After setting it up, I realized I didn't really have anything I really wanted to say. Soon, guilt started to set in and I made the heroic first step of opening my screenplay on the desktop.
It stared at me. I stared back.
"I better get some more coffee."
I left my beast to stare at my empty chair as I went into the kitchen and poured myself my toomanyieth cup of coffee. When I returned, my beast had not moved. Its gaze, unrelenting, bore into my soul.
Scared as hell, I began to work. As my fingers moved along the keys, my beast started to give in ever so slightly. Giving me just enough hope to keep at it, like a girl who gives you just the right look or calls you out of nowhere, my beast was daring me to keep at it.
So I stopped.
For the last three days I've been working up the guts to write the scene that stares at me now. I've rewritten the lead in seven times to avoid actually writing the scene. The lead in is finished. It cannot be rewritten again. I must write the scene today or walk away from the screenplay today.
Thus begins the blog, lost meanings. In these posts, I will discuss how much I hate writing and invite anyone interested to do the same.
I suppose I hope it will be a commiseration between writers and artists and anyone interested in the struggle to write and create art.
So, tell me your struggles in the comments, I'll tell you mine. I'll post all the comments. Let's see where this leads...
Posts
Last night was actually a good night. I finally wrote a scene that I've been sitting on (i.e., putting off) for a damn month -- the second act climax, no less. Because it's such a pivotal scene, I think I've been giving it too much weight, scaring myself out of writing it. But I also know (or have convinced myself) that the time I spent staring at the screen, wishing the scene would write itself, was extremely valuable.
ReplyDeleteAccording to an article in the Times this week: "...research suggests that falling into a numbed trance allows the brain to recast the outside world in ways that can be productive and creative at least as often as they are disruptive." It sounds a little ridiculous but I buy it.
I always tell myself (though I don't always believe myself in the moment) that sitting and staring enables me to be productive, that those blank moments are actually vital to the work. I tell myself that the words will come when the conditions are right. That way there's far less pressure on myself.
Last night I wasn't feeling any pressure. It felt like the story was doing all the work for me. So I tell myself that a month of sitting and staring finally paid off.
Also, there's really no such thing as a final product with screenplays. Whatever you type is going to change anyway. So fuck it. Let the story to the work.
I really hope you're right about the sitting and staring. I tend to buy into it myself, but I wonder if that's more from self-protection than reasoned logic.
ReplyDeleteI guess if NYT says it's valuable than I'm going to stick with it (like I have a choice). It's always nice to have a good Times quote to back up my argument for the value of what, to the untrained eye, appears to be sitting around.
Self-protection is underrated and reasoned logic is overrated. And I'm not being glib.
ReplyDeleteDude, let's form a writing group. Seriously.
You guys, if sitting and staring equals productivity, count me in as your greatest contributer.
ReplyDeleteAm I allowed to be sarcastic on this blog, or are we only talking very seriously?
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See, now I feel like you guys are reading this and thinking that I've already ruined it.
I need to go back and look at the rules.