How to give yourself more writing time – the either/or energy split

it takes 100 per cent of your efforts just to clear enough space in reality for you to even be a writer in the first place.  Then, after you’ve finally cleared the spot and the moment is yours, the first thing you do is fall asleep.  It’s okay, the climb to this stage made you tired.  Strike a balance between resting up and keeping your position – decide not to fall back.  Rest and go forward.  It takes one-third of your overall writing energy just to keep the world far enough away so that you are able to concentrate while writing and still close enough so that you can go out and live when your day’s work is done.

Here’s a riddle: What is the one thing that we all have exactly as much of as everybody else in a given day? Rich or poor, high-powered, busy luminary or anybody – what do we all have that is exactly equal?  (Creator)  We all have twenty-four hours in a day.

So if we have the exact same amount and some among us found time and took the time to write, then it can’t be that there’s no time, it must be that there are choices.

No let’s assume you agree that it is choice, and you choose to have six kids and a dog and you also choose writing. How do you work that out?

Don’t fight it.

Look at your time and how you spend it. Chances are, a great deal of your time is spent thinking and feeling that you have no time.  Stress is usually your mind worrying about how you’re going to handle all the stuff you have to do tomorrow, today.

Are you overworked this minute? If you are, you can take an action this minute to work it out.  If this minute’s stress has to do with future minutes, you’re choosing to spend time nonproductively.  If it takes 80 per cent of your entire energy to keep the door shut on the world long enough so you can write, that only leaves you with 20 per cent to use on the writing.

If you’re overwhelmed – surrender to it. Walk your kindergartner to school, but bring along your pad and paper.  Always say yes to life.

How I cured myself of seasickness

I have been known to hang over the rail of the great yachts of the world. On a recent sailing day, before I even left the harbour, I caught myself bracing against wooziness.

ME: Wait a minute, are you sick this minute?

ME: No!

ME: Then if this is a “well” minute, don’t infuse it with sickness.

I decided to not worry about it until it happened, and it never happened.

Take care of one thing at a time – that’s you – and one day at a time – that’s now.

How to hear yourself think

Listen and you will tell yourself everything you need to know. As you become aware of how character is revealed when you observe others, become aware of yourself too.  What’s on your heart’s mind.  Listen.

Notice the noise of your life. Distractions are infinite.  It’s a way of staying in the old place.  For instance, have you said, “I want to be alone”?  The first moment you’re alone do you call a friend to say “I want to be alone

Give yourself air and light. We all need a lot of it.

Letting your mind go on without you

YOU:

I don’t have time to think.

INNER MOVIE:

Good. Thinking gets you into trouble.  Don’t do it.

Keeping the day job

maybe you have a job in the buzz saw department at Sears. maybe you’re not happy there and that’s why you want to write a script, make a million pounds, and leave the job that doesn’t foster your creativity. maybe you’re haunted by these questions:

• Should you quit to write the script?
• Should you tough it out and write on weekends?
• Should you wait?
• Should you forget the whole thing and stay put?

Of course you’re not going to stay put, or you wouldn’t be reading this blog. And of course you’re not going to wait, because . . .

There’s no such thing as waiting

Waiting implies an inactive, undisclosed, random amount of time spent hoping that sooner or later your life situation will be more favourable and you can pursue your dream. There’s no such thing as waiting, because life will go on without you.

It’s time. Decide on action. Take a step into your future.

How to make your day job work for you

Organize your job so that you can put it on automatic pilot. Eventually you will leave it, but now you’re going to change it.

If one of the dread factors of your job is tension with your co-workers, you are now going to detach. This means you will be getting along with that co-worker you can’t stand. Here’s how: You have a secret they don’t know, you’re writing your movie. You’re taking action to get out of this job, and you’re still in it only because now the job is working for you.

All you have to do is show up

Getting enjoyment from any job is a matter of attitude. The true perks on a job are the ones you give yourself.

Giving a job what is required is plenty enough to keep you busy. Just getting there in the morning everyday takes tremendous fortitude. You don’t need to invent other requireemnts.

If you are there laying your heart on the line, you’re going to be unhappy because you want an equal response in return. But that wasn’t the deal! You were only promised a paycheck. Accepting this frees you up to experience such life affirming behaviour as smiling. Enjoy and benefit from the experience.

Inner Movie Axiom: If you keep all the little rules, you’re free to break all the big ones.

How to live a double life

There is something uplifting about the secret you have. Something you’re working for now gives you a new way to be at your job. You are not invested in it anymore. It is there to serve you.

