by Jenna | Jun 16, 2015 | Science Fiction, ScriptMag Articles
This is one of my favorite interviews, about the movie Time Lapse by Bradley King and B.P. Cooper over on the ScriptMag blog:
There’s a compelling new sci-fi feature out there right now you won’t want to miss, called Time Lapse. Co-written by Bradley King and B.P. Cooper, it’s a slow-burning thriller that hooks you with just the right touches of mystery, sci-fi technology (with a little steampunk flare), and engrossing complications that draw you forward to a surprising and intriguing climax… [read more at ScriptMag]
Photo Courtesy of XLrator Media.
by Jenna | May 28, 2015 | Guest Posts
Note from Jenna: This is a guest post by Naomi Dunford, my friend and business consultant who runs IttyBiz.com.
Although she's writing from the perspective of business writing or blogging, her wonderful ideas for how to cope with "coming up empty" are useful for writers of all sorts.
Take a look and see what resonates as useful for you.
Today, I completely ran out of things to say.
I wrote the introductions for my next seven newsletters.
I found quotes for the next month.
I wrote 53 emails, planned a trip, and took two sales calls.
And I called my mother.
I should note here that I’m writing this on a Saturday.
I’m sure it comes as a surprise to nobody, but at some point in this process, I completely ran out of things to say.
And poor you! You are sitting there, breathlessly waiting for your next instalment of the IttyBiz daily and I am dry. I got nothing.
Hmm.
It’s weird when this happens. You’re on this crazy roll, getting an absolutely stupid amount of stuff done, and you’re getting accustomed to the momentum. It’s like shopping in a crazy busy mall. You get into a flow of bam! bam! bam! Dodge, charge, pivot, go, turn, and then…
Silence. Motionlessness.
It’s like all of a sudden the people are gone and the stores are shut and you’re not entirely sure what you’re supposed to do now.
What you are supposed to do now
When you are experiencing temporary burnout, you must do something that is not work.
That something should be, at minimum, comparable in time and attention level as a chunk of work. If you would be working for two hours, you should take at least two hours away. If you would be working on something mentally engrossing, you should do something equally engrossing.
This seems obvious to those around you, and yet completely counterintuitive to you. You think that you should stay busy, stay occupied, get something useful done. You think that you should try harder, or get a coffee, or stare at your computer screen for a while in case that solves the problem.
Nope. This is one of those few situations where the majority is actually right.
All your idiot friends who tell you that you need to take a little break, step away from the computer for a while? Those ones who just don’t get it?
Yeah, unfortunately, it’s you who doesn’t get it. (Please bear in mind here that when I say “you”, I mean “me”.)
Time for some practical examples!
If you were going to work on outlining your next project, and it was going to be mentally taxing, you need something that will not only utilize a completely separate area of your brain, but something that will actively restore you. A movie, perhaps. A run, maybe, as long as you’re not the type who thinks while you’re running.
If you were catching up on your emails and it wasn’t going to be taxing, you can just do something dumb and brainless. Candy Crush: Soda Saga is a nice choice here, but if you’re stuck on a level, you’ll only get five minutes. But the movie option still works. I routinely TiVo Jeopardy! for situations like this one.
If you’re doing something that’s making you numb, like taxes, you’re going to need something energizing. Some kind of personal treat would be a good idea, ideally something that gets you far away from the source of the problem. Drop in on a yoga class or get an ice cream. Bonus science points if you go somewhere you don’t normally go – it activates the novelty parts of your brain and makes you more alert for a good while afterwards.
Some tips for taking a break:
1. One thing that I find really helpful here is setting a little intention before you take your big break. I say something like, “OK, I’m going to go watch Legally Blonde so I can give my brain a chance to fully restore. That way I can come back rejuvenated and ready to kick some ass.”
I avoided doing this for a long time because I thought it was cheesy. Then I tried it and it worked. Then I tried it again and it worked again. Once the third time succeeded, I had to admit that it was a good strategy for me. I value science over ego, and if it works, it works.
