The Great Big Why - part 3
But there's light at the end of the tunnel. If you make it past the first paragraph that is.
Since January I've been feeling alot of fear. I have two housemates, one I've lived with for eight years (Bert and Ernie eat your heart out), the other on and off for six. It's absolutely fantastic, we're very close and I love them dearly. I've been with the BBC working a highly dull job for 5 years. The only plus point of this job has been that it's shift work which has allowed me alot of free time to write but has also allowed something of a rut to creep in. I never thought writing could become part of a rut but it has. I work, I meet my friends, I watch films, I write. It's become part of a routine rather than a serious pursuit. I write but I don't finish much. I haven't seriously worked on a new idea in two years, I've been re-writing old ones. And I know exactly why this is. Fear. Fear of not making it, fear of discovering I'm simply not good enough to cut it. But because I write I can fool everyone, including myself, into thinking I have purpose.
Before Christmas, a round of compulsory redundancies was announced at the BBC and I was going to be affected by it. The unions negotiated that all people who didn't want to leave would be found alternative employment. My boss is moving to a different part of the archive department (archiving is where I work) and we get on well, I'm (reasonably) conscientious and I have half a brain so he took me aside and assured me that I could come work for him in the new archive project. This is where the new fear kicked in. I knew I was being given a chance to change things. And I knew I had to take it. So as compulsory redundancy effectively became voluntary, I opted to leave the BBC. To do what? To relocate to the States. Drastic, sure, but I don't do things by half measures. I thought my brother could help get me a Visa and I started looking into applying for colleges in LA. I announced to my flatmates that I was instigating the break-up that is of course inevitable in shared house circumstances and they made their alternative plans. Karen is off travelling the world, something she had been planning for a long time anyway, and Kev is moving in with his girlfriend. But I can't get a Visa for the States and I had missed the round of college applications for 2006 for international students. Looks like I'm staying here. But without a job and without my most important and immediate support network.
And THIS is the light at the end of the tunnel. I must change things. I want to change things. I want to write with passion and have the courage and the confidence to back it up with action. I feel I have the answer to where my writing has been going wrong (another post coming soon!), I have made my alternative plans for what to do when the flat disbands and my job finishes (the very next post!) and I have had more script ideas in the last couple of months than I've had in two years. I'm rewriting an old idea as I said. But it's genuine, rewarding rewriting. I'm having it read by a professional script reader whose feedback is superb. The script is on the verge of being in the best shape it has ever been in. The fear I mentioned at the beginning of the post? It's a different fear, born from the fact that I think I have a real chance. It's the kind of fear I imagine someone about to bunge jump experiences. I'm asking the right questions, thinking the right things, tackling the things that need tackling. Including answering a little question that's been in my head of late. Why film writing?
Happiness comes from within. It must do. If I'm unhappy, selling a thousand scripts won't make a difference. Selling a script represents my struggle with my lack of self confidence. It's an external expression of an internal feeling. What's been wrong with me of late is that the self doubt has begun to win. I've been feeling like I'll never make it which has made me feel doomed to be at the mercy of self doubt for life. What I've started to do is take control again. To remember how I started on this path at all, and to remember that it's a path I want to be on. There are things I can do in order to write well which will increase my chances of success which will boost my confidence. Whatever innate ability I have, whatever determination I have, they must be coupled with learning the craft of writing. I have been ignoring that. I've always imagined myself succeeding, not out of arrogance, but because I can write and because I'm determined and therefore am somehow owed success. Of course this isn't the case. And now I'm understanding that my lack of success is because I haven't been learning the craft as well as I need to and not because I'm just crap. The Hynes family stubborness is good for something. Its made me determined to sort through all this crap and to come out the other side the winner. At times like this I'm grateful I have it.
I'm really scared. But I'm really excited. And for the first time in a long while I'm proud of myself again. And I've started this blog as a way to document the change and as a reminder to myself of what I've promised myself. Success. Not success for success' sake or material reward, not because I think something external can bring me happiness, but because I owe it to myelf to make the most of my talents, my passions and my dreams. And I will not allow the self doubt that wants to take over, to do so.