A job does something else. It gives you structure so that you don’t have time to get overwhelmed worrying about your script. Notice how you can use your job to help you write. When you drive to work, can that be organizational time? Find pockets of writing time in your work day. Run your movie on your inner projector. What scenes can you finish before lunch? Answer questions about character as you watch co-workers.

See the whole picture. Then chunk it out. Divide it into 8-minute parts. Make a list of these. Write a scene, a page, or a line of dialogue between phone calls and the demands of the day. Lead a double life.

Through the act of writing your script you will be outgrowing your day job. Chances are you won’t be fired until you’re ready to go. Gauge when. Usually if you think you can’t stand it for another minute, it opens up and there’s more there to draw from. The best time to leave a job is when you are ready to leave. Don’t let them fire you until the moment you’re ready to go.

Meanwhile use the Xerox machine for script copies. This is illegal. This is immoral. This is advisable. You need to feel you are gleaning some benefit from your job; otherwise you can’t continue to be there. And we need you to be there for the moment. Keep it. Now proceed to grow out of it.

I was working on a production in an office for two weeks while needing to finish a movie script. There was a secretary typing madly. I noticed she was typing the same article four times. She said she loved to type but there just wasn’t anything to do but answer the occasional phone, so I gave her my movie pages to type and we were both ecstatic. I treated her to a sumptuous lunch and she handed me a perfectly typed script in return. Bartering is one of the all-time synergistic pleasures of life. Let someone who loves the work do the work while you do the work you love.

What happens when you get fired

Congratulations! This is exactly what you wanted. But knowing you, here’s what you will think:

YOU

I’m such a jerk I can’t even keep a junk job that I didn’t even want.

You will be very hard on yourself. This is your way of showing yourself that you are responsible. You fear that if you don’t come down hard on yourself your loved ones will.

LOVED ONE

I knew it. Deep down you’re really a vagrant.

Settle this. If the job is gone, don’t let it continue to take your energy. You are free.

When you quit your job

If you think you have no time because you have a high-pressure job, quit, and then you’ll see that you will still have no time! You learn this when you have all the time in the world. There is always something.

See the section on time, money, and hypochondria. You will have questions about all three. You will have very few questions on your writing which, if you’ll remember, was why you quit in the first place.

Not to worry – settle in, then pick up the pencil.

What to do when unemployment runs out

Good. You’ve been living as thought he other shoe would drop, now there’s action to take.

Here’s your choice: You can get a day job again and balance your time between writing and the job. But you already did that once, and you’re scared that the script will turn to dust. This won’t happen, however, because this day job you’ll get because you have to – and you’re mad. And mad is the best thing you can be right now. Because what you are adjusting to is not that you don’t have enough money but that you don’t have enough time.

More time than money/more money than time

You will feel the need to budget your money. This is well and good. However, this will keep you broke.

When you quit your job you think that having saved up money will buy you time. If money buys you time, how much are you paying yourself for each one of your hours? You can eat up a year of your time with the money you have saved, but what was your salary? Minimum wage or less? That is not sound economical use of a year. Appreciate the value of time and what each hour costs. The way to be rich is to notice this. People who are broke have all the time in the world. They can talk on the phone. They can bang at your door. People who are very rich have very little spare time. Their time is utilized, filled, they get value for their hour. How much are you paying for each of your valuable hours?

When your money runs out

Linda quit her job to write. Now her money’s running otu and she needs to work again. She asked me if I knew anyone who could give her a menial job in “the business” while she kept writing. Usually I would dive into my Rolodex and start giving out phone numbers, but something here didn’t feel like progress. I found out this was her modus operandi, taking junk job after junk job so she could write – but she wasn’t writing. Now here she was again. So I gave her an assignment: “Stop it.” Look at the pattern of your behaviour. Inner Movie Axiom: If it doesn’t work, don’t do it again.

Find a better way

When our plan doesn’t work, we think we failed. So we go at it again in the same way, only this time harder.

You can see this when a vending machine takes your quarter.  You hit it.  It doesn’t give you your quarter back, so you hit it harder.

When the plan doesn’t work, change the plan.

The difference between a junk job, a job job, and a real job

Decide now.

Do you want a junk job that pays the rent but doesn’t tax your mind, so that you can still write when you get home?

Do you want a job job where you have a business card but not so much responsibility that you don’t feel free to write?

Do you want a real job, where you are the job and it takes your creative attention?

The difference is in how much of yourself you’re willing to commit to the job.

My contention is, no matter what job you have you can’t help but bring your whole self to it. Avoidance takes energy; involvement gives you energy.

If you do the job with joy you can also write after hours.

The Inner Movie Method was designed so you can write whether you have a junk job, a job job, a real job, or no job. What job you have has nothing to do with what keeps you from writing.