2. If you hate the task, you may want to admit it to yourself. I don’t hate this task, I love it, but there are plenty I don’t love. When I was recording launch multipliers in month 11 of BIG LAUNCH, after I’d already done it once before but my computer wiped the files? Yeah, those are the kind of situations made for “Oh my God I ****ing hate my ****ing job and I ****ing hate this ****ing product and I swear I am moving to Costa Rica tomorrow.”
Sometimes, saying exactly how you feel is remarkably cathartic.
3. On the other hand, if it’s just standard issue fatigue, try to put a positive frame around your break. This is not the end of the world. You’re in a line of work that drains your resources. Being periodically drained is hardly a state of emergency. Sitting around saying you’re soooooo drained and soooooo tired and juuuuuust caaaaaaan’t work is not helpful.
Pretend you work for a moving company. Those guys are tired at the end of the day, and they probably can’t lift one more thing. You know what they do? They drink some beer, watch some baseball, and put their feet up. They do not put in an emergency call to their life coach, claiming existential catastrophe.
Sit down, enjoy your Strictly Ballroom, and smile. Your rejuvenating, not injured.
4. Plan for it. If you’re in a periodically draining line of work, this is going to happen. It might be a good idea to have a plan and some supplies on hand so you can immediately shift gears when you’re feeling the signs.
People with diabetes plan for crashes. Parents of preschoolers plan for crashes. Don’t get superstitious about this.
The more you plan for a crash, the faster you can recharge, and the faster you can get back on your feet.
Thanks for reading! Be sure to check out Naomi's other guest post here about writer's block.
by Jenna | May 8, 2015 | Writing Articles
Every project I work on – especially when it's a long-form piece – has begun to feel like an investment: In myself, in my writing, in my future.
Each one starts out seeming so simple. Just an idea. But it builds over time into a complex story. With questions and puzzles and logic challenges and logic flaws and doubts. All of which have to be solved.
And it takes time to crack those puzzles.
Even though I've been able to move from concept to outline to draft much more quickly now than I have in the past, it's more than just a matter of pace and production. It's also about depth and attention -- preoccupation even -- for a period of my life. It's about making a commitment to a story that occupies my time, my thoughts, my subconscious, my dreams. It occupies ME.
When I hear the stories of how many drafts it took to write The Sixth Sense and how many before he “got” the big idea, I appreciate even more what an investment a story is. Learning to tell it well. To refine it, hone it, pare away the unnecessary bits. All the rewriting. It’s no small thing.
And yet we dive into these stories with such hope and abandon. "This one will be different," we tell ourselves. "It'll practically write itself! I'll be done before I know it."
The grass is always greener
Just tonight I happened upon a journal entry from last year, where I was lamenting about how ready I was to write something new as I was slogging through a major rewrite. And since then, I have. And now I’m feeling about the new project the way I was feeling about the thing I was rewriting at the time. Or possibly worse. :)
Isn’t that funny, how the grass is always greener on the next project?
I think that must be part of the drive behind “bright shiny object syndrome” and the resultant project hopping we writers can get into. Those other projects look so much more appealing than our current moldy one, all banged up and warty and flawed.
No wonder we leave trails of unfinished projects behind us like breadcrumbs leading to a trove of forgotten dreams.
I think there may also be a hesitation to fully commit to a second or third or next project because we know what a major big deal it is having been through earlier projects. I can see why "second novel syndrome" may be more than an issue of simply exceeding the quality of one's prior work! It's also about psyching ourselves up for the next step in our writer's journey.
Difficult but worth doing
Because really, it's why we're here, right? To write?
So whether we're starting our first project or our tenth, or rewriting yet another draft, it's about facing the work. Finding the courage to do it. Stewing in the crummy, awkward, and sh*tty rough draft writing we’ve created or wrestling with the new story choices and puzzles, while we twist uncomfortably, grasping at straws, wondering how on earth to solve or fix it. It’s painful!! Who would want to subject herself to that?
No wonder we jump to other things.
But when I think of each project as an investment, it changes the picture for me.
It becomes worth it to put in the time.
It changes from the wretched torture of rewriting a terrible rough draft or struggling to pull the pieces together to something difficult but worth doing.
