Be a Writer Every Day, Even if You Don’t Feel Like It
The following is my response to Zak Slayback’s recent “The Easiest Way to Become a Better Writer” piece. First sentence, something that took me a long time to say:
I’m a writer.
Truth be told, in the most basic sense, these days we’re all writers. Some certainly more so than others, but between social media and text messaging and just about countless other forms of both macro and micro communication outlets and options in this age of the internet and technology exponentially improving/expanding, whether we even want to or not: we write.
Consume, create, consume, create, observe, report, repeat.
These are the ways of the modern writer. You see, I’m a screenwriter. It’s not my day job, but it’s what I do. My field is entertainment, I work on the production side of movie and television projects as an organized independent contractor. Observing. Creating, but in the form of helping others. Yet all the while, helping myself. Consuming, absorbing, collecting. Networking really.
Most days I struggle with whether or not I’m a good writer. Well I certainly know I’m not great. Yet. And certainly any writers that tell you they are great are almost certainly terrible. But I am conflicted: most days I should at least think I’m mediocre at this thing I’ve sworn to committing my life to (not that I have a choice). But truly talented storytellers usually struggle in some way, right? Reader, I’m just not sure. There are a lot of complicated layers. Then meanwhile I think about all of the terrible things going on in the world, people starving in war torn third world countries. Ego maniac dictators being placed into power by corrupt, antiquated machines of global governance. Point being: who cares? Write or don’t, the world will keep spinning. But if I’m going to do it, I might as well focus on it and give it my all every single day.
Dah, crap. Wait. I have to work.
What they don’t tell you before you start working in production is that your life is basically being signed away to the cause. My best days are 12 hours of solid work, and that’s usually while in pre-production on a project or once we’ve finished shooting and all that’s left is cleaning up a few things so the tents can be packed up and moved to the next town (stay with me, the metaphors flow pretty loose in these parts). So the major irony of anyone lucky enough to work on movies and/or TV shows is that you’re lucky if you ever get time to actually sit down and watch any. Much less, time to sit down and actually concentrate on the massive amount of attention and time required to conceive, shoot, and actually finish one. So is the life.
Yet, I’ve done a few things in my tenure as ways to always keep my own creative instruments sharp — never losing sight of the ultimate prize, the brass ring that pulled me into this nonsense that I still keep focus on every day. My own projects suffer from the afflictions of a production-funded life, but it could certainly be worse. I was able to make my very own feature a while back, a passion project from nearly the very beginning that is now available all over the world. I have several other written, plenty more in the works, and conversations all over the place with potential to keep things going in any number of directions. Then the ask comes: “This all sounds great! Can you meet me at the office Monday or Tuesday for a coffee or we can go to lunch?”
No. I can’t. Because I have bills to pay and I’ll be on a street corner somewhere, likely shivering and trying to figure out where the closest free internet is so I can respond to the dozens to hundreds of emails and texts that’ve come in since I first arrived on set and started putting out fires. All correspondence centered around helping someone else fulfill their dream, make their potential masterpiece come to life. But, it’s incredible what can be accomplished in a quick later-hour or very early morning phone call or Skype session that’s pretty similar to a sit down meeting in Midtown or the West Village. Or, even sometimes with the exceptionally interested/eager (or just available) party, a quick weekend meet up over a beer or coffee.
One must persist. And be patient.
At least that’s what I keep telling myself. And that’s what I keep hearing. So I keep writing. Do I sit down and tap into a screenplay every day? No. Those articles and books are always good laughs for me. If you pay attention, those pieces of advise usually come directly from those who are either already very successful or have been blessed with a hand from life that has afforded them the opportunity to do what I and so many others can not: work for free.
Sure, if you have the means to not worry about a paycheck, dedicate your life to doing nothing but finding the time to constantly write screenplays and outlines and pitches and treatments, every hour of every day. Get a schedule down, dedicate a space and time to it like religion. Daily. For sure.
But if you’re like the rest of the world, do what you’ve gotta do. Get a job, write when you can. But do exactly that: WHENEVER YOU CAN. And I’m not talking about forcing it, I mean even when you don’t think you’re writing — realize that YOU ARE WRITING. And use it as an opportunity to do so.
Those hundreds of work emails every day? I don’t slip on punctuation and leave a million typos, hoping the jerk on the other end can translate my too-busy-for-you producer speak. I take my time, write full sentences and proofread myself. Social media? Also writing. Texting, that’s writing.
Am I saying you can just forego your own chosen discipline entirely and still get ahead? Absolutely not. If you wanna write a book, work on your book. Wanna write a spec script for a pilot? Get that outline and bible goin’.
One of my favorite all-time writers is the woman I also happen to be married to. She works for a pretty sizable non-profit, managing and overseeing their social media. Creating a large portion of it by writing copy, producing videos, and so on. She went to school for playwriting, that’s where we met. Sometimes, less in recent years, people from our time back then will ask her or me if she is “still writing”… My answer and hers: always yes. As a matter of fact she loves telling folks, sometimes in large seminar settings where she’s addressing thousands of people on the topic, that learning how to be a playwright was the perfect stepping stone to becoming a great tweeter.
It’s all storytelling.
So don’t get buried in guilt that you don’t have time to sit down in your parent-funded apartment and read all of this year’s Blacklist candidates in your pajamas before typing up to the first plot point in your third feature effort of the month. Just write when you can, focus when you can, but never forget the most important thing. You are a writer. Every hour, every minute.
