To Whom It May Concern:
I am a writer. I promise. I am writing. I promise. It may not look like it but I've been writing every day for my whole life. Professionally it's been a bit less but suffice it to say I've been writing for a very long time. Even if it doesn't look that way.
This morning I got up, tied my laces, and put on a slick long-sleeved Nike shirt before 7am. I promised myself I'd walk and walk I'd do. For several miles, along the quiet streets of the neighborhood of Angela's school, the neighborhood I want to live in some day, I put one foot in front of the other and moved forward. And coming out of the white earbuds strapped on? An interview with Aaron Sorkin about his latest movie Steve Jobs. (Really, more than the promise to myself it was Sorkin that got me out of bed. Oh, yes.)
And at one point in the interview the interviewer asked him if he writes 10 pages a day or has a set number or some sort of regular process. And his answer made me laugh out loud somewhere near Wilshire Boulevard. He said to the untrained eye his writing process looks an awful lot like a man watching ESPN. And I thought, so so true. That's me. Except to the untrained eye my process may look like exercise, cooking, laundry, answering email, going to CVS daily, taking out the trash, and plucking at stray eyebrows in the closeup mirror I never should have purchased.
A few weeks ago I wrote an eight page outline for my new pilot. This was completed after several months of research, character development, countless hours on Wikipedia, and so many more hours sitting at my desk staring straight ahead at the white wall. Stephen King once said he had to move his desk into a closet so he wouldn't stare out the window. I have a window but it faces the garage wall so I guess it's sort of the same thing.
So much of writing is thinking. Like SO MUCH. Like there's no substitute for getting in the shower and thinking up a good idea and having to get out and run dripping to the desk to scratch an idea onto a soggy post-it note. There's no substitute for driving and thinking and realizing you need to stop the car so you can find your phone and send yourself an email. So many emails with ten word sentences that eventually become a story. And then a script. And maybe some day a movie. Or a TV show.
I've been standing here at my desk (yes, still standing, the new desk is great, until my feet get tired and then I find the chair because lets face it sometimes thinking is a sitting job) for an hour this morning. I have the new document for my pilot script pulled up in the software program. I wrote out the title page. I wrote out the first line of action. And now? Nothing.
I have seen this first series of scenes so many times in my head. Just this morning I had to rewind Sorkin's interview on my phone because I realized I'd been thinking about that first scene, the scene of the sailor rucking in the hot sun, carrying a pack, moving forward, just like me. I'm no solider but I can so clearly see this soldier's determination and struggle it's real to me.
Sometimes the words come so quickly it terrifies me. What if they're so fast they're no good? Or they're so fast no one else will understand? Maybe I shouldn't have played that Fifth Harmony song with the good beat on repeat while I wrote until it invaded my brain.
But sometimes they don't come so easily. It's not writers block, trust me, on a deadline I can get it done whether it's a term paper, a newspaper article or a draft of a script. But sometimes it's slow. Like the way you have to get to know someone. Because I'm getting to know these people I'm creating. I'm developing relationships in my brain. And that can be fast or slow or sometimes both.
So now I'm going to think about Sorkin's interview, think about what he does to get his fingers moving, and think about his advice on what makes a story interesting. And I think just as my feet were moving forward this morning, I'll make my main character's move a bit forward. At least a few steps, if that's all that happens today, then that's okay. Because when the time is perfect, it'll happen. Especially when deadlines loom...
Signed,
Me, the writer
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