What about you?
by Jenna | May 1, 2015 | Writing Articles
Pre-baby #2 last May, I was blogging on a weekly basis. I had a precision system in place. Every week during one of the 60-minute writing sprints we run for my community, I would knock out about 1000 words in 40 minutes, edit, proof, and polish it in the remaining 20, then grab an image and publish the whole shebang within maybe another 10 minutes or so. Then a few final tweaks to the copy in my mailing system and I was all set with my weekly post and newsletter (I have my blog set up to be pulled straight in to Aweber once it’s published on my site, then I broadcast it to my mailing list).
I had a SYSTEM. (And if you know me very well, you know how much I love a good system!)
It was fun, easy, and I was in a good rhythm with it for quite a few years.
Then cue baby, stage right
But once baby #2 came, I knew all bets would be off. And they were.
In those early post-partum days, I was wandering around in a deep haze of physical exhaustion from the birth, breastfeeding and skin-to-skin induced oxytocin highs, and massive sleep deprivation and fragmentation – I was sleeping around the clock with the baby. In other words, all was as it should be. :)
But in the midst of it all, I still had (and have) a business to run. Since I knew it was going to be tough, I had planned to run a series of guest posts over the summer to keep the flow of content going. It was a great plan, and I had I realized what it would take I would have made it a higher priority to set up all the posts BEFORE the baby was born.
(Who am I kidding? The last 6 months of this pregnancy were tough and it was a minor miracle I did such a thorough job of prepping my team to keep things running in my absence! Still, in an ideal world, perhaps…)
In any case, it turns out that guest blog post editing and publishing takes me just as long if not longer than writing my own posts. Live and learn. Still, it was delightful to have a hiatus from being the solo content generator and it kept me in touch with writing and all of you. So once the baby shifted out of the long luxurious naps of The Early Days and into those short 40-minute jobs where there was no point in me trying to sleep anyway, I would get to work on guest posts and screenwriting assignments (and writing the occasional post myself, I think.)
But then the guest post series dried up and I found myself struggling to write the way I had before. Each post took me three times as long as it had in the past. I don’t know if it was the oxytocin/milk brain thing or the chronically tired mom thing or both, but blogging stopped coming so easily.
Then factor in the screenwriting I’m trying to keep up with for my master certificate program and blogging really started slipping through the cracks.
And something just wasn't feeling right
In the bigger picture somewhere along the way I also stopped feeling satisfied with the WAY I was blogging. I wanted to SAY SOMETHING DIFFERENT or at least say it differently, but I wasn’t sure how or even what I exactly wanted to change.
Which led me to some soul searching.
Did I still want to blog?
Was there a different way I could see out there that I might want to try?
What struck me, eventually, was wanting to have more of a mix of posts. Some personal stories interspersed with the writing habit insights. Maybe even an opinion piece or two. Some longer pieces. And even a few occasional guest posts. Once that clarity emerged things got better. But it still wasn't happening.
Creativity required
So my desire was clearer but my action plan was lacking.
One of the things about being an entrepreneur with a baby at home is that you have to be flexible, creative, and resourceful at all times.
Now he's older and is sleeping for longer naps again I have two small windows of time to work in each day, assuming all goes according to plan and there are no random dogs barking during nap time! (Ahem.) (His name is Colton, by the way, and he’s a cute as a kitten playing with a dust bunny.)
So that means I have approximately two to three baby-free hours each day to apportion between screenwriting, blogging, and keeping my writing community in motion. Not a lot of time. Sure. I could hire a babysitter and I do have some temporary help right now, but I WANT to be with my son while he is little like this.
Which is exactly the point. As a writer, and a mom, I have to be super creative about when, where, and how I write. I also have to make sure I get enough down time and sleep or I cross the line into crazy mama land pretty quickly. And since the old pattern wasn't working, I had to come up with a new one.
Finding new times to write
My new favorite time of day to blog is that small window of time before I go to sleep and after the kids are in bed. I’ve learned that I can write in Markdown text on my iPhone in an app with a nice dark mode (Byword) while snuggled in bed. It’s the perfect time to empty my brain of the blog posts I’ve been mentally composing all day (turns out that part of my issue lately has been having too much to say – it gets overwhelming and gums up the works without an outlet for expression).
