Now and Then
I've just been going over some of the first posts I wrote back in June when I set this blog up and it makes for interesting reading. Well, at least for me. I wrote three posts on why I want to be a writer at a time I was feeling pretty down and lacked confidence. I also wrote posts on what I was doing wrong and how I realised it and how good that is. It's funny really. Back then I thought I was learning. (Back then being only six months ago but it may as well be a lifetime). Now I think I'm learning... What will I be like in another six months?!
I'm really glad I'm feeling happy. If I had embarked upon the course earlier in the year I think I would have really struggled. I really think my lack of self confidence would have gotten the better of me. The things I thought I was doing wrong six months ago, passive characters, poor structure, still apply. They've been joined by one or two other technical elements in need of work...! Serious work! But I feel like I'm being armed with the tools to actually take my stories and make them work and I guess this is the difference in where I am now and where I was then. Before I would have used my lack of progress as an excuse to not write, wind up in a crap circle of self doubt. Now, of course I still worry about whether or not I can write, I have many days where I give up in dispair thinking, it's simply never going to happen. But then I remember something I've learned, something I know now that I didn't know nine weeks ago, whatever that something is. And I think, okay, that can help me somehow.
I thought I had a point in starting this post... It seems to be drifting away from me. Much like the point of my script is at the moment. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I started this blog six months ago because I became determined to change things for myself and to make a real go of realising my dream and my goal of becoming a scriptwriter and I wanted to document it for myself. I wanted to be able to read early posts and see a change in myself. I think that change is begining to appear but maybe not in the way I hoped. I think one of the things I've learned is that I'll always struggle with issues of self doubt but I feel like if I can find a way into this story I am trying to tell then I'll be able to put it together in a way I've never been able to before. I've always known intellectually that scriptwriting is a craft that needs learning, I've just never actually properly realised that A) I wasn't learning half as much about it as I thought I was and B) you're 100% fucked without it. That may sound stupid or obvious but it's something I've learned. And what's great is that when you start to figure out what you're trying to do is all about, then that helps your confidence.
I really feel like I've created an opportunity for myself by doing the MA and I'm determined not to fuck it up. The fear I described in the early posts is back. But it's a new fear. It's the fear that I may soon be out of excuses. I have ideas. I will have the tools necessary to write them. There comes a point with every writer, it seems to me, that things go out of your hands. You learn your craft, generate your ideas, make yourself known and send your script out. After that, you've done all you can and it's in the hands of others. I feel like I'm on a path that will bring me to a point where things will eventually be out of my hands for the first time. Yes I've sent out script before, many, many times. But there were tangible, technical reasons, reasons of craft, why the scripts were rejected. That's not to assume the stories were great, I just wrote them badly. Not at all. I'm just saying that when this course finishes and I send out my work, it'll be different because the ideas will be subject to the most rigerous scrutiny and I'll have (in theory at least) given them the best shot I can. And that's great because it's what I want. And it's scary because my stories and my ideas will be realised and will have to stand on their own two feet. For better or worse.
Of course this is all contingent on my finishing my script. And given where I am with it at the moment, that's a very big "if"! I feel like as my ability to write grows, my sense of what I am writing lessens. But that's for another post. Lucky you!
I'm really glad I'm feeling happy. If I had embarked upon the course earlier in the year I think I would have really struggled. I really think my lack of self confidence would have gotten the better of me. The things I thought I was doing wrong six months ago, passive characters, poor structure, still apply. They've been joined by one or two other technical elements in need of work...! Serious work! But I feel like I'm being armed with the tools to actually take my stories and make them work and I guess this is the difference in where I am now and where I was then. Before I would have used my lack of progress as an excuse to not write, wind up in a crap circle of self doubt. Now, of course I still worry about whether or not I can write, I have many days where I give up in dispair thinking, it's simply never going to happen. But then I remember something I've learned, something I know now that I didn't know nine weeks ago, whatever that something is. And I think, okay, that can help me somehow.
I thought I had a point in starting this post... It seems to be drifting away from me. Much like the point of my script is at the moment. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I started this blog six months ago because I became determined to change things for myself and to make a real go of realising my dream and my goal of becoming a scriptwriter and I wanted to document it for myself. I wanted to be able to read early posts and see a change in myself. I think that change is begining to appear but maybe not in the way I hoped. I think one of the things I've learned is that I'll always struggle with issues of self doubt but I feel like if I can find a way into this story I am trying to tell then I'll be able to put it together in a way I've never been able to before. I've always known intellectually that scriptwriting is a craft that needs learning, I've just never actually properly realised that A) I wasn't learning half as much about it as I thought I was and B) you're 100% fucked without it. That may sound stupid or obvious but it's something I've learned. And what's great is that when you start to figure out what you're trying to do is all about, then that helps your confidence.
I really feel like I've created an opportunity for myself by doing the MA and I'm determined not to fuck it up. The fear I described in the early posts is back. But it's a new fear. It's the fear that I may soon be out of excuses. I have ideas. I will have the tools necessary to write them. There comes a point with every writer, it seems to me, that things go out of your hands. You learn your craft, generate your ideas, make yourself known and send your script out. After that, you've done all you can and it's in the hands of others. I feel like I'm on a path that will bring me to a point where things will eventually be out of my hands for the first time. Yes I've sent out script before, many, many times. But there were tangible, technical reasons, reasons of craft, why the scripts were rejected. That's not to assume the stories were great, I just wrote them badly. Not at all. I'm just saying that when this course finishes and I send out my work, it'll be different because the ideas will be subject to the most rigerous scrutiny and I'll have (in theory at least) given them the best shot I can. And that's great because it's what I want. And it's scary because my stories and my ideas will be realised and will have to stand on their own two feet. For better or worse.
Of course this is all contingent on my finishing my script. And given where I am with it at the moment, that's a very big "if"! I feel like as my ability to write grows, my sense of what I am writing lessens. But that's for another post. Lucky you!
posted by Garreth at 1:59 pm
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