict between Tucker and Kirsten’s character, so we’re going to have a lot of tension and love triangles, but not in the traditional way. It’s very funny the way it plays out.
Also, we get to know more about her parents. They own half of the Earth, so we’ll see that kind of play out.
SPN Hunters: So, just for the last question to focus back on Embrace Your Weight. If you could give one piece of advice about how we can embrace it, what would that piece of advice be?
Felicia Day: I would say, be whatever it is that makes you different, even if you feel ashamed of it sometimes. That is your superpower creatively. So, whatever kind of creativity you want to dive into, whether it’s painting or writing or filmmaking or building rocket ships, whatever it is, take what’s weird about yourself and try to infuse it semantically or physically into whatever you’re creating. I guarantee that it will make you stand out in a special way and make you more satisfied at the end.
What do you think of the Embrace Your Weird journey? Are you ready for Voyage to the Stars Season 2? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Embrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash Your Creativity is out tomorrow. Voyage to the Stars is available at a podcast platform near you with episodes released weekly!