That's why.
Since January I've been feeling alot of fear. I have two housemates, one I've lived with for eight years (Bert and Ernie eat your heart out), the other on and off for six. It's absolutely fantastic, we're very close and I love them dearly. I've been with the BBC working a highly dull job for 5 years. The only plus point of this job has been that it's shift work which has allowed me alot of free time to write but has also allowed something of a rut to creep in. I never thought writing could become part of a rut but it has. I work, I meet my friends, I watch films, I write. It's become part of a routine rather than a serious pursuit. I write but I don't finish much. I haven't seriously worked on a new idea in two years, I've been re-writing old ones. And I know exactly why this is. Fear. Fear of not making it, fear of discovering I'm simply not good enough to cut it. But because I write I can fool everyone, including myself, into thinking I have purpose.
Before Christmas, a round of compulsory redundancies was announced at the BBC and I was going to be affected by it. The unions negotiated that all people who didn't want to leave would be found alternative employment. My boss is moving to a different part of the archive department (archiving is where I work) and we get on well, I'm (reasonably) conscientious and I have half a brain so he took me aside and assured me that I could come work for him in the new archive project. This is where the new fear kicked in. I knew I was being given a chance to change things. And I knew I had to take it. So as compulsory redundancy effectively became voluntary, I opted to leave the BBC. To do what? To relocate to the States. Drastic, sure, but I don't do things by half measures. I thought my brother could help get me a Visa and I started looking into applying for colleges in LA. I announced to my flatmates that I was instigating the break-up that is of course inevitable in shared house circumstances and they made their alternative plans. Karen is off travelling the world, something she had been planning for a long time anyway, and Kev is moving in with his girlfriend. But I can't get a Visa for the States and I had missed the round of college applications for 2006 for international students. Looks like I'm staying here. But without a job and without my most important and immediate support network.
And THIS is the light at the end of the tunnel. I must change things. I want to change things. I want to write with passion and have the courage and the confidence to back it up with action. I feel I have the answer to where my writing has been going wrong (another post coming soon!), I have made my alternative plans for what to do when the flat disbands and my job finishes (the very next post!) and I have had more script ideas in the last couple of months than I've had in two years. I'm rewriting an old idea as I said. But it's genuine, rewarding rewriting. I'm having it read by a professional script reader whose feedback is superb. The script is on the verge of being in the best shape it has ever been in. The fear I mentioned at the beginning of the post? It's a different fear, born from the fact that I think I have a real chance. It's the kind of fear I imagine someone about to bunge jump experiences. I'm asking the right questions, thinking the right things, tackling the things that need tackling. Including answering a little question that's been in my head of late. Why film writing?
Happiness comes from within. It must do. If I'm unhappy, selling a thousand scripts won't make a difference. Selling a script represents my struggle with my lack of self confidence. It's an external expression of an internal feeling. What's been wrong with me of late is that the self doubt has begun to win. I've been feeling like I'll never make it which has made me feel doomed to be at the mercy of self doubt for life. What I've started to do is take control again. To remember how I started on this path at all, and to remember that it's a path I want to be on. There are things I can do in order to write well which will increase my chances of success which will boost my confidence. Whatever innate ability I have, whatever determination I have, they must be coupled with learning the craft of writing. I have been ignoring that. I've always imagined myself succeeding, not out of arrogance, but because I can write and because I'm determined and therefore am somehow owed success. Of course this isn't the case. And now I'm understanding that my lack of success is because I haven't been learning the craft as well as I need to and not because I'm just crap. The Hynes family stubborness is good for something. Its made me determined to sort through all this crap and to come out the other side the winner. At times like this I'm grateful I have it.
I'm really scared. But I'm really excited. And for the first time in a long while I'm proud of myself again. And I've started this blog as a way to document the change and as a reminder to myself of what I've promised myself. Success. Not success for success' sake or material reward, not because I think something external can bring me happiness, but because I owe it to myelf to make the most of my talents, my passions and my dreams. And I will not allow the self doubt that wants to take over, to do so.
That's why.
posted by Garreth at 4:59 pm
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