When life gives you lemons, apply pressure and kick ass!
When I write, sometimes I really am punching the keys.
It’s not easy: you want to tell a story, but you can’t articulate. Not just writing a screenplay, but anything. I’m talking about conversations, career choices, coping with rejection, coping with success, responding to the silence when you were expecting an answer.
An example? Almost two years ago, I’d just finished a 12-week screenwriting intensive sponsored by New York Film Academy LA. I’d won a scholarship, I’d learned so much about the language of writing in (motion) pictures, and I hadn’t even finished 10 pages of my screenplay (spoiler alert: I still haven’t). I was frustrated.
Fast forward, six-months later: I’m hunched over the kitchen table in my studio apartment, determined to write a one-scene-wonder monologue for my acting reel and somehow – call it inspiration, call it saturation – I knew what I needed to write: a story about a man who takes away the painful memories of others. One week later, I had written the first draft of my pilot. My mentor, Dan, kindly informed me that I had actually written *half* of a pilot, so time to expand.
Type, type, backspace, type. Done.
Well, not really.
END FLASHBACK. Back-to-the-Present: I don’t know how many drafts it’s been, but my sci-fi pilot, The Relief, has transformed. I’m seeing things I didn’t see before, and I don’t flop out of my seat in panic when new imperfections complications arise.
I look to my fridge. These words, comforting, spur me on:
Well, now it does exist. Won’t ever be perfect, but it might be memorable.
Right on, Write on…