Embracing the Suck

I would just like to start out by saying that I am in love with this blog. Scott Myers is my online boyfriend and he likes me just the way I am (my apologies to Myers, who has no idea who I am). In my endeavor to get back into consistent screenwriting after a hiatus I completely and wholly blame on nursing school (you stole years of my life!), I am finding it even more difficult than I had anticipated. I've been writing, in some capacity, since I was a pint-sized homeschooler with a lot of free time and a lot of dress up clothes. Why so difficult now?

Because I suck.

No, honest to god, I'm not exaggerating, and under normal circumstances I have a very healthy self-esteem (I'm pretty much the best person I know). However, I am keenly aware that my screenplays are no better than the sound "bleck" makes, largely due to the fact that I only have two completed screenplays under my belt. Actually, three screenplays, but the first one doesn't really count since it is pretty much worse than suck. I had to work my way up to suck.

Getting into the habit of screenwriting is difficult right now for the same reason that keeping a regular exercise routine is difficult - I look like an idiot! I look like an idiot on paper, I look like an idiot in my Target workout shorts when everyone else is wearing Nike. I have virtually no balance, I don't know what half of those weight machines are even supposed to do and every time the instructor calls out a different yoga pose I have to stealthily look around me to find out what the crap she's talking about and pray to god it looks like something I can actually do (for those of you who can "flip your dog," how the hell are you doing that)?

So, I exercise in private as much as I can. After four months of consistent bodily punishment, I now occasionally look like I know what I'm doing. I also feel better and look better, even though I am still a far cry from the body I want. Same with screenwriting. I'm years, yeeeears away from where I want to be, but the only way of getting there is to do it. Time is not going to just take care of me, I have to put in the work. And where screenwriting is concerned, I have a terrible work ethic. Sporadic, unfocused, and demoralizing because I know, I feel, I hate how much I suck.

So I must embrace the suck. Write the suck, show my suck to trusted individualized who will try to ease the pain of the suck by lying to me about the extent of my suck.

To sucking!

(Be sure to read the May 3rd post from the blog link above for a much, much better representation of what  I've been trying to say here).

By the way, sucking is a lot easier when you do it with a tasty bakery sandwich on a clear, spring morning.