Bouncing Ideas Off of Yourself

I really need to find a Screenwriting group here in Austin. You'd think that wouldn't be hard, but a google search of "screenwriting group Austin" yields confusing results ranging from ambiguous to outdated. I just need two, maybe three other people in this town who are also writing movies they hope to sell and get made into movies. You know how tall of an order that is, apparently? I need motivation, inspiration, accountability.

I need opinions.

Playing the "what if" game with myself has been surprising and helpful, but there comes a point when you just need someone elses' brain on the case. I'm about to set down and make actual decisions here, and it would be comforting to hear someone else tell me that it isn't go into be a colossal waste of my time to write this thing. Friends are well-meaning, spouses are completely useless - I need fellow writers; people who are so caught up in their own creative process that to have them break from that process is to unleash upon yourself all the frustrations and criticism that they themselves wish to god they could unleash upon their own work.

At this point, I'd settle for old Abe Scheinwald.

I'm still so far from being good at this, I can't waste my time on an idea that isn't a movie. That's what amateurs do; they take this idea that they think is a good one and automatically assume there's a movie in it. They're doomed before they even start. I used to think the problem was all execution, not being able to really write the script as well as the idea deserves. That would be a wonderful problem to have! An idea that is so great you don't even think you can write it? Yes, please!

Yes. Pleeeeeeeease.

Pretend Greatness (or, Fake It 'Til You Make It)

I went to a drum recital the other night (it's not a long story, but..). The youngest kids were up first, and completely dominated the place, just rocking away and enjoying it the whole time. I enjoyed watching them. Then the kids started getting older and a funny thing happened: I started enjoying it less. Sure, the cute factor was slightly lacking, but it was more than that. Then a girl, probably like seventeen, got up to sing and the transition became complete.

In the course of one hour there was a crowd shift from blissful enjoyment (aided by alcohol - only in Austin are drum recitals held at a full bar) to uncomfortable straining to disguise your dislike of what was going on. The only thing I can pin it on is the fact that the singer herself was so unbearably self-conscious, just standing there being pitchy with this quiver in her voice, that it created this air of awkwardness.

So, what is the difference between a four year old playing the drums moderately well and a seventeen year old singing moderately well? Why did I enjoy the clanging of this tiny person versus the teenager who Paula may have let slip through the first round of American Idol (oh yes, I just went old school Idol on you all)? Confidence. That tiny drummer could have run confidence circles around that girl and never missed a tiny beat. He smiled, he made eye contact with the crowd, he created an illusion of greatness merely by believing it himself. That kid was a drummer. She was just trying to sing.

So, at long last, I'll bring this back around to writing. I dislike describing myself as a writer to people because I feel all the falseness of it at once. To me, you're not a writer until you've actually made some money at it. When I graduated nursing school I didn't even tell people I was nurse; when they asked I would always say "I just graduated nursing school." When I started my job, that's when I really felt like a nurse. But writing isn't nursing.

Duh.

In writing, there is no penalty for mistakes. No one is going to die if you go out on a limb and try something new. And you can change your mind an infinite amount of times, so if something isn't working just go back and change it. Don't be like that girl who tepidly sings her song that was popular seven years ago, just barely scraping by with moments here and there that don't suck. Go. All. Out. Be like that freaking four year old who just banged on his drums and forced the bassist to modify the beat time and again, but who loved every minute of it and had the crowd enjoying every minute of it.

Basically, fake greatness. Don't be paralyzed by incision; don't back off the mic every time there's a high note, just go for it. You should be able to hit those notes because you did it a thousand times in practice. Practice! You're a writer, so get writing. Going around being afraid of telling people you're a writer is really just you being afraid to hold yourself to the expectation that a writer must write to maintain that title, so if you're going to call yourself a writer you pretty well better be writing.

I pretty well better be writing.

I spend 36-40 hours a week nursing. That pretty much definitely makes me a nurse. If I spent half that much time each week writing, I would have no problem telling people I'm a writer. Am I a great writer? No. I'm not a great nurse, either - I haven't been doing it long enough to be great at it. But I still call myself a nurse because I will be a great nurse; it's only a matter of time and repetition. If I want to be a great writer I need to do the same. You don't become something because you're great at it, you become something, you do it over and over and over and then you become great at it.  