Arrange your circumstances to work in your favour.

One student went from junk jobs to a real job, so she could make more money. But then she had no time.  She wanted to quit.  She hated it.  We made a schedule – she had two weeks to turn her circumstances around so that she could keep her job and she would stop hating it.  She needed to arrange to have enough energy after work so that she could focus on her writing.  In two weeks she moved the furniture (maid), delegated tasks, standardized procedures, and manuevered a ten-hour, four-day work week, so that she had a block of three days off for herself.  She now loves the job and is on Day 16 of her script.

I have to write my script and sell it To pay next month’s rent

This will not happen. Money worries will sap your spirit and creativity.  The energy it takes to scramble for your next meal is energy you need to put into your script instead.

If you are living on somebody else’s couch, down to the last of your clean underwear, and you think that the solution to your money problems is to write your script – don’t.  Take care of your circumstances first.  Then start writing.

How much money is enough?

Financial freedom is having money enough so you don’t need money.

That doesn’t always mean a million dollars; sometimes it means ninety-two cents for a taco.

Paraphernalia

Last Tuesday I couldn’t continue. I had an uncontrollable urge to run right out and buy an electric pencil sharpener.  When someone takes up a new sport in this country, their first sign of physical activity is a trip to the bike shop or club house to buy the paraphernalia of the sport.  You haven’t taken a swing at the ball yet, but you’ve spent £62.50 on the shoes and hat.  Buying a tool or a piece of equipment is often the first commitment to the game.  And it’s a right instinct.  Go ahead – commit retail.  You sometimes need external, tangible proof that you are committing yourself to an activity.  If you are a writer and you haven’t written anything yet, you need to look like a writer.  You need to have a writer’s place to sit.

I lived on a Greek island. A friend lent me her Hermes portable typewriter.  She called me “clickety-clack” because you could hear it all over the island.  I had a tiny Greek table and chair and I sat on the veranda overlooking the Aegean.  Just before Greek Orthodox Easter, everyone on the island whitewashes the houses.  No one asked me to help with the white-washing.  I attribute this to the fact that I had a place and stuff that said I was a writer and I was working.  I was grateful.  Writing is hard but whitewashing is manual labour.  Oh no!

Where to arrange workspace

You can be as elaborate or Spartan as your personality dictates. One student turned her guest room into an office.  It took two months.  Great.  It was a gestation period.  The act of preparing her workspace got her thinking about the script.  When she was done decorating she started writing.  Just make sure you stop getting ready and start writing.

Another student has a portable typewriter and writes at lunchtime in her car at the park. I have an office that looks like corporate headquarters with a computer and printer that each have their own furniture, but every afternoon I leave all that and take my pen and paper and go write on the beach.

But a fixed place is important.  Put a visual aid there.  Be able to leave it all out because the act of putting it away means you have to take it out and having to take it out – you just won’t.  We have statistics to prove it.  [gods with a small g. You don’t think I/God knows them]

If you have no place, then find the place in a thing like a red notebook.

This place and stuff arranging doesn’t have to be expensive. I have a huge crockery mug the colour of money.  I have a 3 a.m. sweater.  [clay, and catholic helpers talking about the government]

So go now. Shop.

The best thing about a writing partner is that he’ll say the “stupid idea” you were thinking but didn’t dare say. Once you hear the stupid idea, you’re inspired to think of the next brilliant fragment of it.  One stupid idea plus one next fragment can equal a great collaboration.

A partnership is a very intimate marriage of talents, needs, desires, work habits, and personal hygiene.  Ask yourself, are you emotionally compatible as a team?  If one is down and one is up, does the down one have the ability to pull the down one up?  If you can’t support one another emotionally, don’t count on this support as part of the partnership.  Set the time, and the place, and the amount of pages you’ll do, then cultivate emotional support from an outside source.

The prospective writing partner’s – compatibility quiz

Ask yourself these questions. There is no perfect score.  It’s up to you to decide the perfect partnership.

• Are you both willing to succeed at the same rate?
• Is he/she ready for the same success that you’re ready for?
• When you brainstorm is it exciting? Do ideas fly about that you both love?
• Chances are you’ll be opposites. One takes the notes, sets the time. The other has the ideas, then escapes out of the door to the chiropractor.  Do you bring out the best or the worst in each other?
• Is there one smoker and one non-smoker?
• Is one a day person and the other a night person?
• Is one good at structure, the other good at dialogue?
• Are you stronger together than separately?
• Do you like each other?
• Is there “always something” taking your writing time (e.g., his back goes out, then a cold, then a wedding to go to in Kansas)?
• Do you have a shared vision of what you want from working together?
• Do you agree on the future you plan for your shared career?
• Does either partner have a loved one who will be jealous of the time you spend together?
• Together do you create personal drama rather than finished pages?

