Writing: a cruel mistress
May 5th, 2007 by screenwriterguy
 The part of my brain that is good at math behaves like a puppy. It has always come to me whenever I’ve called, and it’s happy to do anything I ask it to do. Estimate the cost of these groceries and calculate tax? Explain the quadratic equation to an 8th grader? Fetch your slippers? No problem! Woof.
Far more like a cat, the writer part of my brain shows up whenever it damned well pleases and does whatever the hell it wants. I’m working to build a group of writer/actors who will put comedy shorts up on the web. More on that soon, but for now let me just say that a lot of my time has been going into recruiting and meeting cool people who want to play. Meanwhile, my evenings for this last week have been poured into the half draft of a feature that I turned into my writers group on Thursday. On Friday, I had a rare day with very few responsibilities. A Nothing Day. What does one do with a Nothing Day? |
When I’m super organized, I manage to complete that chore I’ve been meaning to do as soon as I have some free time, or get to that book on the shelf. Perhaps, glory of glory, a Nothing Day gets dedicated to writing. Ah, that’ll make you feel like a contributing member of society, that.
But Writer Brain wasn’t having it yesterday. Writer Brain felt she had earned a rest. Writer Brain wanted to sift through the DVR, catch up on Grey’s Anatomy, maybe an episode or two of The Daily Show. Writer brain suggested we catch a road trip movie or two. You know, for research. But capitalize on the week’s momentum and expand the draft? Writer Brain wasn’t interested. Until midnight. Then she suddenly had lots of ideas. And so it was that I was up until 3:30 doing a revision, even though I had to get up for auditions the next morning. Bad kitty.
I haven’t learned to tame Writer Brain. Sometimes I set up schedules with writing partners. That helps. Unless, of course, those writing partners have their own cruel mistresses showing up only at random intervals. Sometimes I take Writer Brain to a coffee shop and tell her we’re not leaving for three hours no matter what. Like as not, she’ll just purr, bat around a little catnip stuffed toy. (OK, I’m done with the metaphor. Promise.) Sure, I understand the craft well enough by now that if I write something, Nike commercial-style, just doing it, I will get scenes and they’ll be acceptable. But that’s nowhere near as satisfying as the feeling when the muse is letting it flow. You feel like an Artist with a capital ‘A.’ And so I wind up dropping my schedule whenever inspiration hits. If that means writing from 2 a.m. till 6 a.m., then sleeping till noon, then that’s what has to happen.
What’s that? Yes, I’m still single. Why do you ask?
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