The Avengers and Writing Killer Dialogue

First off, The Avengers was pretty much everything I could have ever hoped for. I mean, think of how difficult this thing must have been to write - you've got like seven main characters with built-in backstories that you have to honor and also super powers (most of them) that you have to showcase, oh and also you have to defeat some bad guy which is the point of the film in the first place. And make it funny. And action-packed with a purpose. That's a lot of hyphens for one paragraph.

That Iron Man is so punchy

So, of course, after seeing this I was like "I am hereby going to lock myself in my apartment until I have completed my script to the standards by which The Avengers was held." Obviously I'm known for my practicality, just ask my friends who were around to experience my gluten-free, sugar-free vegan diet plan. But as soon as you make a resolution to do anything that requires complete solitude, your pesky friends come a'calling on you to make with the social graces. Furthermore, they were armed with beer and German sausage. I was powerless. 

 Easy Tiger on 6th - this is where I was last night, blatantly enjoying myself

So I wrote off the evening as a wash. Then a funny thing happened. Math happened. Now, most of the time, math is not something I find funny. Numbers are hard; I prefer words. But when my friend started talking it was all quantum physics, M-theory, black holes stuff, which I find infinitely (math reference) interesting. Then another thing happened. He started to sound familiar to me. He was getting excited talking about dimensions and possibilities, using big words and wide eyes to get his point across, and it was then I realized who this guy was. He's my scientist! He's my alien-obsessed, math whiz, cat crazy lab dweller from the script I am currently writing. Suddenly, I'm elated.

Reasons for elation:

1. This guy doesn't sound like me, he sounds like my character; that means my character doesn't sound like me, which is super important.

2. This is like free dialogue here - I'm basically getting hand fed lines upon lines of postulations and basic science talk that I can rework and use in my script.

3. I figured out my character's fatal flaw - pride. He over thinks things because he's like the most genius of all geniuses and nobody else could possibly understand him. The origin of the aliens, a fundamental question, couldn't possibly be a simple answer, so he will complicate the crap out of it, therefore postponing the solution to the problem. 

I think the point I'm coming to here is that locking oneself in a room is occasionally a very effective way of actually getting parts of your script written, but human interaction and basic mind rest is essential to the creative process. You need to hear how other people talk - interesting people, boring people, old people, young people, red people, blue people, one people, two people. People that don't sound like you, or other characters you've either seen in movies or read in a book.

Completely original characters with completely original ways of thinking and acting and speaking are out there. They're real people. With math degrees. Doctorate math degrees. Crazy. 

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.

Goals and Priorities and Other Concepts That Are Hard

I've experienced a lot of goal accomplishments lately. I graduated nursing school, landed a dream job in a down economy, moved to a new city (a new country, some might say) and started working out (four months solid - some kind of record for me). Additionally I'm eating  better, sleeping like a brick (a log? Wait, no...a baby?), and there's about ten phrases I can say in Spanish, and my patients actually understand me (Voy a ser su enfermera; esto es medicina para dolor; tiene nausea?).

And then there's my writing goals, what were they again? Oh yes, I have none. I've set none. I've met none. I sound like Dr. Seuss. And setting goals from scratch is tricky because you really have to believe in them, have confidence that they are attainable and reasonable and mostly that they are going to get you where you want to go. And when you have a lot of goals, you have to line them up according to priorities. Goals and priorities; this is the kind of boring grown up jargon that does not get the creative juices flowing.

Recently my good writer friend and superb manager Ditty had an excellent post about priorities, and how everything feels like a priority most of the time. It feels like it, because it is. Work, relationships, physical fitness, nutrition, creativity, spirituality, all are priorities. Rather than rank them as highest to lowest, I prefer to put them all on the same shelf, right next to each other, because each one effects the others. If my social life is looking dim, my work will feel more like a drudge. And if my most important relationships aren't being maintained, there's no head space for creative thoughts.

The key here, I'll speculate, is the idea that not all of these things need be given the same amount of time to classify them as equal priorities. Working out is a priority that may take five to six hours a week, whereas my day job as a priority will cost 36-40 hours. Hanging out with friends, maybe four hours a week; quality time with husband, like ten hours. Writing, according to the GITS method, will set you back approximately (very approximately) 24 hours a week. Sleep, hopefully, will take up roughly 45-50 hours. Let's add:

6 hours working out
40 hours of work
4 hours with friends
10 hours with husband
24 hours writing, reading screenplays, watching films and other writerly things
45 hours for sleep.