Which one is the writer?

Deep down, you will always wonder how much of the magic is you and how much is the other guy. Here’s the truth: it’s both of you coming together.  You have to be willing to appreciate that something happens between the two of you that wouldn’t happen separately.  If you are not willing to share that unique magic that happens as a result of being together, then don’t engage in a partnership.

Proving yourself

Do you feel that you need to prove yourself? Forming a partnership to do that won’t work.  How can you use someone else to prove yourself?  You have to do that alone.  Partnerships formed under these circumstances generally end bitterly, each person thinking that he contributed the most to the screenplay and the other stole the idea.

Vows

When you enter into a professional partnership involving the career decisions of two self-supporting adults, you will probably consider this a very serious commitment. Here is how my friend Ron Fricano and I entered into negotiations to become partners:

RON:

Wanta write together?

ME:

Okay.

We toasted our alliance: “For as long as it lasts.” A frequently divorced friend at the table fell off his chair laughing.

FRIEND:

I should have used that line at my last wedding.

Take your commitment seriously, but if it doesn’t work don’t take it personally. Ron and I wrote together for a year.  We decided we each preferred writing alone.  We are still good friends.

Flutteration

When you fall in love with your partner, it will not be at the same time your partner falls in love with you. Ride it out.  Falling in love is often a state of concentration.  You become so focused on each other that there’s an actual switch in the cortex of the brain, a kind of love brainwash.  When the “flutteration” stops, the partnership will deepen.  If you fall in love with each other at the same time, stop writing together.  Get married.

Partner as saboteur

Many partnerships that arise quickly and experience initial success, only to end just as quickly, are due to one partner acting as the saboteur. Watch out for partnerships that set you up for failure.  You might sell a script very fast, so that the issue of the partnership is not how the two of you are going to get work, but how you are going to deal with instant success.  If your partner can’t handle it and drinks or gets sick, you will find yourself shoring him up and doing more than your part.  This partnership and the job you’ve gotten will end just as abruptly as it began.  You will say it was the partner’s fault.  Watch that when you choose someone you aren’t choosing someone to fail for both of you.  Have the strength of character to fail on your own.

Inner Movie Axiom: Strong alliances occur best between two people who come together whole and through the partnership becomes even stronger.

The coward’s guide to going it alone

Try the Buddy System.

Find another writer. Agree to each write a 21-Day Movie.  It’s sort of like going on a diet together.  Brainstorm with one another.  Use one another’s support and suggestions.  But each write his own movie.

This section is assigned reading for anyone who loves you and is within shouting distance.

When to give air and light

There will be a moment when your writer has left the planet. You can tell because there will be a hole in the air, a vacuum created by his or her leaving.  If you try to reach in and pull them back, you will get your hand bitten.  You will feel abandoned.  You will do anything – interrupt, offer hot food on a tray at the typewriter.  This is a mistake.  They are gone.  Trying to get them back from outer space (a) does not work and (b) will make you feel more abandoned.  Know this: It isn’t personal.  Just because they’ve left the planet doesn’t mean they don’t love you.  It means they are working, and if they are working, be patient.  They will eventually finish working and be back and love you madly.

When not to take protestations of love too seriously

They have written pages of genius. Their “lovability quotient” has gone up and they will want to dance with you while you’re trying to cut vegetables.  Put this outpouring of love in your pocket and lavish it on yourself tomorrow, when they are “worthless failures” and are incapable of sending or receiving any kind of love.

Postponed gratification

If your writer is out to prove himself in his script, he might be inclined to this symptom: he can’t love or be loved until the script is done. This is tough.  He will not let you love him and yet he may be demanding of your love.  Make a deal to have love until after the script is done, the script will never get done and you’ll never get on with life.  (He doesn’t like to be touched)

Crisis intervention technique #1

If you are feeling unappreciated and aren’t getting any cooperation from your writer whatsoever, open all the books you have in the house to the acknowledgement page. Notice the tone of indebtedness and apology all writers feel toward their loved ones – .

Be patient. You’ll get yours.

Happily ever after

I have a writer friend whose new wife was in terrible anguish. “He doesn’t love me.”  We talked about it.  She was willing to entertain the idea that he loved her, he was just writing.  Rather than thinking of writing as the enemy, she embraced it and helped him every way she could.  That made her feel part of, rather than apart from him.  Seven years and two kids later he’s a hotshot.  Hollywood writer and they have a great marriage.  I went to their house for dinner.  Jack was sound asleep in the hammock.  Donna said, without missing a beat, “He’s working on the second act.”

