This year has been full of great triumphs - and also frustrating moments where I want to get work done and I can't. For me, Resistance works well on me in trying to convince me that I'm not productive in order to get me to be discouraged and not work hard. I wrote three scripts in August - two full-length scripts and a ten-minute. September was busy getting adjusted to teaching again and it was me knowing that I had this last pilot rewrite to do for the year. I really didn't get much writing done in September.
And that brings me to October, where I haven't been especially productive. I knew I had this script to get done and that I wanted to work on it. But I could have given myself the rest of the year because I didn't really have anything else that I needed to do. I've been applying to a lot of different summer play programs, I've been producing my theatre company's biannual theatre festival and I've been counseling my students on their upcoming projects. It has been so much easier to focus on other people's projects and to Procrastinate by being generous with my time. Up until Friday, I felt completely defeated.
But I settled into the chaos and I let myself know that I needed to get my work done. And that I had all the time I needed to do that. I went to a Korean Spa on Friday to get work done. I accomplished the number of pages I set out to write. Then I came back on Saturday before I had to host a party for our festival and wrote a few more pages so I got to 15. On Sunday, I came back at it and went to another Korean Spa and wrote until I got to about 31 pages. Then today I went to yet another Korean Spa and finished the script until it came in at 54 pages.
How did I do that? How did I not panic and get completely low on myself? I remembered that I have been here before and I have conquered Resistance. It was just time to do that again. I also knew that my students weren't turning in homework over the past two weeks and this week I would have assignments from them. I had to get this stuff done. I had an outline to work from - one that I've had since March. Remarkably, a lot of it held up.
Resistance wants me to lose my mind. It wants me to panic and freak out and feel defeated before the game is even over. It wants me to throw in the towel. When I felt I couldn't work, I spent the week going through The War of Art, brick by brick, and confronting the places where I feel Resistance. I didn't know if writing about my Resistance was Resistance. But I could have chosen to just feel sorry for myself and not get anything done. I find that sometimes I just need to get my fingers moving. I made every single excuse in the book why I couldn't get work done. I would tell myself that I had to start the work day at a certain time or that certain things put me in certain moods or that I needed a nap. When I start making major excuses, I know that Resistance is grabbing hold. I didn't want to be defeated by Resistance, so I reminded myself of Resistance's game in order to conquer it. I studied the play book.
Finally I decided that I needed some anger to motivate me. My manager has had two scripts of mine for two months. He hasn't read them. I'm not sure what that is a sign of. But instead of getting angry and moping, I decided to get angry and write this third script in those two months. SO I could slap it down on his desk (only a symbol - there is no desk and no physical copy, only email) and say, here you go, man. I wanted to reframe it and say that in two months, he was now getting three scripts of mine. It had taken me five months to write three scripts. That's a better reframing than saying it took me three months to get that pilot back to him. I was doing a lot in that period that enriched me and changed my writing.
I could tell when I was making decisions on what scenes to not write because I didn't need them. I have a better, faster editing eye than I used to have. I can pinpoint the problem of a script and do some restructuring without having to write the script first. I've been able to do that from the outline. I noticed a big difference in the last two pilots I rewrote. I'm a lot more decisive and clear on what needs to be fixed. I can do it in a shorter amount of time. The actual writing is short, but the thinking and the procrastinating was what took all of the time.
Today, I won. I could tell that I was zeroing in on the end at around page 45. I wanted to get it done in 53 pages. I gave myself up to 55. And I did it in 54 pages. That's a decent sized pilot script without being over long.
So I won. I battled and I made it through. Now what? Well, the goal is to say to the manager on Monday - "I have a third script, but I don't want to send it to you until I get feedback on the other two scripts." Then at least that gives me time to do more work on this if I need to. But I want to have a solid script that if before Monday, he actually reads the other two scripts, I can say to him, "Here."
What am I going to work on in November and December? I'm going to have a lot of student projects to look at. And I'm happy to take some time to just be a professor. Then I'm going to think about this new play. I want to be in research mode and really think about the new play. I've got lots of ideas. I've started a journal for it. I'm ready to get moving. But I don't want to put any pressure on myself to do any of that. I want to leave my slate as clean as possible. I am not really starting anything new in the next two months. I'm done. And if this was the year with about 1500 pages written, then I'd be more than cool with it. Wow, that's a major accomplishment.
And tomorrow, like Pressfield says, Resistance will be waiting for me. But that's okay too because I've slayed the dragon before and I'll do it again. I've gotten better at it the more I've had to do it.
My intention is an open schedule.
My intention is a clear launching pad.
My intention is appreciation.
I am grateful that I wrote a 54 page pilot in four days.
I am grateful that I pushed through.
I am grateful for all of the support I've gotten from friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment