#week300

Last time I wrote anything on this blog, I was in the middle of the second month-long project of year 2. I successfully completed a full year and after I short hiatus, during which my son was born, I returned, excited to be working again on a variety of projects.

Sadly, I disappeared unannounced. I never came back to write a post until now. Outside of my diverse range of projects, I was building up my professional career and I was on the path to becoming a licensed architect. I have put a lot of time and energy into that career and I was so close to completing the final part, the licensing exams. I reached a point where I had to take it seriously in order to complete it. After stopping the blog and the projects associated with it, I spent a lot of time studying and then I passed one of the more difficult licensing tests, the structural one.  That put me at 4 out of 7. Before too long, I managed to pass section after section and finally, in June of 2016, I passed all of the test sections. A few months later, after getting through all the red tape, I was officially a Registered Architect in my state. I am so tremendously happy that I have achieved this goal. It was a trajectory I found myself on many years ago, and to be finished is hard to describe. Professionally, I have a lifetime of work still remaining, but it is a significant landmark none-the-less.

Almost instantly after I found out I passed my final exam, ideas started been pouring out. In the weeks since, I’ve found hundreds of competitions that range from architecture to poems and some that include graphic design. But I’ve determined that I need to focus my energy. In year 1 of this project I learned about many things I thought I would love but I have very little desire to do those things again. I’m beginning to let go of this need to feel accomplished in every possible avenue. It’s not necessarily impossible to do it all but it is exhausting and ultimately not what I crave.

My family and friends have always ranked high in my life but with a child, my son and family time is very important. In addition to that, I am in the process of legitimizing my creative business, WHAT. And I’m also in the process of buying a house, which will likely spawn tons of projects from renovations and repairs. Obviously, my architecture career is also moving forward, so that will be significant. By themselves, any of those aspects of my life could dominate. I could make excuses that I’m too busy with this or too busy with that, but I’m tired of excuses. I’ve said it before but I’ve never been a fan of saying “I can’t do that because….” Or “I really want to do this but…” I know that things will be difficult and there will likely be more failures than successes but I am going to go down a path now and I’m going to hold myself accountable.

All of the previous mentioned aspects of my life will surely pop up in the coming year of this blog; however, I do not want to make them the focus. Those aspects of my life are already moving forward at a rapid pace that is exciting me and keeping me busy. In what little free time remains, I want to put my energy in to the area that feels like it is calling to me. Throughout all the past projects I managed to discern that I am obsessed with new ideas and creating new things. That much is obvious. But beyond that, I found writing calling to me time and time again. It probably doesn’t call to me in the same way as someone who majored in English or has a passion for language. A lot of my writing process is a struggle but it is a joy in the way that it takes what is my brain and begins to paint a verbal picture for someone of an idea or a world. It brings those things to life in a way that few other mediums have done for me. I’ve written before, had some very minor things published, and even produced some plays. But through revisions for many of those writings, my friends and editors notes would say, “this feels like it should be a screenplay” or “it would work better as a movie.” As I got my creative start in the theater world, it took a while for this to click for me. A lot of the time, I was trying to shoehorn a filmic idea onto a stage in the form of a play and it never seemed to come out right. As an experiment, I tried writing out film scripts and finally I felt like I had a media that fit my style of writing. Everything clicked. Screenplays are spartan and typically with less dialogue than plays. And when compared to prose, screenplays are much more visual. Prose is very descriptive but in a way that your imagination can create the images you want to see. Screenplays are more direct about the imagery. A screenplay combines many of my interests. It’s not just a home for ideas but it has components that are visual, theatrical, occasionally interactive, etc.

As I toyed around with drafts of short film ideas more and more, I realized that this was a creative avenue I haven’t really explored. I’ve had my HD film project, but because that was semi-personal, and almost a documentary in style, it feels very different. All the other film projects I had were basically video editing projects and don’t even have scripts.

This boils down to one simple purpose of this blog. I’m going to hold myself accountable to write screenplays.  I’m not honestly certain of the format yet but I think I can write 1 rough draft of a screenplay every 2 weeks. That’s a very tight amount of time when you are only righting in short bursts on the train, during lunch, or when everybody else in your house in asleep.  But I will try. I’ve read that full time working professional writers churn out a first draft of a script in a week, assuming roughly 40 hours of time committed. However, for some people it takes much longer. I want to put the pressure on myself to see what I can do in two weeks. If I find it is unrealistic, I will modify it. I’m not going to pretend that I have some sort of perfect system. Some ideas may come out quicker than others. Also, I have prioritized my list in order to make sure that my focus is on what I believe to be my best ideas first. That way, if I don’t accomplish my goals in that timeline, my most important works will get completed over the course of the next year.

The main point is that I am going to hold myself accountable to writing screenplays and only screenplays. As far as the frequency of posts, I only intend to post once a week, in true “Every Week for a Year” fashion. The posts will be simple and short with the current state of the drafts, probably a copy of the draft at that time, the time spent so far, and then a bullet point list of any major events that have happened in the process of writing. A mini description of the story will be included to give you an idea of what is going on and to help me work on my elevator pitch version of the story. Keep in mind that these are only the first drafts of most of these stories. They will be rough. The way I prefer to write anything, is by trying to plow through the first draft quickly to get out all the parts that need to be on paper. The editing process can take a lot longer than draft writing in my experience.

I hold the personal belief that you should step away from your first draft of almost anything creative for a while. You should wait at least a few weeks before you come back to it. This has been reinforced as the way to go in screenwriting books and blogs I’ve read as well as conversations with other writers.

If I find that a certain script is calling to me for a revision, I may do the revision for that script and the editing process as part of this year’s blog posts but the intent now is a wave of first drafts. It’s a way to find out what has some interesting content and what doesn’t. It’s a way to nail down the most compelling stories and decide how to go from there. If I feel like a script is in a really good state down the line, I will document the process of actually trying to enter competitions, to sell the script or get it produced. The point is to write vigorously and never to go down without a fight!