Writing For Writing's Sake

So, I foolishly gave in to the temptation to make a New Year's Resolution this year... sorta.  I mentioned on my Facebook page that I was pondering making one about writing every day for at least one hour per day. That mention kinda evolved into me actually doing it - then me modifying it to say that if I did something creative for one hour per day, I'd be happy.  That gave me a loophole in case I wanted to do some video editing or photography or what have you.  Last night, I got to work on the template for this page to fill my creative need.

It's a Resolution that is quite the double-edged sword.  On the one hand, it's a fantastic idea for an aspiring writer to set aside 1/24th of every day to their craft.  On the other, it really, really sucks because it's a bitch to try and find that hour.  Let's look at this from a realistic point of view...

We start with the 24 hours...

Let's take out 8 that hopefully is spent sleeping every day.  We're down to 16.

Now, we're going to consider this hypothetical day a work day since those days will be the hardest to live up to this lofty goal.  Assuming an eight hour shift with an hour for lunch... we're down to 7 potential hours to work with.

7 hours minus let's go with 90 minutes for getting ready for work, driving to work, and driving home from work - assuming I don't have to stop anywhere on the drive to and from work which is also quite the assumption to make.  We're down to 5.5 hours.

Knock out a half hour to an hour for dinner.  We'll split the difference.

4.75 hours remaining.

Damn.  You'd think I could find an hour out of nearly five hours a day.

This really didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped it would.  I need some of that fuzzy math to work with.

No, no - what I really need is a new laptop so that I can multitask and write while watching TV.  That oughta produce some stellar work.  Yeah!  That's the ticket!

I actually did get pretty excited earlier this week about a new screenplay idea that I think I could actually self-produce.  One of the guys at work thinks I should not only shoot it myself - but act in it myself as well to see if I can actually put together a full feature length film on my own.  As someone who is "in the industry," he believes that if I can do it, I can sell it - and myself - to the highest bidder.  We shot some ideas back and forth for a few minutes the other night and it was as creatively alive as I've felt since I was in the middle of writing my first screenplay.

There's something that really is quite magical about working in a creative environment and being able to share that with other people who know what you're  going through.  People who understand the difficulties involved in every aspect of the creative process.

The world seems to be filled with two types of people at times - people who think screenwriting sounds almost impossible to do and are quite in awe of people who are actually able to do it and then there's the others who think it's simple and even if they can't do it, they think it should be absolutely a cinch for someone else to do so.  So, when you run across those rare few who can understand just how difficult it is to get your mind on paper at times... well, those are people to treasure a bit.

This week, I've been reading all of these various writing exercises that they encourage writers to do when they're stuck.  It's really some ridiculous stuff that - while probably useful in some situations - seems like a waste of time for the most part.  Here's some samples...

Try this challenge: pull out something you're been writing (a poem, a journal entry, a novel) and put an orange in it. Make the orange part of the thing you're writing, but keep in mind that the orange might appear in a painting or a dream. Remember a particular orange you once encountered-- saw squashed in a gutter or sitting perfect and fragrant on someone's dining room table.

Seriously? Can someone tell me the point of that? I guess it explores your creativity but... well, it's a fucking orange. I don't want to write about a fucking orange. I don't want to read about a fucking orange either.

I took a playwriting class in college once. The most awkward part of it was when they wanted us to read our work out loud to the class. I was terrified. The author is always their biggest critic but... in a way, that's a lot easier than having to see/hear someone else's reaction to your work. Because you can lie to yourself. Don't listen to those people who tell you that you can't because you absolutely can. I can convince myself that I wrote the greatest screenplay since INSERT CLASSIC SCREENPLAY I HAVEN'T READ HERE but if someone else reads it and thinks it's trash, well... I think I'd have a hard time dealing with that. It's one of those things you try not to take personally but I don't know if you really can ever be successful at that. I've had a few people ask to read my screenplay (not many lately thankfully) but most of them got ignored for that very reason. There seems to be very few good things that can result from that and a whole lot of bad things. The only good outcome would be someone thinking it was even better than aforementioned CLASSIC SCREENPLAY and that I'm the best writer since Shakespeare's heyday. But bad outcomes? Mockery? Ridicule? Boredom? The worst would be someone having to lie about how great they thought it was and you being able to read the real truth on their face. It's one of those things I know I have to get past at some point but for someone who has been at times a ruthlessly harsh critic to others, let's just say I'm a little nervous that karma's a bigger bitch than I imagined.

If you haven't been able to tell yet, this is a bit of a free write so I'm all over the place. "Harry In Winter" off the Goblet Of Fire soundtrack just popped up on Shuffle. Just managed to piss me off all over again that Half-Blood Prince got a PG rating. That movie is going to obliterate that movie franchise for me. There were things I didn't like about GOF and OOTP - which is my favorite of the books - but I stuck with it and thought they did a decent job. But Half-Blood Prince sounds like it's heading for worse and worse disaster every time I read news about it.

Speaking of sequels... I'm not sure why but there seems to be a lot of talk about what will happen to the Star Wars empire (no pun intended) after George Lucas lets it go lately. First off, I think you'll have to pry control of it out of his cold, dead hands but even then... I don't know. Will my grandkids be waiting in line someday wondering what's going to happen to Luke in Episode 7? And if so, will they hate the Ewoks? You read so many Lucas/Star Wars comments lately talking about how horrible the Ewoks were but I just can't remember people complaining about them back when Jedi came out. I mean, I guess I was just a kid so I thought they were funny but... I just don't remember it. Is it a case of something not aging well?

I'm only at about the forty minute mark, I think... but I'm running out of steam.  And I'm getting sleepy.

Oh well.  I must have done something creative for twenty minutes earlier today, right?  I have no idea what it would be... but I'm betting I did.

This was a really dumb idea.  How the hell did I talk myself into this?  I hate New Year's Resolutions.

And the Dodgers lost out on a free agent to the Brewers?  What kind of weird fucking world are we living in?

But I digress...