Instinct

Sometimes when you're trying to figure out what you're writing, you have to figure out what you're not writing.

I'm working on a new idea. It's a world that I don't think has been written about in an authentic way. During our Idea Share, I spoke about what I am trying to write to the group.  And in an email exchange today, a friend of mine asked me about the idea.  He mentioned everything I realize my show isn't.  I had made a list of things that I want to do with this show and he suggested I do it as a period piece in the 1980s. But I realize that by skewing too close to that era, it will come off as a night time soap from that era. I'm already writing a serialized drama.

The point is, I want to hold to my vision. And I do appreciate my friend's advice.  Then I thought about what would happen when people would give me advice in the past.  I would waiver.  I would doubt my own instinct.  I would question if what I wanted to do was the right thing to do.  And when my friend suggested things that I knew were not my story…1) I knew it right away; 2) I held firm in what I know this story is.

When did that change? When did I stop being the person who wanted to please everyone? When did I become the person who didn't doubt his own intelligence anytime anyone challenged his ideas? When did I become the person who didn't back down because he was afraid of being disliked? When did I gain this amount of confidence?

I know what I want. I know that going down this road with the story is a harder way to go. But I also know what I am going to do and why I am going to do it. Therefore, I will find a way that will make it work.

I think in the entertainment business one thing we don't depend on enough is our instinct.  I worked in a TV entertainment office for seven years. For years during and after that, I thought I had wasted my time. I thought that I spent too much time there. But now that I talk to other writers who want to make a go of it in TV, I realize that I have an instinct about story. I have a way of writing that asks the big questions in a small way. I use the mundane everyday task of existing to comment on the universal questions of life. I make it personal. I don't forget about the things that make me a great writer when I'm trying to write a TV script.

I don't assume to know what people in TV want because I have worked in TV and I know that all they want is a brilliant script. It has to get to them from someone they trust. It has to be something that someone else seems to want. It needs to be from a writer who has a track record, either via recommendation or via demonstration.  That means that the writer has to be vouched for from someone they know or already known for doing something of quality or note.

I had another friend recently remark that I work incredibly fast. I had one idea for a pilot that I wanted to write. I had done a ton of research. I realized that the idea wasn't ready yet. Either I needed to take a different angle or it wasn't a TV show. So I moved onto another idea that someone suggested to me and I soon had an idea for the show. When I talked to her about it, she said that I worked fast. I guess that's instinct. But it's also experience.

I have written 11 or 12 pilots on my own. I have read hundreds and hundreds of them. I have watched a lot of TV, studied a lot of TV, taken notes while watching TV. I have worked with writers on pitches. I have seen scripts by writers in the early stages. I have seen scripts that have gotten people work. I have seen scripts that have gotten on the air. These are muscles that are well-developed and exercised often.

I spent part of December and part of July reading scripts for a regional theatre. For very little money. People asked me why I did it. I said I did it to keep my skills sharp. It was only $15 dollars a script, but what it does to keep my eyes and ears sharp is invaluable.

I write because I love it. I write because I have to. I don't write to make a living.

But I write every day. So what that says to people who know me, who know of me, and who I meet is that I am a writer. So if you do it enough, eventually they pay you. And eventually, they realize that you're good and they should pay you a lot to do it. That's how it happens.

I am on the verge of writing five scripts this year. It's no surprise that I am having a problem with this one because it is presumably the last one of the year. It's the same problem I had in May when I had a spec to write for a submission. I had rewritten a play, rewritten a pilot and the spec was the last on the list. The spec took the longest, not only because it was written from scratch, but because it was the last one in my bunch. I had three scripts to write in a month. Sure I could write one. Even two. But when the third one came around, it took extra time. If I had the goal to write four scripts in a month, one two and three would have been done. And four would have lagged.

But this is my pace now. And now that I have conquered the task of productivity, these scripts are taking longer because now I know how much better they have to be. The next task is content. I am not discouraged by the fact that I am struggling with this idea and making the ideas I want to convey in this script come to life because I am doing something that can be done much easier. That's not what I want to do here. I also have a play that I am working on that has an easier way of being done because a lot of people have done it the easier way, or from the most obvious perspective. Not me. I have to make everything harder for myself. I have to learn the hard way. That's what my Dad used to say about me all the time growing up.

But doing the things the hard way have given me a lot of practice at failure, which means that it has given me a lot of practice. And when I nail it, I'm going to nail it hard. And it won't be anything like anyone else's work. It will be well crafted because I have learned through repetition and through continuing to raise the bar for myself.

It will be great. It will be solid storytelling. It will reveal important things about the human condition. And it will be seamless.

All of the repetition will be worth it. All of the reading and writing and watching will be worth it. Because it has built my instinct to a place where it is impenetrable.  And that's good.

I am grateful for the time it has taken.
I am grateful for the space in which it takes place.
I am grateful for the challenges that have made me more resolute in my instinct.
I am grateful for the struggle.
I am grateful for the definition my life now has because I know what I want distinctly.