There is a thing writers and musicians sometimes do when there is a work in progress that is maybe the one!
I have one of those.
It's a story I need to write and, instead of writing it, I keep coming up with other story ideas that visit me from wherever story ideas come from out in the cosmos.
And the thing is, I never let a story idea go.
If I'm at dinner with friends, or in a work meeting, or walking my dog in the snow, I will hold a up a pointer finger to excuse myself and write the idea down. I might forget I even wrote a story idea down within a few days, but while it's there - as it visits - I listen. I lean in and let the words flow through me and onto the page.
I'm not saying these are good ideas or will ever become anything other than a passing moment of creative inspiration, but what I find true of these moments is…
- I feel better after writing the idea - or scene - or story premise - or dialog down on a blank page.
- Afterwards, I am often visited by a feeling of guilt for cheating on the one I haven't written yet and keep avoiding in service of new ideas I'm too afraid to let slip away.
So. What can I do about this? What can you do about it if the experience resonates?
Keep writing.
For me, I began noticing a real difference in my moods after reading and adopting the practices outlined in Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch in 2006. Around that time, I was writing poetry and prolifically posting on Tumblr. That eventually turned into an interest in screenwriting. With the encouragement of my incredibly talented writer of an aunt, I enrolled in the UCLA extension program to learn more about the craft.
My pages were dense, filled with highly personal accounts of my actual life and the life I imagined for myself, painting a grotesque picture of the fantasy world of weird thoughts I live in most of the time. Those pages helped me process grief that was fueling a privately rageful existence heightened by an abundance of alcohol. I'm grateful for those early self-indulgent pages because it helped me learn. They helped me learn how much work it takes to fill a page. They helped me learn the power of storytelling and the raw emotion connected to the words I was typing, where those words came from. Often, when I went back to read the pages, I didn't even recognize myself in the stories. It was as if someone else snuck onto my computer and wrote the stories for me to find one day. Those pages helped me unlock a pathway to a form of communication I had been toying with all my life and never really understood. Those pages, as I look back on them now, helped me become the person I am today.
In 2010, I channeled the highly personal parts of my life into the first screenplay I ever wrote. I was still very new and still learning the mechanics of the craft, and I was beginning to understand how it all works ever so slightly. An early draft of that script helped me earn a top 10% placement in the Academy Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting competition. From there, I landed a spot - again, with support from my aunt - in the renowned, invitation-only / highly selective 5150 screenwriting workshop run by Max Adams, whose list of accolades far exceeds the space in this post (she's a Nicholl fellow, has written and produced several works, and teaches at Gotham, for starters). As part of my involvement with the 5150 workshop, I completed The Academy of Film Writing curriculum and my work continued to improve with every submission I posted for review, and every review I contributed to the community of talented writers.
With my newly honed skillset, I was able to get closer to the screenplay competition podium when I secured a semi-final spot in the 2013 Scriptapalooza TV writing contest for a spec episode I wrote for Portlandia (spec meaning I was “speculating” anyone would ever read the script - it was not a script commissioned by the folks at Portlandia - I was merely hoping to get their attention).
I was so sure of my plans to be discovered as a screenwriter, I quit my corporate IT job and moved from San Francisco to Portland to be closer to my father and the show.
That same year, I became a background actor on Portlandia, season 4 (and later, season 5).
And then, my father passed away.
I didn't write much after that. I fell out of the 5150 workshop and a once-in-a-lifetime creative writing workshop hosted by the inimitable Brian Benson, an experience he wrote about HERE.
Thinking back, I didn't do much of anything at first except the things that were once familiar. Meaning, I went back to work, in San Francisco, while living in Portland. Every week, I flew out of PDX at 6 AM on Monday morning, worked in SF until Thursday evening, and then flew home. I did this every week for a few years.
During flights and sitting alone in hotel rooms, I found myself called to the blues music my father and grandfather introduced me to when I was very young. One day when I was back in Portland and missing my father quite a lot, I wandered into a guitar store called Showcase Music on SE Hawthorne Blvd.
I stalked right up to the counter and said, “I need a Strat, and who can teach me how to play the blues?” The man behind the countered turned away, reached up, and pulled a Sienna Burst Fender Stratocaster off a hook. He handed it to me as if I were being knighted and said, “You'll want to talk to Ken Brewer. He can teach you.” I bought the guitar and signed up for lessons with Ken beginning later that week.
At first, Ken and I met at the guitar store to work on lessons. I'd played guitar for years, since I was something like 10 years old, but I hadn't been playing consistently and, despite taking lessons throughout various points in my life, never really “got” music theory. Ken helped me navigate dominant 7th chords, major and minor triads, chord shapes, and all the things I'd need to hit my very first blues jam. He worked with me at my house to prepare me for the feeling of being on stage again, something I hadn't done since my late teens / early twenties when I played acoustic sets in St. Louis bars with my good friend and powerhouse singer, Amy Miller.
