A Crisis in Confidence

What screenwriting activities did I partake in last week?

1. Asked my mentor/teacher, Anne Jordon, to join me in rewriting the TV pilot that I lost when I spilled coffee on my laptop several weeks ago.
2. Worked on the TV pilot many times during the week.
3. Attended screenwriting group.
4. Asked four movie industry professionals to read my TV pilot when it is completed.
5. Set aside time with a friend to show her how to use a scriptwriting program.
6. Watched four movies and thought about their dramatic structure:

• Love and Mercy - a drama about Beach Boy, Brian Wilson's genius and madness. 
• The Forger - John Travolta played the role of an imprisoned art forger who risks much to spend time with his dying son.
• The Choice - A Nicolas Spark's love story set in coastal North Carolina.
• The Walk - Joseph Gordon-Levitt's stunning performance of the French aerialist that crossed between the world trade center towers on a high wire.

The theme of the week though has been "crisis of confidence." Every time I go to work on rebuilding the TV pilot, I resist stronger than a barn-soured mule being dragged from it's stable.

Mule, watercolor and gel gloss, 10x10 by Levonne Gaddy

After working with Anne one day, I felt motivated to keep at it.  But after three days off from work, I return this morning with the same dread as I experienced immediately after losing the file.

So...this is where I stand at the moment. I tell myself over and over to just do it! One word, one sentence, one scene at a time.

Wish me progress on my journey . . .

Focus on the Little Pieces

This past week, I decided to focus on the little pieces of a script. I often look at a finished, produced screenplay and think about it's greatness. Before I know it, I'm overwhelmed.

Instead of staying overwhelmed this week, I decided to study the element of "writing description." Here's what I relearned:

• All action and description must reveal character or move the story forward.
• The more vivid the description, the more the character and scene come to life.
• Description should also foreshadow what's to come in the story.
• Description focuses on three elements of 1) action, 2) setting and characters, and 3) sounds.
• Keep paragraphs to four lines or under.
• Be sparse with physical description of locations and characters.
• Describe what the audience can actually see on the movie screen and hear on the soundtrack.
• Use specific, concrete verbs and nouns to describe character vs. general ones.  Think about "how" someone is doing the action. (Entertain vs. inform.) 
• Avoid redundancies in narrative description. 
• FINALLY - Practice writing great description every day!

I've taken this lesson seriously! Now onward and upward!

What did I do this past week to advance my screenwriting?

1.  Read "Breaking Bad" pilot script
2.  Worked with Anne Jordan, scriptwriter, on my TV pilot script
3.   Reread sections in books - Anne Jordan's The Big Secret,  Blake Snyder's Save the Cat and Dave Trottier's Screenwriter's Bible - on "narrative description" 
4.  Attended Northern California's Screenwriters group

Screenwriting as Meditation

What is meditation? From what I've gathered over several years of study and practice, meditation is the ability to sit quietly as one observes one's own mind, body and emotions.

What is my process? Start in a seated position, close the eyes, focus on inhaling and exhaling deep breaths. If using art or writing as a meditation, do the same but after the breaths,  open the eyes and begin making marks or words with the hands. 

Monoprint by Levonne Gaddy

Then listen for all that is there to be heard, inside and out. Feel whatever external conditions are there to be felt. Feel whatever internal conditions call the attention. See whatever pops into the mind as a vision, a memory, a picture. Smell whatever is there to discern. Taste what is there to be tasted.  Just be, non-judgmentally, in that space with self, with body, with mind, and emotions, surrounded by the world.

The external world tells a story in sounds and sensations. The mind tells stories sparked by those external triggers. Which is which? I have a very critical mind. A suspicious mind. My mind can conjure all kinds of stories - all of them just that. Stories.

Today's lessons from my meditation:

I often see myself as a victim in the world. I don't like being so,  but that is my story. My story distresses me.

In the observing space, I become aware that I am not alone. My God Self is there too. I have been a victim of my own neglect. Again.

Just be myself, in the world. Pay attention. Observe.

But what channel do I want to tune in to? There are thousands to choose from. Food, travel, friends, music, art, the dogs, my husband, chores, family, money?

I must feed and prime myself for what I want in my life. Focus and study, outside of meditation, in order to be able to sense my channel.

Study screenwriting, in order to grow the craft consciously. Then when I meditate, or when I write, I may recognize what my God Self has to say about this particular endeavor. I may discover the treasures that are always there, to be sensed by me.

Conclusion:

Meditation helps me listen, to myself, and to the world around me without getting swept away.

Writing can only be a "meditation" as long as I have awareness of what is happening with me as I do the creative work. Beyond being aware, I must be able to bear what is going on inside me as I practice the art.  I'm hoping that the process of blogging further develops my awareness and acceptance.

When I'm writing down thoughts, feeling the associated feelings, I don't have to be swept away. I can just let it all be.

(This post inspired by conversations with my friend, June, who has meditated faithfully for over thirty years and who is also an artist.)

My report on last week's training to grow as a screenwriter:   

• worked with my teacher, Anne Jordan, on my TV pilot script,
• attended Northern California Screenwriters group and had ten pages table read, 
• submitted a six-page short to a competition, 
• went to de Young Museum (San Francisco) with friends to feed my artist's soul.

 My favorites from the de Young Museum trip below:

Amedeo Modigliani painting.

Edmund Tarbell, The Blue Veil

Thank you sincerely for joining me on my journey. Does any of this make sense?

Is blogging a distraction?

After reading my first post last week, my friend Frieda asked whether blogging about screenwriting might be a distraction from actually working on a script.

My answer is that it can definitely become a distraction. But, what I'm attempting is to put my writing "eggs" in more than one basket. When I have only one writing project going for weeks or months, it becomes too important. Too big. I fret over it. I begin to fear messing it up. Inevitably, I get stuck.

When I get stuck in self-doubt, I become so unproductive.

When my husband and I made a great leap into a nomadic lifestyle eight years ago, I knew I had the potential to become overly anxious, and potentially very unhappy. My solution was to blog (to journal publicly). That way, I looked forward to whatever I would feel the most about in a week. That thing that I felt the most about each week, became the blog post of the week.

Several years later,  those travel journal posts became a book: "This Restless Life, A Dream Chased Through California Parks in an RV".  Not only did blogging save me emotionally, it enriched the experience.

"About the Journey," is my attempt to enrich my screenwriting experience. Something about last week's blog process freed me to write a "short" (five-page screenplay). It freed me to ask for help from a mentor on my TV pilot.  I'm not stuck. I feel productive. But mostly, I'm enjoying the process.

My blog is akin to a well-maintained road. It's the path that supports me in getting to where I want to go. Thoughts and feelings are the road signs that can either help me get there, if I keep an eye on them and use them, or can get me lost if I ignore them.

Happy travels to you...
Signed: "forever trying to raise my awareness"