Urgent is Not the Same as Important

For the last couple months I’ve felt like a cartoon character dashing away inches ahead of the avalanche. My first thought on waking this Sunday morning was “gotta check my email.” I nearly jumped out of bed before checking myself. I tried to lay in bed, reminding myself I had a free day. Pretty soon I was strategizing how to exploit it fully. Get a jump on that new script. Email the guy about the job. Update the blog. Tweak the Google ad. Find the stock footage. I’m exhausted, and I can’t stop thinking about work.

Of course, there’s not a single thing there that can’t wait until Monday. There’s not a single thing there that shouldn’t wait until Monday. I’ve been going nuts to get back to my creative writing and my book for the past week. I decided there would be no email on this Sunday. No computer. Just my own script and Denis Johnson’s Fiskadoro.

If I’ve learned one lesson, it’s never to put what’s urgent ahead of what’s important. I’ve learned this lesson many, many times. I’ve also forgotten it many, many times. But inevitably when I do what’s important, the urgent takes care of itself.

What’s important to me is all about stories. You don’t hear good stories if you don’t listen. You don’t write good stories unless you listen to yourself. You can’t listen to anything without concentration. And real concentration requires peace and attention to basic needs. Real concentration is the only thing that overcomes resistance.

It’s way too easy to let your resistance guide you away from what’s important and right into what’s urgent. I know few writers who wouldn’t identify this as a major problem. I still fall into the problem all the time.

But I do manage to maintain for stretches of time. I spend enough time writing my own stuff. I get the joy out of it, and the spontaneous, visual answers that are always better than the carefully constructed dialogue. I sketch out the new ideas that have piled up in the journal. I see the movies and plays I want to see. I take care of my relationship. I exercise. I play. I cook. I’m energized at the end of the day.

The funny thing is that what’s urgent also works better when I have the focus on the important. My clients get better work. I meet other writers and filmmakers at events. I get new ideas. I’m happier sitting at my desk, and so I work more efficiently.

I wish I understood better why the urgent has such power over the important. It shouldn’t, but for me it does sometimes. For now I’m making a rule for myself. No computer on Sunday. One day a week just for what’s important.

Resistance

I don't feel right if I don't write every day. Somehow things start running in loops in my head. I got involved in script consulting because it's something I'm good at, I work at home, and there's a lot of flexibility. I can write every day. But sometimes I don't.

The last few weeks or months have been one of those times. I'm on a huge learning curve with film producing on Mr. Gary. I've got lots of clients with a lot of different needs. House guests. And then there's life.

Writing for other people is not the same as writing for yourself. It's easier, for one. You have a strong perspective and access to the lead writer. You break it down. you come up with a plan. You execute.

Not so simple with your own stuff. Now that we've got our post-production team up and running, I do have more time for my own stuff. I pulled out my own script, started digging through and suddenly had a huge realization about it. I saw where I was missing something incredibly obvious. For me, the story was about a boy exploring his fantasy world in the flesh. For my main character and the audience, the focus was on the fact that he thinks he may have caused his father's death. There's this huge layer of guilt and anxiety and his character completely stressed in every way possible. This is pretty much what a screenwriter wants. This is exactly what I wanted for the character. And I didn't see it. I was too close, and now I was writing off in the wrong direction.

The next day I had four meetings, two phone calls and dinner with a fundraiser. No time to write. I had three pens run out of ink on the same day. What are the chances? The next day I put the work ahead of my writing, and a pen exploded in my bag. Monday I was too exhausted to engage stuff deeply. You got it: my last pen ran out of ink.

There's no good explanation for this. I'm not the kind of person who dwells on weird coincidences. But it feels like my pens are rising up in anger. It's time to get back to work and really dig into this character. Working on your own stuff is harder, but it's why we write. No amount of futzing with structure will help me if I don't look at my work, if I don't listen to my work.

Formatting, Resistance, and the Dinosaur Coffee Mug

You've just had a brilliant idea for a script. You wrote a lot back in college, but not so much since you got married and the real job. But now you've got some time and really want to get back into it. So you take the plunge. You get some screenwriting software, or copy the formatting from "Deadly Force 3: The Curdling", which you found on the net.

