Becoming a better writer and Homo sapien.
Instead of labeling the script I’m currently working on with a draft number or date I started on, I called it a Free Write.
So now every time I open the document it’s telling me “Just get some words in and play around.”
It helps to see that first thing every time I sit down to write.
There are situations where you want to spend time fine-tuning your writing, choosing the perfect word, and rewriting the same sentence until it’s perfect. I’d argue that a personal blog is not the place for that. Not because it’s not worth it but because it’s not really necessary. Personal blogs to me are more like conversations. When you talk to someone you don’t say the same thing four different times until you find the perfect phrase. You just talk, you communicate and if something is not clear you clarify it.
-Manuel Moreale, “Good enough”
Humans, on the other hand, are complicated and messy and inconsistent. We are remarkably imaginative. Sometimes we are generous, sometimes we are kind, sometimes we lie and cheat. No matter who we are, we have autonomy, and (if we are lucky) are free to decide to do whatever we want for whatever reason we want. Then, we can change our minds and decide to do something altogether different. Or not.
When a person aspires to be a brand, they forfeit everything that is truly glorious about being human. Building any brand requires consensus. When we position ourselves as a brand, we are forced to project an image of what we believe most people will approve of and admire and buy into. The moment we cater our creativity to popular opinion is the precise moment we lose our freedom and autonomy.
-Debbie Millman, “The Personal Brand Paradox”
It’s already happened in fits and starts, but this isn’t the blog I started.
Sure there’s plenty of writing on here about writing, but there’s also stories about depression, parenting, religion, and loss.
I started this blog as a newly minted MFA, thinking I had enough training and experience to sound authoritative. I wanted to create a space online that projected that confidence and intellect. I wanted to hide the messy parts I’d shared when I was younger on LiveJournal and Geocities.
I lectured instead of spoke.
Gradually that tone shifted, and topics have expanded as my experience expanded.
But now I’m 40, and supposedly that means something on its own. I know, I know: It’s not the years, it’s the mileage… but I’m going somewhere here…
I’m also finding a lot of things to take stock of and make decisions about. I’m wondering about how I’m supposed to define myself now.
How am I supposed to define myself for everyone else?
What if I don’t feel like doing that work right now?
What if I don’t feel like a concrete person who talks about one thing well?
What if I feel like a mess? And what if that’s okay? What if being messy and okay is worth putting out there?
Maybe it’s worth figuring out, and maybe putting it into words is the way to do that. We’ll see.
Moving some books onto a new set of shelves, I found a Bullet Journal from two years ago.
The bookmarked page was full of one-line pitches for screenplay ideas.
I remembered some of them, but others I saw with fresh eyes.
So a big thank you to my past self for not getting rid of that notebook and deciding to write things down instead of forgetting about them.
Maybe nothing’s going to come of those ideas, but it was still a nice boost to the spirit to see them.
I’ve had trouble getting back in my writing brain for a while. Too much second-guessing, impostor syndroming, and generally feeling exhausted.
(Holidays, y’all. And let’s not forget two kids on winter break from school. It’s a lot.)
My therapist encouraged me to work on reconnecting writing with pleasure.
Little by little I’ve been working at it, but it didn’t start to click until a few days ago when a friend texted:
Wanna do a write sprint today?
We just made plans for another sprint tomorrow — our fourth day in a row keeping pace with each other.
Are the scenes I’m writing perfect? Far from it. Are these pages that will definitely make it to a finished draft? Unlikely.
But I’m enjoying the process. I’m trying not to worry about when this is going to be finished as much as I’m focusing on making sure I keep at it.
I’d rather have a good habit than a bad, rushed draft.
Austin Kleon discussed Bo Burnham’s quote about social media companies “coming for every second of your life” by saying:
One reason I feel so lucky to be an independent writer with a great audience: I don’t answer to any shareholders but readers. I don’t have to grow my business if I don’t want to. I can do my thing the way I want to do it for the people who want it.
Austin Kleon, They’re coming for every second of your life
I’ve posted a lot less to social media lately. I’ve already talked about some of the why.
I keep coming back to the question: Who could profit from me making something for a platform?
I may not have the audience of a lot of the people I read or watch online, but I still spend time thinking about things to make and post and where I should do it.
I want that time to be spent on things that return value to me.
When I wrote How Up Makes You Cry, it was for me. I wanted something that would flex my film school muscles, and I needed a project to keep my mind off the fact that I was still unemployed while waiting for a new teaching contract to start. I was living in a moment where I couldn’t see the connection between the life I wanted and the life I was living. I turned to four minutes of film that dealt with that same disconnect and poured my heart into it.
Seeing that project through to the end was valuable to me. Finding out that other people enjoyed reading it was another boost to my mood.
And it started the conversation that lead me to my current job, which has allowed me to step away from teaching at a time I needed to.
So I’m pro-posting stuff online. I’m pro-making things.
But where and how matters. Owning your space is important, even if there aren’t the easily displayed metrics of shares and likes.
It’s easier to be found when you’re not sharing somewhere that only prioritizes the last thing you posted.
Looking back at my stats for this year, most of my popular posts are from one or two years ago. Evergreen content that I shared and left up to be found.
I’m happy with that. I’d rather share something that might still be of value to some people years from now than spend time trying to game an algorithm to make something that’s wildly popular for a day.
This Builds Character 
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