For those of you smirking or grimacing after yesterday's post: Throwing Out The Kitchen Sink. Yes - there are infinite possibilities and it would be impossible to plow through them all. I'm not just blowing Polly-Annic smoke in your direction.
I promise you won't need to test out every wrong possiblility before you can find a path to charge down. You have a trick up your sleeve - actually you have a trick in your gut. We all know what it feels like to be writing hot, filled with inspiration - and we know when something isn't right and we're forcing it. We know. So gravitate to what your gut tells you is interesting.
Since this part of the blog is about the "emotional journey" here's an example of how I got in tune with my gut just yesterday and how it led me to inspired writing today.
I'm loving my new set up, my new version of my main character (same character only more fleshed out, issues and conflicts closer to my own and therefore infinitely easier to crawl inside of), but I get half way through my new outline and I am utterly lost.
Being utterly lost in your script, especially one that you love so much in the first act, is a tortuous event. I try very very very hard to force what I think should happen to happen - but it's all wrong. First it doesn't feel right, next the structure is off, finally I check my guide-post movies and nope - my character is zigging when every other film is zagging at this spot. Seriously?! Will this ever get any easier?
And the internal monologue goes: I have no idea how to fix this. I can't do this. Think. Think. Maybe? No. What if? Lame! But- Cliche, bad cliche, false, wrong. Think harder. Maybe it can't be done. Maybe this story hasn't been told because it can't be told. I'm too stupid. I'm limited. I'm fat.
Okay - so we've been there right? When I get really frustrated or insecure or frinsecure (which is usually the case) I take a hot bath. It's hard to get distracted from thinking in the bathtub. I'm too paranoid of dropping my iPhone in the water to bring Words With Friends with me - so I'm trapped in a warm, soothing environment with my thoughts. (Also a baby-free, husband free, dog free zone - bonus.)
Worse case scenario I emerge clean and refreshed, drain the tub and go to bed. Most times however - I get inspired, leap from the tub, bubbles sliding down my leg, carpet be damned, I slosh into my office chair with an inspiration that gets me over the current, miserable hump of stuckness.
Most times it can be something really small. Last night, it was a scene that brought tears to my eyes. I had to get out of that tub and write it down. Fast. And that little scene made me realize that the problem wasn't that I didn't know how to fill up the second half of my script - it was that I was trying to skip steps again.
And I'm sorry - you just can't do that. Not even after twenty-one scripts. I needed to go back and put my 40 cards on the wall. Once I did that, I realized that the reason why I was feeling like every idea I had for her to fill up the second half of the script was irrelevant, boring and cliched, the reason why I felt that my main character was doing the right thing way too early in the story (and therefore boring the shit out of me) was....wait for it....
What I thought was my mid-point was actually closer to the end of my second act. She isn't making the right choice too early. No, she's doing it right on time; near the end of the script where it should be. It was the stupid writer who was in the wrong place.
So what happened here? A) I thought since I was performing a rewrite (even though it was a page one rewrite) I could just jump into the writing part. WRONG B) I was telling the story - but not beating it out, so I didn't realize that I was already 30 beats in. MISTAKE C) My gut didn't let me down. I knew something was jenky - which helped me find the fix. GREAT!
Okay - now I will enjoy a day, an hour, ten minutes of happy writing before hitting the next bump. But that's just the way this shit works. Get used to it and don't try to cut corners....
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