Creative Projects

I’ve been writing a screenplay.

I don’t know if we’re eventually going to turn it into a movie. I would like to. The first step is to make the screenplay shine.

It’s not easy work. Every day, I notice all of the things wrong with it. That’s part of the process.

Lots of people say that writing is re-writing. First drafts are often crap. The challenge is to keep going. It takes a leap of faith to know that your work is crap and to avoid getting discouraged.

I’m not sure what’s been driving me to do this lately, but I’ve been fairly consistent with writing new pages each day. It makes me happy. I like this world I’m building. It’s fun to spend time there. It’s a project I believe in.

One of my patterns is that I’ll work on a given project for a time and then lose steam. Either I get disappointed because I recognize how far I am from reaching my end goal, or I get excited about another project and switch to working on that.

I’m not alone in having lots of half-baked projects! Again, this is part of the process. Artists need to appreciate the journey. They must put in the time, doing work with and without inspiration. They need to be OK with not every project coming to fruition.

For me, creative work never happens in a straight line. It tends to happen in spurts or in “fits and starts”. Most of the work for a given project eventually gets thrown away.

And sometimes, what remains is magical.

I love the creative process!