How to give Jekyll & Hyde equal time

As you know, this business of two people in love can be a real rollercoaster.

When you add writing to it, be aware that you don’t use the writing as a focus for troubles that really belong to other realms of your relationship. Inner Movie Axiom: Writing is not infidelity.

When someone writes a script, especially a first script, it is usually a sincere attempt to better himself in some way. If that is a threatening concept to you, honour your writer by bettering yourself right along with him.  Make a 21-day schedule of mutual activities of self-improvement.  One day, let him recite his Oscar speech to inspire you off the couch and into aerobics.  The next day, when he jumps down your throat, honour yourself by not stuffing your face.

If you can dream individual dreams together, isn’t that a lovely use of love?

A word about believing

There is something very exciting about being in on someone’s dream. When you can believe in the person and want their dream to come true, then you’ll be fine and they will too.

Okay. We’ve spoken to your loved ones.  They understand.  They’re with you on this thing.  Now here’s the same information for you.

Loved ones have uncanny radar. They will sense when your concentration has lifted you off the planet.  They will know the exact moment.  Even the dog will know.  Especially the dog will know.  And they will want you back.  They will try all manner of subterfuge.  Understand this: your creative powers are so mighty that those who live with you will experience an actual hole in the air where you once were.  You’ve left a vacuum.  Do not fight the loved ones.  Do not ever fight the loved ones.  Embrace the fact that they want you back.

How to grow into yourself

When you are growing, you are brand new. But there is a lag time here.  Though you are brand new, your spouse and friends will be responding to you in the old way, at least until they see the new behaviour and respond to that.

Have you ever seen a teenager throw a child-tantrum, shouting, “I want to be treated like an adult”?

The way to be treated like an adult is to act like an adult. So the way to be believed as a writer is to believe it yourself.

The way to change your loved ones’ response to you is change your behaviour.  When you believe you are a writer; others will believe it too.

The how-you-need people – multiple-choice love-life quiz

(a) Do you need people to believe in you and tell you that they do?

(b) Do you need to not tell anybody anything and go about your writing privately?

(c) Do you need for them to believe you are doing this, while at the same time you don’t want to include them in your day-to-day feelings?

Your people are there to be anything you want them to be, you just have to ask them.

Feast or famine

Remember the story of Chicken-Little, who pleaded, “Who will help me plant the corn?” Nobody would.  But when the seed grew and the corn was harvested, everybody had time to eat it.

During the darkest, gloomiest day of Act II, when you think you can’t go on, you’ll call a friend and the friend will be no help whatsoever. Somehow you’ll manage to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and finish your script.

The first one to come around will be this same friend, who will say, “I knew you could do it.”

When you have no confidence and you need someone to talk you into yourself? Call a friend.  Say this:

YOU:

I have no confidence.  Will you please talk me into myself?

THE ENTIRE – WOLD POPULATION:

(in unison) 

We know you can do it!

What to say to your spouse when you can’t come to bed

Don’t say anything. Give a huge, warm, long hug.  Make rich, deep, meaningful love at your workspace, if that’s were you are at the moment your spouse asks, “Are you coming to bed?”  You may think you are sacrificing yourself for another.  This is not true.  Go ahead, ‘Embrace’ each other.  Then, tuck your loved one in – happily.  Now go to your work space.  You’re going to write great pages.

There are four choices for writers who suffer over writing:

1 They can give up writing and suffer over that.

2 They can continue to write and suffer.

3 They can give up writing and not suffer.

4 They can continue to write and not suffer.

How do you want it? Choose now.

Okay, let’s identify your blocks and solve them.

Using your fear in your favour

Thomas Edison was afraid of the dark. Look what he did about it.  He lit up the night.

You can use your creative energy to invent ways to stop or you can use the same energy to go forward and shed light on the darkness. Let’s go.

There are contradictions here

Some solutions will tell you to draw your attention to details, at other times you’ll pull out to see the bigger picture. Success will be in your knowing when to take which action.  As a general rule, if you are blocked it’s because you are going one way (into or away from) and you need to turn and go in the opposite direction.

Are these some of your symptoms?

• You procrastinate.
• You wish you had more willpower.
• You wish you had a stronger, more positive attitude.
• You think you need a kick in the pants.
• You’re lazy.

Great. Let’s just get the big five out of the way immediately.

Procrastination. Procrastination is when you plan to do something and you don’t do it.

Inner Movie Axiom: The fault is not in that you didn’t do it.  The fault is in the thought that you would.

