Fail Blog 2k21
Wait. It’s been how long since my last post?
Oof.
When I started, I was doing this twice a week. That slowed down to once a week, then once every two weeks. Now, well. Fuck.
I’ve been a little bit swamped with freelance branded content, my day job, and just generally enjoying a summer of doing shit post-vaccine/pre-next wave of covid (get fucking vaccinated!), but honestly, I’ve had enough time to keep this up.
I’ve also dropped the ball on writing. After a stellar 5 or so weeks where I got an outline into a great place, got a script in front of a producer’s eyes (Good notes! Doing a rewrite! Absolutely no money involved!), and banged out a few really bad but fun short stories, I’ve basically slowed to a crawl.
And that’s okay!
Well, not really, but just hang on a sec.
You see, I feel like our society doesn’t talk enough about failure. We focus on big goals and dreams, on wild success and winners, on bald assholes riding dick-shaped rockets into space instead of paying their workers, but rarely do we linger on those moments where things didn’t go as planned.
But in screenwriting, life revolves around failure. How many rejections from reps does it take to get signed? How many writers does a studio project churn through before going to production? How many bajillions of dollars are spent on Blacklist reviews when so few hit 8 or higher? How many shitty scripts does it take before one can actually write something decent?
And how many scripts are abandoned before reaching their potential? Like little zombies stories hanging around the recesses of your brain, popping up in odd times. Doing the dishes? Psst. Remember that script you wrote 20 pages of about the New Hampshire Primaries? In the shower? Here’s a 20-minute mental rabbit hole about a side character in your wildfire pilot!
Failure is just part of the game.
So instead of dusting myself off after a few weeks of abject failure, I’m going to sit here and linger on the moments and try to figure out what went wrong and how I can adjust my work schedule. Here’s what I got so far:
1 - I need to write EVERY day. No exceptions. The second I break a writing streak, my fucking brain just slows down. The next day it’s harder to pick back up. And even harder the day after. Eventually, the best I can do is this blog, and, well, it’s been four weeks!
2 - I need to write in the mornings. At least to start. Part of the downside of the ‘write every day!’ mantra is the pressure that builds throughout the day. As the day wears on, the pressure builds and builds and it feels really good when it’s 5 PM and you just say to yourself, “Fuck it, I’m skipping today.” Having said that, I have had some of my best writing sessions at night. Maybe I’ll treat night writes as a little bonus or dessert.
3 - I need to set a long-term schedule with specific markers. Like, 7 pages by Friday, etc. etc. etc. In other words, I need to make an actual plan.
4 - I need to write this blog once a week. It’s really easy! The only reason I don’t is because A) I’m lazy and B) I loooove wasting time.
I’m sure there are more lessons to learn, but in the meantime let’s take a look at how everyone else fails too.
TRIPLE TREATS:
I got a new podcast for your earholes:
The podcast is just fucking great. Every week there’s a different very successful writer who recounts all of the absolutely insane failures and setbacks they’ve had along the way. My favorite is the writer of Slackers, who sold the spec for $700,000 and got fired after the first meeting with the studio.
Hopefully, you’ve got a ten-hour road trip coming up, because I’ve got another podcast for you: The Resistance. This latest episode isn’t a great example, but the whole premise of the show is this: In everyone’s body there are two people: The person we are, and the person we are trying to be. This show aims to explore how we can close that gap, or if we even need to.
The latest episode features Tony Tost, who is just the fucking coolest dude. He grew up in a trailer park, went on to become a poet and academic, and now he’s a big shot screenwriter. This one is a must-listen.
Okay, let’s change things up for a bit. Here’s the best r/screenwriting post I’ve seen in a minute — it’s a great primer on how to capitalize on a good Blacklist score (8 and up), written by a new WGA member who caught some heat after a slew of 8s and 9s.
SCRIPTNOTES NOTES:
OH BOY. It’s a good one. For those of you who don’t have a premium membership, because assumedly you are a moron, this is a great episode. It’s an all-craft clip episode delving back deep into the catalog.
If you only have the time to listen to one segment, listen to the first one: It’s about the way musicals work, which I found useful. The tl;dr: The first song of a musical almost always sets the stage of the world (think Under The Sea, or Tradition!) and the second song is the “I want” song (think Part of Your World, or If I Were A Rich Man) basically a solo for the protagonist to explicitly let us know what they want.
And honestly, this is exactly what any screenplay should do. Set the stage, give the hero a goal, and get to the story.
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