The Pressure of Being Brilliant

Being a genius is so, like, ugh sometimes. Right?

Right guys?

Guys?

Okay, wait - if I'm not a genius or something then why is it that every time I sit down to write I immediately assume the expectation that it has to be FUCKING SCHINDLER'S LIST!? Not the best reference there, but this is exactly my point. There's this pervading idea that if you're not about to sit down and pen the next American masterpiece, then you might as well vacuum the floor or continue binge watching...binge watching...whatever the new binge watching show is, I don't know, I'm writing! Is it still House of Card!?

The problem with this idea is it is completely and collective made up in our own minds. I start to go down this rabbit hole of logical conclusions, which starts with "but I only have thirty minutes to write" and ends with "thank god I finally got that bookcase organized." It's the pressure. You figure thirty minutes isn't time enough to really eek out anything worthwhile, so another day goes by without anything getting actually for real written down. And, you know, you've got an organized bookcase but that is NO conciliation.

Who do I think I am, this guy? This guy!?

I don't know what your stuff looks like, but I know for a fact that nothing I ever write turns out the first time around. It's all terrible, all of it, even the stuff I'm really pumped about ends up getting changed in the end. If I could manage to shake the idea that everything I type out has to be Oscar gold, it would remove a lot of mental barriers to actually writing. Plus, come on; where do I get off acting like brilliance is a standard I'm in the least able to hold myself to. Come on.

Maybe if brilliance existed on a continuum. Maybe then. But I'm way to the left.

It doesn't matter, because the real problem is that there is brilliance in there, it's just tucked away, forced into a dark corner by all the other shitty ideas crowding it out for attention. You have to file through all those really terrible plot points and bits of inane dialogue to get to the really good stuff, the gold, the two peanut M&Ms that through some freak factory accident got melted together to form one amazing double peanut M&M!

Hell yeah, that's what I'm talking about!

And it's okay to spend just thirty minutes on something that you know damn well is going to take years of your life to complete, because you know, thirty minutes here, a couple of lines there, and BAM! You have a screenplay. Just like that. I guarantee you if you keep putting words into your computer processor at some point you will have enough words strung together to constitute a screenplay. It's just logic.

Now stop thinking and go write something!