Now change the word procrastination to incubation and let’s move on.

Willpower. If you have willpower, raise your hand.  Okay, keep it up there.  Keep it up for ten minutes.  Now drop it.  What did you learn?  You learn that you have a sore arm.  Willpower often means doing something against your will.

The Power of Negative Thinking. Never deny what’s going on.  Always accept what’s going on.  Now you have the power to change it.

Inner Movie Axiom: If you can accept it, you can transcend it.

A Kick in the Pants. When you are asking for a kick in the pants, you really need a kiss on the cheek.  Punishment, disciple comes from our mind outsmarting us; it reflects what we think we should be doing.  But notice, instead, how easy it is to do what you want to do.  When you were a kid you hated to get out of bed to go do your paper route but it was easy to get up at the crack of dawn for a fishing trip. Inner Movie Axiom: We can do anything if we want to do it. We think we need a kick in the pants to do what we don’t want to do.  Rather than using all that energy to get yourself to do what you don’t want to do, do what you do want to do.  Go fishing.  Take along your typewriter.

Once you are ready, nothing can stop you. If you are not ready, no amount of kicks in the pants will get you to do it.

Uses of Laziness. On this page we could talk about how you never get started and you never follow through and you never finish, but aren’t you tired of telling yourself that?

Let’s go take a nap instead.

If you don’t believe there’s no such thing as writer’s block, sit down now. You can write ten pages titled “Why I am Blocked.”

~ ~ ~ ~

Writer’s block gets a bad rep

Every time you aren’t writing, you blame “writer’s block.” You dump each incident into the black festering caldron of blockage, when maybe the real reason is that you’d rather go bowling.

If you’re blocked because you’d rather go bowling, this requires a different treatment than if your block is fear of success because you will surpass your father. One of the main ways to unblock is to identify the block.

We think we are so smart

Do you have this symptom: You think you have it inside and you are trying every which way to get it out and it refuses to come out.  Let’s say there’s a big black box that is your creativity, and you think that what is inside the big black box is a little blonde puppy.  But no matter what you do – shout, cajole, bribe – you can’t get it to come out of the box.  You know why?  It’s not a blonde puppy. It is not what you think it is, and your preconception of what it is keeps it in there.

So do this: (1) Relinquish the mistaken idea that it’s a puppy. (2) Agree that there is something in the box, and it would like to come out.  (3) Let it out.  (4) Now that you’ve let it out, you can see what it really is.

How can you name what you’ve created before you create it? Let it out.  See what it is.  Maybe it is a puppy, but with twelve feet and green spots.  Whatever it is that wants to come out, it’s much greater than you think.  And you’re thinking you know what it is, keeps it in there and keeps it common.

Releasing yourself from the tyranny – of brilliant writing

I think I know why Shakespeare could write so well – he didn’t have to compare himself to Shakespeare!

Do you think your writing has to be Shakespearean in tone and lofty in lugubrious profundity? All you have to do as a writer is run up to your reader and say, “Hey, I gotta tell you this stuff.”

This is the worst feeling in the world

If writing is painful, don’t blame writing, blame pain. It’s not writing’s fault, because when you are writing and it is flowing, it’s one of the best feelings you’ll ever experience.  Writing doesn’t hurt; stopping hurts.  If you are in a morass of the worst feelings in the world because you can’t write, sit down now.  Write about it.  Take comfort in the sanctuary of writing before choosing to go back to stoppage.

Advantage of writer’s block

Except for the obligatory paraphernalia that declares you are a writer, a writer’s block is the only evidence you have that you are a writer. Do this: go buy a pipe; sew suede elbow patches on your tweed sportscoat.  Or best of all, fill pages.  You think because you don’t have pages you are not a writer.  So fill pages.  An eight-minute short story on your dog, a twelve-page list of all the people you ever knew, know now, and, will know in your lifetime.  Fill pages, let them tell you that you are a writer.  (PS: If you want to be a doctor, you first become a doctor, with training and time.  If you want to be a writer, let yourself become a writer.)

Where am I – and why does it hurt so bad?

Inner Movie Axiom: Signs of struggle are symptoms. They are there to show you to go another way.

Notice when you are struggling. You feel lousy.  That’s enough.  Just stay with how you feel.  You will find yourself trying to get out of the feeling. That’s struggle.

You will think, “What’s the matter with me? Why do I feel so bad?  I’m stupid.”

You will go from analysing to criticizing, until your thinking parts talks your feeling part into feeling much worse.

That’s why it’s called struggle, because you’re not accepting how you feel. The act of not accepting the feeling is struggle.

