existentially speaking
at some point in the past month or so, i became inert. existentially inert. more so than usual. as you may have noticed, i haven't blogged much, if at all, in more than four weeks. in fact, i haven't done much of anything -- save for huge amounts of work for the condo board -- in a long while. and, lately, i've been feeling especially anxiety-ridden about that.
if i'm not working at an actual (paid) job, i should be writing up a storm. but i'm not.
i've got four (!) screenplay outlines in various stages of completion, and yet i've barely touched any of them in ages. they're all sitting there, WAITING, but i seem to end every day thinking, "DAMMIT. another day wasted doing a whole lot of nothing worthwhile. tomorrow... tomorrow i'll buckle down and get some writing done." and then "tomorrow" becomes a far-off, imaginary day that rarely materializes.
back in june, my goal was to finish -- finish! -- at least one screenplay by the end of 2020. at the time, i even thought i might manage to get two screenplays completed before new year's eve. two!
yet here we are, on november 4th, and i don't even have one page of one screenplay done... and december 31st is getting closer and closer.
any reason i find for the whole not-writing thing feels like a flimsy excuse... probably because that's what they all are: flimsy excuses. a while ago, i read a book that said you MUST treat writing like a job -- that you have to carve out specific hours for writing every day, and then abide by those hours and "report for work" the same way you would if you had to show up at an office every day.
you can't just opt out of working an actual job whenever the mood strikes -- telling your boss you just don't feel like working today... or that you really need to go grocery shopping and that'll take all morning... or that you spent the afternoon writing condo-board memos rather than doing your job... or that your cat seems like she needs extra playtime... or that you have a long-overdue facetime catch-up call with a friend so you'll just skip work for the day and maybe try again tomorrow.
so, you shouldn't do any of that when it comes to your writing, either.
yet i do it all. the. TIME.
as a result, there's been a LOT of self-flagellation of late... which, in and of itself, is yet another avoidance tactic for writing, i suppose. "oh, i'll just beat myself up for a while to make up for the fact that i didn't write squat today. maybe that'll help motivate me for tomorrow!"
yeah, it doesn't.
then the self-reflective, self-defeating, anxiety-laden thoughts begin to swirl: what am i really doing with my life? why am i squandering all my gifts? what do i have to show for the past year? where am i going? what is my passion? how am i going to earn a living? why am i so useless at getting these things WRITTEN?
and on. and on. and on.
and the more i think about it, the more anxious i get, the more creatively paralyzed i become, the less work that gets done... and the more time that passes. lather. rinse. repeat.
thing is, i have discipline. i can get work done. i can meet deadlines. and i can do all those things really really well, while turning in solid writing at the same time.
the catch?
i seem to be able to do all of those things when i'm accountable to someone else.
when i'm my own boss, i'm a the slackeriest of slacker employees and, even though i'm self-aware enough to realize my own lack of accomplishment/motivation, i let myself off waaaaaaay too easily. or, perhaps, don't feel enough of a sense of dread over what will happen if i *don't* get the work finished.
(i should note that i also feel like i've written some variation of this exact same blog post several times since starting the blog. and yet here we are again!)
so, that's the current state of affairs. and why i'm sitting here now, writing this, instead of working on my scripts or stories. i'm sort of hoping that writing something -- even if it's just a stream-of-consciousness blog post -- might jump start *something*, or get the ball rolling again. but i'm also not especially convinced it will.
6 comments:
If the characters and stories in your screenplay outlines fascinated you, you would not be able to stay away from them.
yup. perhaps they don't.
Rather than engage in, as you say, the exact same complaint and list of strategies, I am falling back on what storytellers love. Not the deadline, not the outline, but the STORY. Try this: today, put away everything else and just sit down and write a damn good story that I will love reading.
Much of this sounds familiar -- not from you saying it before, but from me having lived it. Whether finding new clients when freelancing, or getting through my pile of tens of thousands of photos, I've also felt far less effective on my own than within a "regular" job. For me I think it's the sense of commitment to the people I work with: I'm far less OK with letting them down than letting down myself. As for the nagging questions, I find they nag a lot louder when I feel like I'm trying to prove myself, then when I'm charging ahead (even if the long-term path is not actually any clearer).
Which brings me around to agreeing with Lou: might you have overdone it by having four outlines on the go? It does sound more like a chore and a challenge than an opportunity to do something you love. What's the next story that's so compelling that the condo board memos will have to wait?
i'll answer the last question first: i have no idea! LOL. i feel like just about anything makes the *stories* wait, not the other way around. and as for the four outlines -- those stemmed from, ironically, the approach that lou suggests above: to leave what i'm working on and to start a fresh story that feels exciting.
so, i've done that multiple times... which is, on the one hand, a good thing because it gives me options. when i get bored with or stuck on one story, i pop over to a different one to work on *that* for a while.
the problem is that i then wind up with a whole lot of semi-finished pieces, rather than one completed project.
and lou, i've tried that tactic multiple times, sadly. i have a giant jar full of writing prompts and i pull one out to get my brain going whenever i feel especially blocked or apathetic. although, i do like the added criteria of whatever i write being a story you will love -- i think sometimes having a specific, tangible audience in mind can help.
so, i may try that again later today. :-)
((((((((((*val*))))))))))
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