The key is just making sure I get into bed early enough to write without messing up my sleep. On the other hand, sometimes sleep is hard to come by and having the flexibility to read or write in the middle of the night can be a mental relief rather than lying in the dark working out sentences and trying to keep them in my head until I have time to write them down. Plus it leaves my daytime work slots free for screenwriting and running my business.
Then in the morning I can sync up my files with Scrivener or export them straight into my blog in perfectly formatted HTML.
And it led to finding a new voice and new creative expression
Somehow having a new system has unleashed my creativity again. (See? What did I tell you about me and systems?) I just needed a system that worked with my current lifestyle.
It’s such a good reminder that when your writing pattern stops working, it’s time to redesign your writing life to match.
And the most fascinating outcome for me has been a shift in my writing voice that feels even more like me.
I love it. :)
by Jenna | Apr 22, 2015 | Writing Articles
I'm learning to write faster. With blogging I’m already fairly quick, though my recent writing voice recalibration has slowed me down a bit (more on this in a future installment).
But in terms of screenwriting, I’m learning to be faster and looser, to let go a little more, and to refrain from perfecting until the polish draft.
And being a fast writer is a boon in the screenwriting industry, it seems. I have a few sought-after writer friends who are known, in part, for their speed.
So it’s a good thing, right? To be fast?
Pressure's on
When we write quickly, there's another kind of fast that's implied as well.
It’s the idea that we should be cranking out multiple scripts each year (or books, for my novelist friends). That if we’re not, we’re slackers. (I read recently that screenwriting agents don’t even want to talk to you if you aren’t writing at least three new spec scripts a year, in addition to any paid writing assignments you might be working on. I also have novelist friends putting out multiple books per year.)
It starts to feel as though the counting police are breathing down your neck to see if you’ve done enough. Today, this week, this year. Enough words, stories, scripts, books, etc.
More power to the writers who want to and can write that much, but what about the rest of us with little kids and/or who are old enough to know that pulling all nighters, racing to meet deadlines, killing ourselves with 50, 60, or 70 hour workweeks is ridiculous, short-sighted, and terrible for our health and relationships? Or even just want to make sure we're actually enjoying LIVING along with writing?
Sure. We might want to write a lot. To be prolific. But we have to be mindful about what works for our LIVES as well as our careers. And our lives are individual, with specific realities, so there’s no point in comparing ourselves to others. After all, when comparing, someone always loses. That’s not a fun place to live from. (I honestly doubt that was the plan, when our souls said “YES!” to writing.)
Thoughts about quantity versus quality
I’m of two minds about this quantity thing, of course.
(That’s how you know it’s me!)
On the one hand, writing more stories means more practice, which means more experience and more knowledge under one’s belt as a writer, which also means greater facility with writing as a whole. That seems like a good thing to me. I learn more and deepen my skills with every project I tackle, to be sure. And as my natural pace picks up with greater experience (and my kids get older), I'm sure it will become even easier to write more, more quickly.
It also seems to be the standard recommendation these days — to write as much as possible — and indeed, my personal goal has been to build a library of scripts I can take to market all at once. I’m just choosing not to kill myself over it, especially with little kids whose childhoods I don't want to miss.
On the other side of the coin, taking your time to write one truly solid story may be the ticket to unlocking your storytelling gifts. It’s what I like about what Corey Mandell recommends: getting one script “pitch perfect authentic” so you deeply understand what you’re doing and why so you can carry that forward into your future projects. The argument goes that there’s no point in moving on to project after project if you’re just going to keep making the same mistakes. This is why I chose to spend the last couple of years refining my first script rather than moving on to new projects (though I have now just completed a rough draft of a new project and have taken on a writing assignment).
The real questions to ask
No matter what other people recommend, say, do, or think about how much we “should” be writing, we have to be true to ourselves and set the goals we actually want to achieve, not the goals we are told we "should" strive for.
The real way to measure our pace is by setting goals that work for us, are attainable, and are in resonance with the lives we want to have. Then we can see how well our pace and goals are matching up.
So the real questions to ask are: Are you writing fast enough for YOU? Are you meeting the goals you are setting for yourself, from your heart? Are you writing at a pace that feels sustainable and healthy? One that’s good for you, the project, and the planet?
The real answers lie there.