So when you are in a funk, stay with the feeling.  Don’t add more pressure on yourself to get out of the feeling.

When you find your mind snooping around your feelings, it’s your mind’s duty to leave yourself alone.

Here’s the job you can give your mind to do:

You stay with the feelings, let your mind notice your behaviour.  Your behaviour will give you information about why you’re feeling awful.

Here’s one way to do that…

Talking yourself into yourself

First notice what you say when you’re talking to yourself:

“I’m no good.”

“I can’t do this.”

Would you let anybody talk to you like that? you’d probably sue.  Now turn those statements around:

“I am unlimited.”

“I can do what I want.”

Write a fan letter to yourself now [given them a gay form].  Go ahead, write for eight minutes.

~ ~ ~ ~

How to stop giving yourself – rejection slips

The way to stop rejection is to accept it. Accept rejection.  That’s the way it is.  Rejection is not personal.  Don’t make it personal.

I spoke to a man who sailed around the world alone. He was interested in conquering the sea.  Somewhere off the coast of South America his boat capsized and he spent forty days floating on a piece of wreckage contemplating the sea he set out to conquer.  It was then he understood two things: (1) he would not conquer the sea, and (2) the sea was not out to conquer him.  It was not going to win while he lost.  He learned that the sea is indifferent.

When we face rejection we would rather cultivate a relationship of rage over who rejects us than accept that they are indifferent.

Accept it. Don’t drown yourself.

How to tell when your mind wants recess

Do you have these symptoms? Do you have ants in your pants?  Are you full of the dickens, suffering from acute sassiness?  Remedy: Go play.

We don’t want you to have to use all your energy just to keep yourself in the chair. Then there’s no energy left for you to do the work.  So go.  Get it out of your system.  See you later.

100 ways to lighten up

Go out into nature. Nature is smarter than we are.  It will reset your pace, untangle the knots you’ve gotten yourself into.  Watch a bird.  Have a meaningful conversation with an oak tree.

Go to the park. Slide down the slide.  Leave your anguish at the top.  Slide away from it.

Fly a kite, write your unclear problems across its face. See it way up there and get a new perspective.

Invite yourself to a friend’s house to be taken care of for the weekend.

Take care of someone else’s problems.

Tell yourself a terrible joke in the mirror.

Stand on your head.

Go to the store. Smell all the soaps.  Pick out the perfect one.  Buy a candle too.  Go home.  Take a long, hot candlelit bath or shower.  Fall asleep.

Finish this list.

Notice, the way to start writing has nothing to do with writing.

How to distinguish between the heebie-jeebie and a bump in the script

All right, I’m going to be indelicate here. This is a bathroom story.  If you don’t want to hear about it, turn the page.

The assignment was my first hour-long film show. “Rush job” (It’s always a rush job).  “Do it in four days.”  Four days!  I got the trots.  My entire career and a mega-figure deal were riding on this.  I was overwhelmed.  So I did what every healthy writer does.  I got symptoms, death symptoms.  Actually they were symptoms of life, and I knew it.  I tried to talk myself out of it – no dice.  So I went to a doctor who gave me a big pill to take and told me to go to bed.  Terrific, permission to sleep.  I went home, sat on the bed, looked at the pill.  What was this thing?  It was the size of an elephant tranquilizer.  I knew that if I took it I’d be out for the four days I needed to get the script written.  There comes a moment in everyone’s life – you can zig or you can zag, and I swear the rest of your life depends on it.  I got up slowly and went to the typewriter, set it up in the bathroom, and typed this contract to myself.  “Hello, Body, this is Free Will talking.  You can be sick all you want… I’m in this bathroom to accommodate you.  But here’s what: I’m going to write this script with you or without you.  Love, Viki.”  An hour later I was well into Act I and well out of the bathroom, feeling fine.

Hypochondria

Writers are among the world’s more clever hypochondriacs. As eccentric as your symptoms are, another screenwriter has had them before you and lived.  Touch just between your breastbone, there’s a kind of lumpy mass.  This is your sternum.  Everyone has one, even nonwriters.  You might not have noticed it until now.  Often would-be writers discover this as they roll a blank sheet of paper into the typewriter.  You are not going to die of this.  Look for something else.

You will tend to pick out vague symptoms that come and go. Something nerverelated, or an itch.  Something that requires research.  An itch usually means the story’s ready to come out, but you’re not ready to let it out.

Symptoms of being a writer

Pulled muscle. You’re trying too hard to force it.

Throwing up. Catharsis.   It’s all coming up.  The next day after this is usually a great writing day.

