Screenwriting with parental guidance – How to write without distractions April 8, 2009
Posted by James D Hartland in Computer, Parental Controls, Procrastination, Writer's Hangups, Writer's Lifestyle.4 comments
I got a new computer a few weeks back, and now that I’ve got everything set up how I want it I have turned it into the ultimate screenwriting machine. What makes it better than any other computer for writing? Well I’ve set up a second user account with the Parental Controls turned on to block everything not work related.
Parent settings are designed to stop your kids from downloading pr0n or spending all night on the computer, but they are also great for stopping you from getting distracted. I’ve set up my work account so basically every website I’d ever want to visit is blocked. No facebook, no digg, no nothing. I could have gone further and just blocked the internet entirely, but I like googling stuff to inform my writing so I’ve left that option open.
Aside from blocking intenet sites I’ve also turned off my ability to open all but a handful of the applications on my computer. Basically if it aint Final Draft or a PDF viewer then I can’t open it. This is particularly important as part of the reason for me getting a new computer was so I can do music production stuff. It would be incredibly easy for me to say “I’ll just record this riff so I don’t forget it” and then find 3 hours of my time have gone, so by blocking all that stuff I’m safe from the distractions.
I could have gone even further and limited the number of hours I can log into my “Play” account, like saying I can only log into it between 5-11 but I’ve not gone quite that far yet. Hopefully this won’t end in tears! So long as I don’t log into anything but my Work account I should be able to get my head down.
If you are using an older operating system like Windows XP then you are going to have to download 3rd party software in order to do all this parental blocking, but if you have Vista or the latest version of Mac OSX then all this stuff is super easy to set up. If like me you find it really easy to do nothing during writing time then think about setting this stuff up. 30 minutes spent setting up the parental controls could save you 100s of hours over the coming years!
Incidentally, I’m logged into my Play account to write this. Blogging doesn’t count as work! I’m off to my Work account now. Catch you laters.
Charlie Brooker on Screenwriting on Youtube December 14, 2008
Posted by James D Hartland in Charlie Brooker, Screenwipe, TV, Writer's Hangups, Writer's Lifestyle.4 comments
In case you missed the recent episode of Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe all about screenwriting when it was up on iPlayer the entire thing is now up on youtube until someone decides to take it down.
Here is part 1. Click the More below for the other parts.
Book Review: Writing from the Inside Out by Dennis Palumbo March 31, 2008
Posted by James D Hartland in Books, Dennis Palumbo, Writer's Hangups, Writing from the Inside Out.add a comment
I woke up this morning to find a nice message in my in box from Dennis Palumbo, author of the excellent Writing from the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within saying he stumbled across my blog and wanted to thank me after seeing I was saying positive things about the book.
Since I’ve only ever mentioned the book is passing, or in a very brief summery as part of my book review splurge I thought I would take the time out to just reiterate what a useful book this is.
Essentially it is a book written by a writer turned shrink who as part of his day job deals with professional writers who need therapy. It is based upon the column he wrote for the Writer’s Guild magazine so he aint just some randomd guy, he knows his shit.
The book is about all the crap that writer’s have to contend with in order to write; Procrastination, writer’s block , not wanting to remove your favourite scene even though you know you need to, deadlines, finding inspiration, dealing with rejection, coming to terms with the loneliness of being a writer. It’s all covered in here and more.
What makes the book so excellent is it never goes into psycho babble or intellectual mumbo jumbo, it always remains very much approachable, as if some guy was simply talking to you and giving you helpful advice. I don’t think I would have enjoyed the book in the slightest if it wasn’t so straight talking, so dont be put off the notional that it is going to be all touchy feely, it’s not. Nor is it a cheesey self help book either.
What I especially like about the book is that each chapter is pretty short. In fact I don’t know if you can call them chapters, they are more just little short pick me ups. Like if you are going to be pitching a project and you are nervous then go read the mini chapter on pitching stuff, got a deadline coming up that you are panicking over? Go read the deadline pages. Some of you may feel that you want huge sprawling chapters to feel that you are getting a deep understanding of everything, but the stuff in here is so helpful that even within the 3 or 4 pages spent on each topic you have learnt everything you need to know to get back to work.
I really like this book and would recommend it to anyone who wants to write because I think we all have to deal with this crap and sooner you can get past it the sooner you can get onto writing great stuff. There are so many insightful quotes and comments in here that you cant help but feel empowered by it all.
It gets two thumbs up from me.
You can read more about it on the guy’s official website.