You write and write... everything's going relatively smoothly. There's joy and meaning in your life! Thoughts percolate in the back of your mind of moving to Hollywood and tapping out brilliant stories in a smallish bungalow at first, then a bigger place up in the hills as your career grows...

Then you come to a phone conversation. How do you format a phone conversation? Will they just know? What's going on? And what about when they're in the car, and then he's on top of the car, then he's back in it, but we're not on the road anymore -- how am I supposed to slugline that? And how can I add DAY or NIGHT when we're in outer space?

There's silence at first. Then the sounds of Youtube. The script is an unspeakable burden, then slowly pushed to the back of the mind.

It would be easy to just tell you how to format this stuff, but the real issue here is RESISTANCE. Writing a script is hard. Writing anything good usually means digging into your head and pulling out details, and that is often a painful process. Writers encounter resistance at every turn, and dealing with it is part of the job.

Many new screenwriters face resistance in the form of FORMATTING. I have had many a first conversation with a new client in which I lay out problems with premise or character sympathy or plot structure -- big stuff -- and get a question about whether they need to note that a particular location already exists, or just describe it for the reader. Do they need the MORE: and CONTINUED:?

You'll never get anywhere worrying about that stuff. And your subconscious knows it.

But your conscious brain needs to be conscious of one important fact: you're probably going to write and rewrite the scene five more times. And Coppola's not drumming his fingers waiting for you to put him to work. And he's not going to pass on a good script because of your unorthodox use of INTERCUT. Just write the story. Stay out of your own way.

A small anecdote about getting over the formatting hump. I had a great deal of anxiety about getting all the stuff right on my first production. One day the art director, who I found unbearably cuddly and adorable, was clearly annoyed with me. Why? Because I'd written a scene with the characters discussing the little dinosaurs on a coffee cup. I hadn't mentioned the prop at the top of the scene. And apparently that's where art directors, or this one at least, look when they build a prop list. Now he had to go BACK to the thrift stores the day before the scene was to be shot. After this herculean effort, he managed to find a coffee mug with little doggies on it, and we changed the dialogue to match. And I learned a big formatting lesson that day. You'll never get anywhere with the adorable art director unless you're clear and straightforward. Learn a bit about the jobs of the people you're writing for, and the formatting will fall into place.

And if you want to know how to format cell phone conversations during car chases in outer space, check out screenwriting.info.

Confession of the Day

I get embarrassed reading through some of my posts. Something about this format and my love of an audience brings out the all-knowing pro in me. It's time I fessed up. I have a script that's been kicking my ass for three years. I've tried every tool I can think of -- working with synopsis, writing out backstories, thinking with visuals, characterization, etc. etc. etc. After all this effort, I have probably 300 pages of embarrassing dialogue and untamable plot details.

I'm not giving up for a couple reasons. The premise almost always elicits a "wow". It intersects a lot of important subjects for 2007 in a very classically dramatic way (or it should). Beyond that, the main character is me when I was 16. I was deeply unhappy then. I was desperately private. Desperately, privately Christian. Very screwed up about my sexuality. I spent most of my energy figuring out how people could even register my presence. My inner world was far more real to me than the world around me. That kid's still inside me somewhere, and it's time he came out. No pun intended.

Today, three years in, I suddenly got the midpoint of the script. I had EVERY ELEMENT. The helicopters. The creepy messianic figure. The innocent's lie. The smart retort. The dimension-traveling aliens. But for some reason this disjointed mess waited until today to open up into a six-lane superhighway of drama and emotion. I felt like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. Ever been there?

I'm finally getting somewhere with the script now, and in a way I've resisted for a long time. I'm writing it as prose. Why did I resist? Because I think the visual medium changes and shapes a story. I think prose is better as words, and movies better as movies. Beyond that, I wrote prose for years before turning to scripts. Writing prose is intense. It's very private. No escape. No comps and premiere parties. Lots of staring at the wall and snapping at your boyfriend and forgetting to eat.

Why is prose working for me now? I think I need the backstory in my action lines, in a way. I need to know what the character is all about before I can construct a strong role for an actor. I'm going to get it all down, in my notebook, where no one can see it. I'm going to keep writing until I have the story coherent, organic and strong. And when it's time to write the script, I'll worry about telling it visually. I'm probably also adding the need for another draft of two to simplify and pull out unnecessary detail. But at least the project is teaching me, feeding my art, and keeping me off the streets.