No energy. There’s a lot of work, you’re doing on the inside, but you have nothing to show on paper, so you think you’re a failure.  You aren’t.  The thinking that you’re a failure is what is keeping the block, and that’s what’s taking your energy.  It will come out when it’s ready, usually when you start to itch.

Blurred vision. You don’t want to look at the truth that’s coming out of your script.  It’s all coming at you too fast.  You might even find yourself wincing.  You will furrow your brow.   Practice looking at something – a coffee cup – for a long time with no judgment.  Notice what there is to see about it.  Get used to the idea that seeing something doesn’t mean it’s going to get you.

Here’s another blurred vision reducer, look to the horizon. Give your eye a distant vision.  See the big picture, disengage from a squint-eyed view of the details.

Shortness of breath. One student called me in the night.  He was sure he had forgotten how to breathe.  He agreed to jog around the kitchen table.  Within minutes he was breathing so hard even he could hear it.  Shortness of breath often occurs when you get a glimpse of what you’re in for, and it scares you.  It indicates that you’re worried about being out of control.

Backache. As in “get off my back.”  This is usually a sign of pressure.  You might be worried that you’ll go backwards.  Or it might mean you want to back off and lie down in life and not do anything.  Give yourself time to just loll around.  Backache, more than any other symptom, is a sign of a career change.  When you know you have to get out of one way of life and you don’t know what you’re moving toward, backache provides permission to lie down and think.  Do an eight-minute ache escape instead.  Lie down, let the noise [rumour] inside you tell you want it wants.  Listen and take action.  Take care of your life.

These are just a few symptoms. I’m sure you’ll think of your own.

Why you get the flue on page 90

This is a symptom of resisting progress. The person you are when you finish is going to be a little different than the person you were when you began.  You need a moment to stand at the doorway and look back at the place you’re leaving before you walk through the door.  This is a good use of flue.  It gives you a few days to stop.  Rest up, when you’re ready you’ll move very fast.

One unauthorized, nonmedical explanation – of hypochondria

When you finally commit to writing and quit your day job, you will go from being outer directed – up by alarm clock, reacting to co-workers, staving off hunger until your lunch hour – to being inner directed. All decisions are yours, it’s quiet, you can hear your heartbeat.  You are getting acquainted with the stranger in your body.  Like a new house when you move into it, there are all those funny noises.  You will think of all this new stuff as symptoms.

Inner Movie Axiom: Let your body work for you. Don’t work against your body.

When you fill blank pages, you’re in the business of going from nothing to beingness.  Think of making a baby.  There is action, conception, gestation, reaction, adjustment to reaction, event.  Bringing a thing into existence, whether it’s a baby or a script, has many stages and phases.  You may want to ask, “what’s wrong with me?”  But there’s nothing wrong with you – it’s the nature of bringing a thing into existence.

Decision making 101

If you have a decision to make, do you

• weigh the facts
• examine how you feel about it,
• determine what you want,
• and then make the decision?

Fine, but then what?

Now you have to take an action. If you don’t take an action, you will go back and make the same decision over again.

Inner Movie Axiom: Always starting at the beginning keeps you at the beginning.

If you’re scared to move on

Scared is a feeling. Honor it.  If you ignore it, you’ll move from decision to confusion.  Since you already made a decision, take the action.  Action is something to do.  Then you have to react to the action, and so forth.  If what scares you about moving on is that you’re not ready, then the action to take is – get ready.

Seek information, ask questions.

Look for potential solutions, then enact them. Take them one by one and try them out.  The only mistake is to stay stuck.  Move.

Think less, do more

Consolidate the time between thought and action. Just take action.

When the plot thickens

There will come a moment when you look and you see that the thing got bigger and deeper and broader and awesome. You will be overwhelmed.  It’s too much, the story’s too big.  The feelings are too real.  Good, now you’re onto something.  This is a moment at which you will want to stop and put it in the closet.  Go ahead, put it away if you must, but it will send out vapours every time you walk past it.  So – take it out.  Give it a new way.

It’s taken on a life of it’s own. It’s starting to breathe whether you like it or not.

The 1000-page shuffle/how to divide and conquer

I have a client who came in the door overwrought, overwhelmed, overbudget. She had a pile of papers in a totebag.  This is a sign.  She read through some, and I noticed that she read, she’d turn one paper face down, and then the next she’d put behind the pile.  She had no organization, no rhythm, no reason.  We did something revolutionary.  We numbered the pages.

Often when you have a thousand pages it’s because your script is written twelve different ways. Make decisions.  This version or that one.  No more writing; you’ve already got it.  Go with what you have.

Stand behind it. Otherwise you get more and more material that isn’t quite right.  Take a stand and make one strong statement.