I am writing a screenplay in a genre that I don't usually like or lean to. It's a sci-fi and I love my concept, but my execution SUCKS! I can write a lead in and it works wonderfully, but then when it comes to expansion, I am stuck. I want it to be great, but I want it to be great now, and if anyone knows my adopted writing philosophy from Anne Lamott, it's "Shitty First Drafts." This means that you just sit, and you write. You write whatever comes to mind and no matter how bad it is, you just keep pushing ahead until you get what you need out of you. Then you go over it with a fine toothed comb and you fix the things that don't work, and you rewrite the awkward passages and you restructure if that is what you need.
So why am I not taking my own advice? Good damn question!!! I had a revelation the other day. I was in the car and I was driving to who knows where and it hit me: I am done with school right now. I was taking classes, feeling my way in the dark because I was lost. I didn't know what to do and I thought that if I went back to school, it would be this gleaming beautiful beacon that would lead me to my true destiny. Did that happen? Um no. What did happen, you ask? Well, I read a lot of books, I learned that I think that technical writing is kinda fun, but not for me, that I loathe grammar, that I am okish at prose writing, but at the center of my being, I am a screenwriter and a writer therefore. So what does it all mean?! That I need to stop dicking around, wasting my time doing homework, and I need to write. And I mean NEED. This is something that is an outlet, and I was losing my grasp on good screenwriting.
So I am going to chase this dream down until I make it mine. Then the sky's the limit. Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you will land in the stars.
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