Building Out

Writers find it hard to live in the real world. We don't always communicate verbally very well.  Some of us have social anxiety. We like to be so thoughtful in everything that we say that sometimes we take forever to get our thoughts out.

Yet, we can live in a world of our own making. I'm prepping a pitch for next week and I just cancelled plans for this weekend and I might be canceling something for early next week. I initially thought I could pump out this pitch for this show because I've been thinking about it for awhile. But I haven't lived in it. And I need to live in it. I need to sit in the world with the characters and think about things a bit. I don't need to be in a rush to write things down. But I need to journal and think and consider a lot of thoughts. I need to live in this world of characters I'm creating. I know it's crazy to spend a few days in this "world" of my own creation, but I want to make these characters and this world as vivid as possible.

As I was told by an executive, I need to build out the world. I need to figure out who these people, where they live, what they do, how they exist. It ain't easy. It's not like just creating a cool story. There's so much more to it. I guess everyone thinks they can do what a writer does. Everyone thinks they can do what other people do in general. Because we "make it look so easy."

Build out a world, they say. Know everything there is to know about these characters from now and for years to come. I've got to live with these people for awhile. I don't know what they're like in real time yet. How can I write them if I don't know how they exist in the world - in three dimensional space?

I'm going to try to figure this out. I want to be pretty thorough.

I am grateful for the work.
I am grateful for the passion.
I am grateful for the interest.
I am grateful for the love.
I am grateful for the excitement.