Writing About Writer's Block

Full disclaimer:  Writing about writer’s block is akin to jogging while telling someone you never go jogging.  I completely understand the absurdity of writing about writer’s block but, well, someone’s got to do it...right?  And knowing that the only way to actually get out of writer’s block is to write well...then...

Back in the ‘80’s I considered myself a novel writer.  I had already written a couple books and they were now taking up valuable box space and I had written my latest book.  This was entitled “The Hidden Heart.”  If I remember right, the plot was something like this:  Guy meets up with a girl, falls in love with her.  She breaks his heart.  Not only breaks his heart, but takes it out, spits on it, stomps on it, chews it up, spits it out, spits on it some more.  Guy, depressed, gets in an accident (I don’t know if he tried to kill himself) and screws up his face.  After going through plastic surgery he realizes that his old girlfriend would not be able to recognize him.  Knowing what he knows about her, he becomes her perfect mate and waits until she falls in love with him before he breaks up with her and breaks HER heart!  So THERE!  (or something like that)

Now, when I say “written a book” what that really means is that I typed up the book on an old typewriter.  I re-wrote it once and then it became box-filler.

When I worked at Betts Patterson & Mines, I made fast friends with a guy named Dick.  Dick was exactly the type of mentor that I needed.  An accomplished writer (he had an article published in a magazine!) and older and wiser, he was just what I was looking for.  So it was with great excitement that I handed off my book to him for feedback.  Before this I never, EVER, gave anyone my books to read.  They were happily content to fill a box.

As weeks and months went by I kept asking Dick if he had any suggestions.  His response was always the same:  “I’m reading it.”  But...uh...reading it?  It’s like 120 pages double-spaced.  It was more of a novella instead of an actual novel.  So then I do the dog-and-pony-show of hovering.  Walking by his office, finding reasons to chat for no other point than to hope he’ll say:  “Oh, I finished your book and it was WONDERFUL!!”  But those weren’t coming.

Finally, one hover too much – one moment too long talking about the weather, or whatever it was, Dick handed me back my book and said:  “Sorry, can’t finish it.”  “What?  Wait, what?  Can’t finish it?  But...why?”  He couldn’t explain at that time and he ran off to do something and I was crestfallen.  Heartbroken like the main character in the story.  Couldn’t.  Finish.  It.  Words that stung like a thousand bee stings.  Like getting hit in the head with a board filled with a thousand bee stingers.  Like my head is in a board hitting machine filled with a thousand angry bees – okay, you get the point.

It wasn’t until a few weeks (months?) later when I finally had Dick over to my apartment and he nicely explained to me that he couldn’t read my book not because of its subject matter but because I was just a terrible writer.  Oh, that made me feel better....wait...what?   You see Dick, first and foremost, is an editor and all he wanted to do was edit my book – not read it.  I would write “Ya” instead of “Yeah” and many other grammatical and structural errors.  He could not put his editing hat aside and just enjoy the book...he couldn’t look beyond the crap that I had put on the page.

At least now I had an answer.  I also now had full on writer’s block.

I don’t know how long it lasted, but it was a while before I felt inspired enough to put pen to paper.  Fingers to keyboard.  I went through a complete “re-thought” as to why I wanted to be a writer, what was pushing me, where was I going, what was the point.  A soul searching, career humbling, shake out the pan of gold and see if anything is left, process.  And I came to the one conclusion I always come to when it comes to writing:  I write because I have to write.  I know of nothing else.

Possibly, in this process, I finally learned that maybe novels weren’t my thing and how about I try screenwriting instead.  VIOLA!  20 screenplays, 15 years screenwriting teacher, options, film made, etc. I think I chose correctly.

A number of years ago I had come up with a script idea.  Tooling around in my friend Troy’s car we were talking about Troy’s job of being the stage manager of a theme park princess show.  He mentioned some of the issues he has to go through, some of the personalities involved and I laughed and said:  “There’s a script there.”  I inserted that into my brain matter and moved on.

The way ideas work in my brain is like this.  Imagine four or five rabid bunnies – all cute and hopping around and foaming at the mouth.  Eventually one of those hopping bunnies starts to attack and eat the other hopping bunnies until there’s one hopping cute rabid bunny left.  And that’s how my brain works with ideas.  I have a few up there bouncing around and, eventually, one takes over.  I start thinking about that one idea, I start exploring that one idea, that one idea begins to jell into something that is actually partially cohesive and, before I know it, it’s fleshed out into something possibly usable.  “Bad Princesses” was one of those ideas.

Over the past few years, though, I had worked with co-writers.  Keith, James, Gina and others.  I hadn’t written a script ON MY OWN in over a year or so.  All my creative juices were flowing to these collaborative projects and as satisfying as these projects were, and are, I felt like I needed to go “old school” and just write this on my own.  Not talk to anyone about it, not pose questions out there, not send pages to friends for feedback.  Not even really pitch it to anyone.  I just wanted to go back to 1988 when I sat at my Amstrad computer (bought at Sears for $299 – with a printer!) and typed away.

