New Year’s Dissolutions

I’m always resolving to do things, and I think it’s time to make a change.

The sheer volume of life goals I set, and often expect myself to achieve, is intimidating. Or inspiring, depending on my mood.

So this January let’s try paring down the list. Not the list of what I resolve to do – no way, that would be admitting defeat which I never, almost ever do while all the blood remains in my body. Instead, let’s cut out some of the superfluous stuff I actually do, which I suspect keeps me distracted from the bigger, cooler, more interesting things I really want. You know?

I DISSOLVE: Watching TV shows I don’t care about
With the availability of Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and DVDs from the library, it’s easy to watch an entire five seasons of Breaking Bad without realizing it. You just one-after-another it whether you really want to or not.

My new philosophy is to disoblige myself from finishing a series just because I started it. Drop Dead Diva? I gave you six episodes, and that’s all I’d really like to pursue. Downton Abbey? You lost me. I’m giving myself permission to stop watching you so I can watch something else. I mean, write more.

Writing Everywhere… it is possible

I DISSOLVE: Staying indoors
Being a writer and living in southern California comes with certain advantages. Why do I feel chained to my desk when I can write literally anywhere? All I need is a notebook! And probably a pen. Potentially a laptop. All of which are magnificently portable.

No more will I insist on sitting and staring at a screen to achieve verbal accumulation. To the streets, to the outdoors, to the beach!

I DISSOLVE: Driving everywhere
While LA is not the most pedestrian-friendly city in America, it is reasonably so. I have coffee, a library, several restaurants, public transportation and an ATM within 1 mile of my apartment. I have a grocery store down the street. And a clock repairman around the corner. Why jeopardize a perfectly good parking spot when I can walk to so many of life’s essential places?

I DISSOLVE: Working all day
This week I tried an experiment: knocking out my workday between the hours of 7am and noon. I won’t say it went perfectly, but I was amazed at how much I could accomplish in five hours. Since I tend to focus so intensely, I think short bursts of activity suit me much better than forcing a full day of lackluster performance. I certainly feel much more interested in writing my script!

I bet you have your own secret list of dissolutions for this year. Embrace it! Clear out the clutter! Let’s all let go of the stuff we don’t need, but we have it just because we’ve always had it, and make way for the new exciting stuff.

Want to?

Accountability

This is really good advice. 

Each morning we emailed our writing goals and each evening we’d email what we called our accountability. In other words: had we done what we said we’d do that day?

 

I think I’m going to find myself a writing buddy. Do you have one? Any cautions, horror stories, or big happy reports?

How To Write An Amazing Movie

Dear people,

Advice from established writers can be… tricky.

On the one hand, these are the wise who have gone before – I should lap up their shining words like so many drops of water from the fountain of youth.

On the other hand, do I really want more voices in my head telling me what I’m doing wrong and offering guidelines for being better?

When confronted this morning with yet another list of verbal gems from established Hollywood, I intended to bypass it and carry on with my writing. Blithely complying with the oft-repeated wisdom of the wise who have gone before, to simply write. “Writers write.” End of story.

I really needed some fresh enthusiasm though, so I clicked.

Just for a quick skim.

Within seconds I realized what I was reading was not simply the same wise words and inspirational quips that never fail to drive traffic and sell ads. These are stories from real people who struggle with real writing the way I am really struggling with it now. Little fizzes of awakening started zapping through my body, like instinct was meeting experience and being validated. In a way that I really need to be validated at this particular point in my career.

In a way that makes me want to write.

Stories like this one from the writer of Please Give and Enough Said.

Nicole Holofcener: I used to do [note cards], and it really just fucked me up. It would sort of kill the fun, and it would make me realize that I didn’t know how to structure a screenplay. Or I didn’t have the answers that you’re supposed to have when you outline a script, and I figured out somehow that I didn’t need to have the answers. And I would just start writing and see what happens, and usually, what happens is a mess, but a fixable one, and that’s kind of how I start.

Yes! Me too! I keep doing note cards because that is what we’re supposed to do, but maybe it is killing my fun. Maybe I need to come up with a way to do this that is fun for me.

It’s a relationship. Of the long-term variety.

Right? I mean honestly, does this not make sense?

I hope you will read and be encouraged by the rest of the article. Good stuff.

Let’s keep going.

4. Kristen & The Wolf meets Progress

Remember the scene in Pirates of the Caribbean that shows The Interceptor in a raging storm and howling winds, and Mr. Gibbs asks Jack why he’s smiling? Remember what Jack says? I do (and not just because I’ve seen Pirates 50 times).

“We’re catching up.”

It’s enough to put a grin on the grimmest outlook. Making progress is fun, no matter what else is going on.

As of two weeks ago, I was beginning the next module in my screenwriting class (covering subtext – fascinating stuff) and bemoaning how far behind I’d gotten. I totaled it up – 22 missed assignments. Yikes.

22 lessons, from 6 different modules.

So I made a plan. In a nutshell, the plan involves food, sleep, and writing. And I’ve been working that plan. And as much as it hurts to say no to outside interests that would drag me away from those core activities, I have to smile when I see all the tracks I’ve made in this whirlygig storm of activity.

As of today: 7 down, 15 to go. Oh yeah.

4. Kristen to the Rescue (conclusion)

Kristen froze mid-air, filled with a mix of glee and dread. She had never encountered an animal of this scale before – what should be done? No answers presented themselves except to carry on.

So Kristen, vine in hand, climbed and slipped and fell her way back to solid ground. “I’m coming!” she called into the pit. She tried to secure one end of the vine like she’d seen on TV, but the woody fibers did not respond well to the clumsy knots she attempted. They simply fell apart as soon as she let go.

But it was okay, because Kristen had a Plan B. Taking a firm stance on the edge of the pit, she wrapped the vine around her waist and dropped the other end into the pit. “Go ahead,” she called, “take the other-”

Before she could finish, the whatever-it-is had taken hold of the vine and Kristen found herself on the bottom of the ditch. Right next to Ron. We’ll call him Ron because as soon as Kristen looked up at him, he hollered out, “Ron! ROOOOON!”

Aside from a little shock, Kristen was none the worse for her unexpected trip south. She got to her feet and gazed up at the sasquatch who was staring at her with equally frank curiosity, the crushed threads of the vine smooshed between his fingers.

Taking his lead, Kristen shouted her name, “KRI-stennn!” and stuck out a hand. Ron shifted his weight and Kristen jumped away just in time to avoid his enormous foot stamping down in her general vicinity. “Watch it!” Kristen shouted back, “I’m just a small person!”

Ron seemed to register this somehow, and countered with a mighty swat from his less enormous (but still quite large) hand. Kristen’s hair fluttered around her as she ducked what would have been a crippling blow and stationed herself behind a large rock at the edge of the pit.

“GENTLE!” Kristen hollered with all her might. Beside her foot was the pine cone she’d tossed down moments ago. She lobbed it at Ron’s arm and it connected with a soft, hairy pat. “SOFT!”

Ron did nothing in response to this and Kristen, sensing his confusion ventured out from behind the rock. One hand out in a calming ‘stay’ position, she eased toward him and rested it on his knee. Perhaps this was not the most appropriate place to touch a sasquatch on first meeting, but it was all she could reach. And patting someone’s feet is just weird.

Aside from a low growl, Ron gave no indication of what he made of this. Before she could explore it further, Kristen heard voices above.

They were too far away to distinguish words, but they did not sound friendly. Ron heard them too, and shuffled his feet restlessly, filling his lungs to protest but Kristen shushed him and patted his knee reassuringly. Taking hold of some roots protruding from the earth, she again undertook to climb.

She got about halfway – high enough to look Ron in the eye and again hold a finger to her lips reassuringly – when a scruffy white face appeared over the edge of the pit. “Why… what are you doing down there, wee thing?”

Before Kristen should answer, the face had moved away. She could hear him hollering to a companion with words that only made sense sporadically: “girl,” “ditch,” and “gun.” Kristen froze to the spot, her brow furrowed in thought.

“…caught ourselves a Bigfoot alright,” a voice was saying, returning to the ditch. Kristen strengthened her grip and looked back up. Two faces now presented themselves, and the other one with glasses was talking. “Whew boy, what a sight he is! Don’t you be afraid little girl, we’ll make sure he leaves you unharmed.”

