Love, Stories

So. The current script. It’s actually coming along really well. It’s a good, original idea, and I can definitely see it as a movie. And the pages are flowing nicely; it’s really easy to write.

But I can’t seem to muster any enthusiasm for it at all. I’m writing it because I want to be writing, not because I want to be writing this script.

Bestiary, on the other hand, fought me nearly every step of the way on that initial draft (and needs to be rewritten from the ground up on the next pass), and I still love the idea. I can’t wait to get the problems sorted and start on the next draft.

They’re both good ideas. Either would make a good movie. But I love one, I’m bored with the other, and it would be nice if I’d known which was going to be which before I started writing.

Last week, I sat down and listed all the stories that inspire me — the movies and television shows that I love, that make me want to write, the ones that make me jealous. There aren’t many. I mean, there are a lot of movies that I really like, and I’m trying to figure out which TV shows to stop watching, because frankly I don’t have the time, but there’s a difference between “movies I adore” and “movies that I wish I’d written.”

Anyway, I made the list. It’s short.

Then, I thought about each of those movies and shows — the tone, genre, characters, plot elements, anything I could think of, and made some more lists.

And then I plugged it all1 into Wordle, and came up with this (click for a readable version):

It was either that, or actually, you know, write. Which might’ve been a good idea.

Thing is, it’s a pretty good overview of what makes me fall in love with a story. And it explains why I’m so unenthusiastic about the current script (which still doesn’t have a working title that actually works). It hits some of those targets, but not many, and the ones it does hit are fairly superficial — basic genre and character tropes. It doesn’t touch on any of the themes I care about, and the tone isn’t something that would catch my interest.

Basically: it’s a good idea. It would make a good movie. But it wouldn’t make a movie I loved. (I’m not sure it’d even make a movie I’d bother going to see in the theatre.)

Bestiary isn’t perfect. It doesn’t hit all the marks, especially in the current draft. But it’s a lot closer than the script I’m working on right now. The next draft will be closer still.

More importantly, this gives me a good metric going forward.

I’ve got hundreds of ideas sitting around, waiting to be written. And I’ve got a bad habit — as evidenced by the current script — of losing interest half-way through writing a story. My biggest challenge, whenever I want to start a new project, is deciding which of those ideas is worth expanding.2 I usually go with whatever seems the most-developed, or feels most like a Movie, and that’s not the best standard. If I write stories I love, then I write good stories. And that’s all that matters.

So now I’ve got a clear picture (literally) of what makes me fall in love with a story. When I’m in the early, pre-outlining, playing-with-ideas stage of things, I’ve got a way to evaluate how likely I am to lose interest before the end of the first act.

I’m still going to push through to the end of the current script; I might still be able to salvage something from it, and I need a bit more time to sort out the next draft of Bestiary. And I need to decide what to work on next, now that I know what I’m aiming for.

I think I can safely say that that high school ensemble romcom idea is off the table.

  1. Almost all. “Male protagonist,” “female protagonist,” and “ensemble cast” all cover the same ground, and were fairly evenly split. Same with “character-driven” and “plot-driven,” which were exactly even. I also got rid of anything that only appeared on the master list once. ↩
  2. … which is just another form of procrastination. I know. ↩

I’m not setting goals. I’m setting priorities.

A couple of months ago, trying to excuse my lack of recent posting, I mentioned that I had goals for the coming year: “big ones.” And I do.

But it’s occurred to me that my goals this year aren’t really any different from my goals any year. Yes, I’m being smarter about it this year–I’ve broken down the big goals into smaller steps, and set firm deadlines, everything you’re ‘supposed’ to do–but the goals themselves haven’t changed.

I’ve just decided that I need a new approach.

I’ve spent a lot of time feeling guilty about the things I’m not doing: I’m not writing. I am writing, but not enough. I’m not writing the right things. I’m not writing anything I like. I’ve spent three days lost in an internet rabbit-hole, and I have nothing to show for it.

You know. The usual.

And I’ve come up with a million excuses: I don’t have enough time, I hate all my current WIPs, I just read a story just like the one I wanted to write, I need to do more research, etc., etc., etc.

The truth is, I haven’t made writing a priority. Any excuse will do, because–no matter what I say, or what I actually believe–I’ve been taking the easy path, and putting… pretty much everything else first. Which is monumentally stupid.

The easy path doesn’t go anywhere interesting.

Which brings me to that ‘transition period’ I mentioned last week.

I’m writing. Every day, first thing, no giving myself one day a week to slack off. I’ve set targets–modest targets. Targets that I can hit easily, whether I ‘feel’ like writing or not, but that will still produce tangible results in a reasonable timeframe. If I get more done, fantastic, but I’m not going to worry about it.

That’s the first step. Putting the words on the page is always the first step.

The second step: figuring out all the things that kept me from writing, and getting rid of them.

That’s the difficult bit. Making up my mind to write a few pages a day, every day, is easy. Re-evaluating some of my routines, to make it easier to get that writing done, is a little harder, but not too painful. But giving up a hobby that I’ve been heavily invested in for the past thirteen years, and that I still (mostly) enjoy? Not so much.

But, here’s the thing: that hobby is a massive time-suck, potentially stealing an hour or two a day, depending on what’s going on. It’s creative at heart, and actively distracts me from any of the other projects I’m working on. And the drama.

(Oh, the drama.)

It has to go. It’s hard. Of course it is. (Thirteen years!) But I only have so much time, energy, and attention. I’d rather put it into something that matters.

That’s what I’m thinking about right now: What do I want? What am I willing to change to get it?