A much needed break from the tundra of the northern region has taken the writing process to the very hospitable Charleston, South Carolina. Escaping the gloom and chill has helped a bit to revive the creative spirit…sort of. Five hours in Kudu Coffee today yielded a paunchy three-quarters of a scene. Granted, a good portion of the time was spent reviewing what has already been written, trying to re-establish a flow of some kind.

The writing process is so frustratingly unpredictable to me. I will never understand why some days will see fifty new pages of script and others will be lucky to glimpse a single new line. Most writers tell you that the best thing to do is just to force yourself to write, even when you’re completely uninspired. I’d like to say that I am capable of doing that. It’s certainly far more productive than napping and watching the latest crap to be released on DVD purely to fill the time, but I just don’t seem to work that way at all. It’s probably a character flaw, to be honest. I’m a bit of a perfectionist - not to suggest that the script is anywhere near perfect, but it’s as close as can be managed at this point in time. I will ruminate for days on how to approach a scene. During that time I am completely paralyzed. Attempting to put anything down on paper becomes an exercise in self-loathing. It’s common to write a scene and know that it is going to need some work, but if it isn’t at least somewhat inspired, I begin to deteriorate into self-doubt about my ability to write at all. I suppose I should learn to fail more. To fail and be comfortable with it. All good lessons come from failures, but it’s kind of demoralizing to puke out choppy mess just to say you’ve gotten something done.

11:01 am

tags: screenwriting, script, South Carolina, vacation, writing