When I got up to awkwardly fumble through an improv blues performance, something unexpected occurred to me while playing. No one in the audience that night cared that I was new. No one cared that I wasn't the best blues guitar player to ever visit that stage, and most of them just seemed content following the swing beat and dancing with their partner. The weeks I spent critiquing the moment I'd finally get up on stage, crafting narratives around the daunting pressure I needed to assign to my upcoming performance, morphed into a moment of realization that… I am my own worst critic.
I'm sure I knew this all along, but something about being up on stage while hitting bad notes and sort of apologizing for the way my guitar tone sounded at first helped me see how destructive my thoughts can be. As I eased into the 12 minute set of three songs that felt like a whole lifetime on a parallel universe that was I was witnessing from an out-of-body sort of way, I eased into the music and let my performance bleed into the moment. It became less about me and more about the best version of the music. It belonged to everyone in that bar. I was a part of something bigger than myself.
Ever since, I've been writing and publishing music - composing songs and the lyrics to accompany them, all recorded in my own little home studio. Through those writing sessions, I felt a longing for the screenwriting craft I spent so much time learning about and pursuing around 2010. Seemingly out of nowhere and as if reading my thoughts, I got an invitation to join an After Party (alumni) workshop hosted by Max Adams of The AFW, which is a way for former workshop folks to stay connected. It felt like a sign. I'd been journaling and writing shorter-form script pages for organizational change management campaigns I manage at work, feeling the need to capatilized on the moment and listen one more time. It was kismet at its finest.
Nine months after joining the After Party community of fellow screenwriters, I'm happy to say that I have been admitted back into the 5150 screenwriting workshop.
I don't beat myself up for writing as a distraction anymore. I write whatever I need to write. Maybe it is, maybe it is not tied to writing the one. You know, that one script that will garner fame and a new career path - a place at the writer's table I fantasize about.
Because, here's the thing.
If I want to be a writer - if you want to be a writer - then write! All I have to do is keep writing.
In the morning, I start out by journaling as a way to give voice to the thoughts that occupy my mind. It is a great way to process thoughts because once I write them, they are no longer just thoughts. They are words on the page and I can either leave them as they are or change them if I want to. It becomes my story to write, not my thoughts telling me how it is.
Discipline is an entirely different variable for me. Sure, if I want to win a screenwriting contest that has a deadline, I obviously need to write the one within that allotted timeframe. I can do things like work backwards from the deadline to see how many pages I need to write each week / month to have a completed script to submit. If I don't do that, the one won't ever be read because I haven't written it.
One form of discipline that resonates with me is a sense of accountability. In the workshop, there are clear guidelines and boundaries for accountability and participation. For me, the structure of it feels intoxicating. I love being surrounded by folks who write harder, better, more than, and funnier than me - with more skill than I could ever hope to possess. And yet somehow, I get to be around them doing the same, writing and sharing a love of the craft and for those who do it well. The hope of writing words that find their way to the screen lures me into a sense of hopeful longing.
And all I have to do is make time for it. Keep trying. Listen to feedback. Try again. And just keep doing that until it works out.
The real magic happens when an awful mood evaporates as the words spill onto the page.
So,
Whatever you aspire to become or do more of... An AI Prompt Engineer. A top-selling ADR or SDR. A painter. A musician. A base jumper on team Red Bull. A produced and working screenwriter…. make the time to do that thing, even if it doesn't go anywhere at first (or after some time - keep going).
Because I want to finish the one that I think has legs, I have to write and harness the ability to go inward enough to find the story. It's not like I'll just sit down one day, crack my knuckles and start typing FADE IN and the subsequent 90 to 110 pages that follow until I type FADE OUT. That's not how it works. That's not how anything works.
The most popular Influencer you can think of did not just post a few photos on a weekend getaway and become famous. They probably tried a whole bunch of different things until something stuck and then maybe they had some help - coaching / mentor / ad agency - to help structure a brand (something that identifies their unique offering to the world of social media), and from that point onward, things started happening.
That is of course not every Influencer's story. Hell, maybe some of them did actually post a few photos of a weekend getaway and, because they posted at the right time with the right combination of hashtags, got reposted by Post Malone, that viral moment became a launchpad. For most, I'd wager that some amount of work is required, even if the person inherited social currency because of their name or a work they are already known for.
My point is, if you want to be an Influencer, you have to post and hustle and adapt and evolve. If you want your name on the credits of a film, you have write. A lot. And revise. A lot. And get rejected and keep going anyway. A LOT.
In a way, this very blog post is a form of writing as a distraction from getting to the one. But you know what? This first post helped me finally take the three minutes it took to setup a blog I've put off setting up for about two years now.
Tomorrow, I'll write FADE IN….
With coffee…