So I did it.  I sat down and did it.  I wrote “Bad Princesses” and sent it out to all my reader friends for feedback.  And the first response I got from everyone was:  “I didn’t know you were writing this.”  Hell no you didn’t know!  That’s me.  Writing!  Ha!!  I didn’t tell no one...I went all solo on your asses.  And then, of course, the early reviews came in and they were positive but I had some work I needed to do and I understood that – so I dove back into a re-write and another re-write and it began to jell further.  I was happy with what I created.  It was, relatively, solid.  No script is ever finished and I know that all writing is re-writing but this was a happy journey.

Soon after I finished, I sent it to my manager in L.A. who promptly told me she didn’t have time to read it and to send it to her the following month.  Now with my manager, you hope that she takes the script, sees a spark in it somewhere and, of course, loves it.  Then you hope she takes the script and shops it around.  Then you hope that one of the producer she shops it to loves it.  Then you hope that they’re willing to buy it and then...and then...and then... “I’d like to thank the Academy for seeing beyond the nudity, bad language and overall trashiness that is “Bad Princesses” and finding the heart in this story.  Thank you all.”

But...she was busy.  That glory would have to wait.

Within a few months, though, it appeared she wouldn’t be able to read it.  Finally, with a trip to L.A. looming, I figured I would toss it her direction one more time.  Certainly I didn’t want to go to L.A. for a week where I could meet with producers/investors/stars and pass up that opportunity.  So with that argument in hand – I sent her the script as she said she’d give it a read.

About a week later her response to me was:  “I literally hated every word.”  SERIOUSLY?  Really...?  On page two I used the word “devoid.”  On page twenty-three I used the words “to her.”   On page sixty-five I used the word “dumbfounded” (okay, I could see why she may have hated that word).  On page ninety-five I used the word “SIREN” (I put it in ALL CAPS since it’s a sound).  But, hey, I’m taking her at her word that she LITERALLY HATED EVERY WORD.  Even the words “FADE TO BLACK” on page 115 (I would think she’d be happy to see those words).

Sigh.  Was this the Dick situation all over again?

In the mix, I decided to spend the $60 and put what I consider my “calling-card” script on Inktip.  “Search for Santa” was finally going to be unleashed on the world (this was the script that got me my manager in the first place).  This was going to be six months of glory as people would be knocking themselves over to buy my script.  To heck with her and her “literally hate” and all that.  It was time for me to step up and do my own marketing.

Six months came and went without barely a twitter or ding.  Maybe one company looked at the script and that was it.  It felt like those moments where you’re holding the PERFECT skipping rock.  The lake is calm.  The rock has the correct weight, feel, size.  It’s perfect.  No wind.  Lake is STILL calm.  You ready yourself, cock your arm back, lean down a bit to allow the release to be the right angle and you throw.  Only to see it sink in one “blomp!” and that’s it for your perfect skipping rock.  And that was it for my Santa script.

My manager’s insistence that I had wasted months and, I guess, every word in the English language and the lack of response from Inktip tossed me into a writer’s block that I hadn’t seen since, well, Dick told me he couldn’t finish my book.

For me, though, writer’s block isn’t so much as a desire NOT to write or a struggle not to write – it’s more insidious than that.  It tells me that it’s okay not to write.  It rationalizes other aspects of my life.  It glosses over absurdity to tell me, reassure me, that it’s okay not to write.  Suddenly I’m not only making excuses, I’m making rationalizations:  “I don’t need to write, I’m helping Nick with his video project.”  - “I don’t need to write, I’m exploring ideas.”  - “I don’t need to write, I’m teaching.”

But then, as the rationalizations and excuses begin to pile on top of each other like bad skipping stones the depression starts to take hold.  The lack of creativity seeps into my mind and pushes whatever triumphs I’ve had in the past, whatever moments where I’ve exalted my talent, those conversations where my co-writer and I realize we’ve landed a perfect scene (only to be re-written later because, you know, it’s never perfect), and all the progress I’ve made gets tossed into the dustbin of faded memories and shoulder shrugs.  And then more excuses come into play or distractions take hold and time slips away like that stone in the water – never to come back.

As days turn into weeks and weeks into months I feel like Gollum after he’s lost his “precious” wanting to do whatever to get it back.  Friend victories (of which are on displayed on Facebook 24/7) are both praised and “liked” and encouraged, while the twinges of jealousy flitter around the edges.  The writing continues on to Mount Doom and me, closely following it but not grasping it.  I’ll insert an excuse here.  That’ll make me feel better.  I’ll toss up a rationalization here, that’ll hold me for another day or two.  Oh, look, another friend wrote a great commentary on Facebook.  Certainly I’ll view your documentary, damn it’s good.  Wow, you wrote and performed and sold copies and...I’m happy for you.  Seriously.

There comes a time, though, when I’m in the throes of writer’s block...when the voices in my head tell me that it’s okay to waste time playing “Slotomania” or “Angry Birds” or it’s just fine to not write, not explore, not read, not do anything when I finally look at all of it.  Whether it be Dick in 1988 or my manager in 2012 where I finally call BS on it all because that’s all it is.  Dick or my manager or “Slotomania” or whatever didn’t turn me away from writing...I turned me away from writing.  For whatever reason my writing journey took an extended break and I need to take the active steps to get back up on that horse, find that perfect skipping rock or rabid bunny and write again.  Just write.  Whether it’s a blog on writer’s block, or in my diary, or...whatever.

It’s all on me.  It’s all within me.  The power is mine.  No excuses.  No rationalizations.  No BS.