Last night, instead of going out to some club or bar, Best Friend and I decided to stay up until 5:30 talking about whatever. It mostly consisted of me looking at her bookcase and going, "Oh I read that book. Didn't read that book. Would like to read that book. I really enjoyed that book. Can I borrow this book?"
We are big enough nerds that this is what we call fun.
Best Friend is very well read - much better read than me - and has long wanted to write. Last night she told me about a novel idea she's had in her head for three years and never actually tried to write.
It's a fantastic idea. A best seller kind of idea. A touring, Oprah Book Club, show up on The Colbert Show to talk about it kind of idea, and I'm not the first person to tell her that. But here she is, sitting on it, afraid to write a word.
Why? I asked her.
She said she didn't feel justified writing anything until she'd read everything else. Then she admitted that that was kind of ridiculous. She said she wanted to know every detail of the story before she started writing anything down. Then she admitted that she knew that was a mistake. She said she worried about what her mother would think when she read the stuff she pulled from her family. Then she admitted her mother was more likely to be flattered than angry.
Eventually she admitted that she's afraid it will be terrible. What if she does all this work and pours her heart out on paper and it turns out to be garbage?
And it occurs to me that there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, if not millions of people in the world who feel the same way.
If I never try, I can always suffer under the delusion that I am awesome, I just never had an opportunity to prove it. But if I try and fail, then I'll have to face the fact that my lifelong dream was a fantasy.
So I smacked Best Friend on the head.
Okay, not really, but we did talk about ideas on how she could start working on the project. I'm going to harass her about it regularly from now on because that's what friends do. If she doesn't write this story the world will be deprived of a brilliant idea and she will always wish she had made it happen.
I'm lucky - or maybe just oblivious - in that I've never been afraid of sucking beyond brief moments of self doubt. I usually figure I may suck this time, but I'll just try again and get better until I figure it out. Because a sucky idea on paper can become a good script or novel with some effort, but an idea that never sees daylight will never have an opportunity to be more than just a brainwave.
Everybody's first screenplay sucks. Except Diablo Cody, but she's a freak in more ways than one so we're going to pretend she didn't just break every rule in Hollywood and keep to the theory that everybody's first screenplay sucks. Your first screenplay sucked, didn't it? Mine sucked less than my first short story, but it still kind of sucked.
If you haven't written your first screenplay yet, how will you ever get through the sucky one to get to the good one? If you don't put it down on paper you'll always be stuck in suck mode. Fix it.
Write. That. Shit. Down.
And keep your eyes open for Best Friend and her brilliant novel, coming soon to the best seller list.
Alright, alright already.
ReplyDeleteMy first screenplay sucked, but I've been stuck on (not) writing my second for...well, a while now.
It's just that excuses are so much easier than taking a risk that I'll reveal to everyone that I'm nowhere near as talented as clever as they seem to be certain I must be.
Did Diablo Cody have a first script not titled Juno? Because that script kinda sucked. Okay, it didn't suck. But it was highly overrated.
ReplyDeleteCool little thing I do to break the procrastination cycle on writing. I forget where I learned it, but it goes like this:
ReplyDeleteTo make any progress on anything, you have to do something each day. So, each day, you sit down with three index cards, and make three decisions about your project, any decisions at all form a character name to a major plot point. When the index cards are full, you're done.
Then you eventually collect them all and start writing.
You just want her to write it so you can have first chance at writing the screenplay right? 8)
ReplyDeleteWhere do all the ideas for stories come from? I only have one. I've never written anything before and am well aware that if I try to write 120 pages for my one idea it will suck. So I don't write at all.
ReplyDeleteIf you have one idea you can have another. That also reminds me to do a post on story ideas, so thanks.
ReplyDeleteBut even if your first story does suck, it's a learning experience. If you wanted to drive stick shift you'd have to spend days in a parking lot, stripping gears and stalling out before you finally figured out how to do it. Writing is no different. Writing down this one story will teach you how to write a better one the next time around. It's practice.
And oh yes, Leif, I made her promise me the option on her novel.
"Write. That. Shit. Down."
ReplyDeleteGreat post. Certainly woke my butt up.
I’ll be heading off to the USPS very soon…
or learning to send a script from my MM…
or both.
Great post... Really.
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of people that want to write (or do anything for that matter) that will always be stuck in the too scared, still learning, not good enough, yada yada yada mode.
And you already woke somebody UP!
That's why it's a great post.
Unk