“I’ve already made sure of that!” Kristen screamed up at them.

“Just calm down sugar, we’ll have you out in a jiffy.” The white beard was saying as his companion disappeared again.

Kristen was perfectly calm. What were these jokers talking about? She looked at Ron and they shrugged. A strange metallic sound met their ears, which Kristen didn’t understand. It seemed to anger Ron, though, and he immediately became restive.

Kristen knew why when the man with glasses reappeared, leveling a rifle down at Ron. Ron roared his name, stomping his feet in protest. The noise was deafening, but Kristen clung to her hand holds and screamed, “Nooo!” But the man with glasses raised his gun and took aim.

Without thinking, Kristen simply flung herself off the wall and between Ron and the gun. Ron reached up to catch her, but the trigger had already been pulled, the bullet tearing through Kristen’s shoulder and lodging in the opposite wall of the ditch.

“You shot a little girl!” “What made you do such a thing, you deranged child!” “Aw Reuben, we’re in trouble now!”

Kristen lay in Ron’s hands, too much in shock to feel pain, but triumphant never the less. The next hour was a blur as the hunters worked to raise her out of the pit and tend to her wounds. She realized vaguely that night was falling and a fire was being made. Beans were coaxed down her throat and Ron was silent as she mentally willed him to keep quiet while the hunters were preoccupied with nursing her.

The next morning Kristen’s shoulder was bound and throbbing, her arm in a sling.

The ditch was empty.

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Pro-Crastination

Pro: short for professional, shorthand for positive (as opposed to a con), and also the first three letters of a word I have been living for the past week and a half.

Yes, January 1-7, a time when millions are kickstarting their life goals with resolutions and plans – and arguably the time during which they will be the most faithful to those plans out of this whole year of 2013 – I am procrastinating. Like a pro. But in a positive way.

I want to write. I love to write. And not in the way of the classic Dorothy Parker quote (“I hate writing. I love having written.”) I genuinely enjoy the act of writing and I don’t know why I would want to put it off. In this post I hope to explore that phenomenon, in case there are other doers of fun things that put them off sometimes and wonder why.

Today is Day 16 in the Outlining module of my screenwriting class, although technically it has gone on much longer than that. Coinciding with Christmas, New Year’s and one or two other unusual things, this supposedly 10-day module has lingered about 22 days. I suppose it must end sometime, but it just hasn’t yet.

With all the hubbub of this time of year (especially this year, as it’s the first Christmas I’ve had to travel to get home and then spent days seeing all the family and friends I’ve moved away from), my assignments have piled up. And it seems with each deadline I miss, it’s that much harder to motivate myself to catch up.

At this writing, I’m only 3 assignments behind. Attainable. I can even fudge a bit and do today’s assignment, then backtrack and do the last 3 during the break between modules.

That’s what I’m supposed to do right now, is tidy up my outline so I can post it online and solicit opinions from my classmates. That sounds fun. I look forward to it. And so you see I’m writing this blog post instead.

What are brains made of? Why are we so weird in our heads? If you read books and articles on the craft and business of writing of any kind, from scripts to poetry, you will find some words dedicated to overcoming our writerly reticence. I mean, isn’t that bizarre? This is our dream, this is what keeps us up at night, these stories and words and exciting images that we alone can see and so we have to capture them and share them with the world. And that is a super cool thing to do. Why do we suddenly have to do anything but that?

I’m open to suggestions.

Meanwhile, here is a gif I found on Mental Multi-Vitamin’s blogspot:

This is gross, but it speaks to me.

Part of the problem in my situation is that in this phase of creation, I’m still in outline mode. I’m not brainstorming new concepts or writing scenes. Outlines are basically blueprints, so it’s like I’m spending 22 days on the plans for my glorious screenplay skyscraper, but I can’t start building it yet.

I like planning. It’s helpful. I don’t love it as much as writing, but I see the benefit of it and I’m willing to do the work. After all this time though, I’m getting antsy. Oh well. I guess that’s what separates the pros from the amateurs, is the willingness to persevere.

So I will persevere. I will click ‘Publish’ on this post and then turn on some music and then finish my outline. Right after dinner. And maybe check email. Actually, I have a load of laundry that needs changing too.

Never mind, I will procrastinate tomorrow.