Sun 20 Sep 2009
Okay, I have to be honest — I’m not very honest with myself. Honestly.
Here’s what happened. On August 31 I posted the following tweet: “I will finish the first draft of my thriller screenplay this week. (Someone hold me to this statement.)”
Well, here we are, 3 weeks later, and no first draft.
My excuse? “I know too much.” Really, that’s the excuse I’ve been handing to myself and the people who asked about my progress. I blamed my lack of follow-through on the fact that “once I started digging in to what I had written I discovered problems with story structure, character motivation, and tone.”
I also told myself that I didn’t want to push and finish the first draft just to say I had it done because I wouldn’t be doing myself any favors to rush and crap something out.
Which all sounds fine until I add that I’m not rushing since this is a screenplay I started over 2 years ago.
What to do? What to do?
I can’t seem to motivate, guilt, or in any way bribe myself into finishing any of the large writing projects I’ve started in the last 3 years.
September 21st, 2009 at 5:06 am
The “know too much” can kill your creativity and desire to create. It did for me, so I seriously understand. It’s the main reason I’ve been doing what I am doing by weeding out all these projects I’d been sitting on.
I don’t have much to offer, other than this one thought – pick it up where you are and finish it to The End. Then knowing what you know start at the top and work on everything thing that is wrong out on 2nd draft. I *hate* working that way – but it is what I ended up doing just to push through these last *three* (about to start #4) projects!
September 21st, 2009 at 7:19 am
You’re right, Rhonda – I should just finish to THE END. But, that’s the problem – I can’t get myself to move forward. And I do really want to finish! I think I’m going to do Nanowrimo this Nov. to try to get myself to write without thinking and keep moving forward.