It's All Part of the Process
it's a writing process post, I guess?
I started writing a feature last weekend, and I will say, it’s very exciting to be excited about writing something new. I wrote a feature last year, but it was an adaptation of the play I wrote— so not exactly original. Prior to that I had written a feature in forever. In college, I mainly wrote features, but ever since my first TV writing class, I loved that process much more. As much as I am an introvert, give me 8 hours a day with other humans over 8 hours a day with just my own thoughts ANY day. However; this year is quite different. This is the year of the strike. My social fuel tank is more than filled. So is my emotional and physical one. This little lady wants to hibernate! It’s the perfect time to hole myself up and write. That sounded bad, but you know what I mean (pervs… :) )
Right before the strike. my ex-husband came to me with an idea for a feature and we decided to work on it together. Then the strike happened, and I lost my will to write, and he has a minor habit of bailing on me early. Plus, the script was… I shit you not… a raunchy comedy that takes place in ISRAEL… uh huh. The very same Israel that has been in the news A LOT lately.
Well, let’s just say post October 7 (aka a pretty fucking terrible day in Jewish history), when I was finally ready to sit and write, I was not ready to sit and write a fucking rom-com set in a country whose government is committing unspeakable atrocities (and for the record: I’ve edited and re-edited that sentence 4 times now because I still can’t find the right words to describe what’s happening that doesn’t make my stomach twist into knots. Turns out: there are none). Needless to say, this timing was not in my favor.
I got really smart advice to write an original feature, specifically a grounded genre one, and since I didn’t have an idea that seemed worthy of pilot #22 yet, I wondered if I could add a grounded genre element to the very personal story I was trying to crack. Turns out, you can… and that was the thing that cracked the story wide open for me.
Since then, I’ve been doing a lot of research— watching movies and shows similar in tone, reading articles, thinking about the characters. When I started to get a clear picture of the plot and characters, I wrote a simple beat sheet in Final Draft. 3-4 sentences describing the action— longer when necessary, especially when crafting out the twists and reveals. Once those were written, I ended up writing the first scene. Writing a scene as I’m still breaking story tends to be a useful writing tool for me. It doesn’t necessarily need to be the first scene, but it allows me to go a little deeper into the story and figure out tone. For my play, I wrote the end of the first-act scene before I wrote anything else. For this feature, I wrote the first scene.
Next up: I sent the hybrid doc to a trusted writer/producer friend of mine to get his general opinion, and then talked to a few other friends about it to start getting used to pitching it and forming a logline. I’d also go for walks and imagine scenes, then jot down details in my notes app, journal, hand, etc. After my friend weighed in, I made some adjustments, then put it away so I could rest and see family.
Last Friday morning, with a belly-full of Turkey and stuffing, and a head-full of thoughts that had been on simmer for a day, I sat down to write. Another advantage of writing a scene beforehand and writing beats in final draft is you’re not sitting down to write on a dreaded blank page.
I like to write in one-hour spurts (a Jane Espenson specialty!), and then do a physical activity (stretch, pilates, take my dog for a walk), house stuff (cook, clean), green envelope stuff (take donations, send funds, do math), or life stuff (bills, naps, be a person). Rotating in these one-hour writing / everything else spurts resulted in 42 pages by Saturday afternoon. I was happy.
Since then, I’m chugging along and happy with how it’s going, so far. My son is back in town and I’m trying to be less of a hermit, but I’ve been able to write 1-2 hours a day.
I’ve never talked about process in this much depth before, so please excuse me if this was gauche. Sometimes it’s nice to rip off the curtain though, right?
Some other things:
-Thanks to everyone who reached out after my last post:
How to Celebrate Thanksgiving... when there's not much to be thankful for
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Thanksgiving— even as a kid the idea of making construction paper pilgrims and turkeys seemed “not cool.” Cautiously Optimistic is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
I’ll get back to everyone soon, but I appreciate people understanding I really did want to be a hermit.
-There’s a couple of exciting things in the works that I promise I will talk about as soon as I can talk about. But, it’s all coming back around, baby. (Karma is definitely the theme this year).
-I was on Sam Gasch’s very fun podcast Ideal Remake where we remade “It Happened One Night” (which you should never do). Sam was a regular at Radford and I had a blast spending the afternoon chatting with him about one of my favorite movies.
-Green Envelope is still going strong!
-I really enjoyed Wish and thought it was a perfect post-strike movie (wishes = ideas, come on, people… the metaphor is right there!) Plus, Knowing What I Know Now is a genuinely great song. You could say Ariana DeBose did the thing ;-)