That's...(calculator in use)...129 hours a week. Being that there are 168 hours in a single week, that leaves us with 39 hours to blow on whatever we want. A lot of this time will probably be getting ready to do these activities. It takes about 45 minutes, all in all, to get ready for work, a good hour if I'm hanging with friends or even leaving the house for any reason. Commuting is a factor as well, not just commuting to work but to workouts and hangouts and such. Phone calls and texts should be factored in as well, since those tend to stop us dead in our tracks for a miscellaneous amount of time. I haven't even thought about television. Currently, I don't own a TV but I still find myself spending about five hours a week watching it (thank you, Hulu). Then there's time you just spend spacing out. Like I just did, for like five minutes. Four hours a week for friends? Is that a fair estimate, because suddenly it seems like I must be a terrible friend.

Let's bring this back to some kind of basics here. We've got this time, and some of that time we have to work, and other times we have other crap to do, but those hours we know are going to be free, as in nothing is expected of us at certain times and locations, we could take advantage of by setting our own expectations at our own times and locations. The Bakery, 10 a.m., with laptop. Write. Eat. Write. Read. Write.

Done.





    

Not Dead Yet

Sounds like a good zombie movie title (getting tired of those yet?), but in actuality I'm speaking of my writing life. So elusive, that. An oft sacrificed part of me lately, I will not let it die. Today, for the first time in months, I looked at some writing stuff. Went to Script Shadow, pulled up my scene-by-scene breakdown of that alien comedy I started two years ago (it's terrible. Just awful). Back. In. The. Saddle!

When you haven't really written in a long time, it's so hard to just jump back in. It's like exercising for the first time in two years - you're like "yeah, I know it's a good idea but look at me; it's going to take months for these spandex yoga pants to stop looking as if they're just sausage casings." And you have to keep showing up to the gym, your giggly parts flopping all over the place, everybody else knowing just by looking at you that this is not your thing. It's embarrassing.

But if you keep doing it, things start to change. You start looking better, feeling better, ultimately your entire life could change as a result of all this hard work. That's writing. You have to stop thinking about doing it, and just sit down, open your laptop and hammer out the worst dribble you've ever seen put down into actual words. I mean, just terrible terrible stuff.

But if you keep doing it...

If you're like me, and you find yourself unable to just let it go; if you keep coming back to this whole writing thing, then there's got to be something to that. It may be that the only difference between a phenomenal writer and a poor writer is strictly numbers. Minutes, hours, days, weeks. Numbers. Do the work, and see what happens. Just keep doing it.

Must. Press. On.

So, I live in Austin now (whaaaaaaaat?!). I know; you're shocked. So am I, kind of. Not just by the fact that it's January and I had lunch outside today, or by the fact that Whole Foods seems to be one of the hippest hang outs on the west side, but mostly by a strange, unfamiliar feeling that has crept its way into my conscious: I have got to be the least artistic person in this entire city.

Seriously, it's like everyone here is a struggling artist of some kind. You know how in LA, you can walk up to any waiter in a California Pizza Kitchen and find an actor? Here, it's like the crowd in a record shop on a Tuesday afternoon. All the time. Everywhere. Writing screenplays is like child's play to these people.

Not surprisingly, intimidation is doing nothing for my writing. It's the same effect as when I watch a really, really great movie. It's that feeling of "wow; why do I even try." Luckily, there is a cure for this seemingly unshakable doldrum: an almost good movie. A not-a-bad movie. As a motivator, it is far superior to the straight up bad movie in that you can see where they went right, but also where they took a weird detour into muddled plot and tripe dialogue.

It's perfect.

Never is it so clear to me what a great movie is as when I've almost, almost seen a good one. I know how to make it better, make it good. And that's all I'm asking for here, to write good movies. Great, probably not. Bad, I hope not. I just want one good movie that ten years from now people will look back on and say "ah, remember that movie? That was a good movie." And then their friend will say, "whatever happened to that screenwriter," and the other guy will be like, "didn't she invent something, like, really huge. She's like a millionaire now."

I also want to invent something huge that's worth millions.