Progress and Process
I’ve been writing every day this week. It’s not like I don’t have the time. This is not the way it used to be, at all. Sitting down to write used to give me immense anxiety. I wouldn’t know what to write. I think a part of it had to do with being afraid of screwing up. Whatever I’d write wouldn’t be the right lines. I could tell my work wasn’t coming out like the professional screenplays I had been reading. And this realization just paralyzed me, for such a long time. But I kept coming back to the desk. And ten years later, I’m still writing, which is pretty wild. I’ve been doing this since college. I don’t know what that says. Maybe that I’m persistent, and foolish.
It’s just crazy to spend so much time doing something with no guarantee of breaking through. No one is paying me to develop these screenplays. Pursuing this hobby feels indulgent, and selfish. I’m not exactly contributing to the good of society by doing this, though I suppose that’s the hope. And writing for two - three hours a day isn’t going to cut it.
I’ve never been naturally good at screenwriting. I’m where I am with my screenwriting now thanks to throwing myself at the wall for all those years, sometimes skipping screenwriting for months at a time, sometimes writing only two lines a day. I’ve been reading and writing and trying to figure it out. And I’ve always come back. Part of the reason my screenwriting is where it’s at too, though, is because of the wonderful feedback I’ve gotten from my screenwriter’s group. My work wouldn’t be the quality it is today without their input.
When I first started writing, I didn’t have any idea of how my work registered with an audience. I had an idea of the effect the story and the dialogue had on me, how things sounded to me, but when you hear how your work impacts others (or doesn’t), you can really get a sense of what your strengths are, as well as what skills you need to shore up as a writer. You can get better. I ran a group of my own for a year and a half and while I enjoyed that, I got too exhausted to keep it going. Moderating a group is a responsibility, and I couldn’t do it anymore. I’m really fortunate that I’ve had this other group as an option, and that I’ve gelled so well with the people in it. Their feedback has been invaluable.
One of the things someone said during group tonight was that writing is a process. And it’s easy to forget that sometimes, when you’ve been working on something for a year, or you see the new crop of Sundance folks and they seem so ridiculously qualified, or you notice that your work still isn’t matching up to the screenplays that inspired you to start writing in the first place, even after years of work. It’s a process. And that’s what I have to keep remembering. Because I definitely don’t want to stop.