Screenwriting new year’s resolutions January 1, 2008
Posted by James D Hartland in About Me, New year, Personal, Procrastination, Writer's Hangups, Writer's Lifestyle.2 comments
I’m not normally one for making resolutions, but what I am always doing is trying to become a better screenwriter so these are some of the things I’m aiming to do over the coming year.
Work Harder
They say success is attained from 80% perspiration and only 20% inspiration. Well frankly I’ve been relying too much on inspiration and not quite doing enough of the perspiration. So this year I’m gunna aim to put more hours in.
The more hours I put in the more progress I can make. Which writer out there doesn’t wish he could have put more hours in?
Read more kick ass screenplays
People talk about how producers and people in the money hate reading screenplays and they are looking for any excuse to put one down. But really this applies to everyone. I think even the most dedicated film maker will admit that reading scripts is a bit of a chore. Which is why up until now I’ve never really read all that many screenplays.
Part of what makes a screenplay less of a chore to read however is having a good writing style. Of course good characters and plotting and all that stuff is essential as well, but it’s improving my writing style which is my reason for wanting to read more screenplays. I wanna make sure the way I describe my action is as good as it can be, and the only way I can do that is to see how the best guys out there are doing it.
Be more organised – have a schedule – and stick to it!!
This is kinda an extension of the working harder idea, but this year I want to try to be more organised in how I approach my work. By this is making sure I get to bed on time, making sure if I say I’m gunna work X number of hours I actually get that done. Just generally have a time table and approaching things with more of a schedule.
Remove more distractions
Again to help me get more work done I’m going to ensure I get distracted less by making sure email is turned off and stuff like that.
I think part and parcel of what makes me a good writer is the way my brain likes to skip from one thing to another; I’m always day-dreaming and going off on weird tangents. This is great for when you are brain storming ideas, but it also makes me very prone to getting distracted. The internet is such a blessing and a curse!
Ask for more help on LA Features
As I blogged a while back, I dont really feel as if I made the most of the wonderful resource that is Wendall Thomas on the LA Features scheme, so this year I’m gunna aim to get as much out of her as possible.
That’s all the stuff that has jumped out at me.
I’m sure there are other things as well, but I guess the common theme is that I feel like I need to bust my ass a little more and get a little more work done, because right now I feel like I’m on the verge of some big developments in my writing career, just so long as I make the most of my potential.
Arg! Noooooo! I lost my work! December 2, 2007
Posted by James D Hartland in Backup, Backups, Computer, Macs, Romcom, Writer's Hangups, Writer's nightmares.add a comment
This just happened to me:
Except it was self inflicted.
I’m paranoid when it comes to data loss so I back everything up regularly to several different places and feeling tired after an epic screenwriting stint last night I guess I must have mistakenly copied the backup over my original rather than the original over the backup, cause when I loaded up the file none of my changes were there!
Arg!!!! A screenwriters worst nightmare!!
Lucky for me it wasn’t anything super creative. I had been essentially cleaning up what was already there and I had a hard copy with all the changes needed denoted, so really it was just a case of looking at the notes and cleaning it all up again.
But there is still a feeling at the back of my mind that what I’ve done this second time round isn’t as good because I’ve rushed it.
I don’t even wanna think about what would of happened if I had lost something really creative that you could never get back again. Especially knowing it was your own backup paranoia that nuked it. Gah!
I’m going to be a lot more careful in backing up from now on.
I’ve just got 1 week left to get this screenplay finished. I’ve still got shit loads to do on it as well. It sucks. Who would be a writer eh?
Procrastination March 25, 2007
Posted by James D Hartland in Procrastination, Rants, Writer's Hangups, Writer's Lifestyle.add a comment
I keep telling myself that I am too busy with my feature film at the minute to write a blog entry. Well that, and the fact that I cant think of anything really juicy to talk about.
But I just thought about it and I’ve come to the conclusion that actually my problem is not a lack of time, but that I am simply too good at procrastination.
Put simply: I waste so much time when I should be writing my feature that I give myself a guilt trip when I think about doing anything else meaningful besides writing the feature. The little voice inside my head says “You cant go write a blog entry Mister, you need to go work out those thematic problems you said you were going to.” Of course the voice stays silent if I think about doing completely meaningless crap to waste time, but as soon as I think about something productive it pipes up to remind me that I should be working on my script.
Why is this? Why is it that if its something productive other than my script taking up my time then I feel guilty, but if its something totally random and useless then I feel fine about wasting my time with it?
In case you are wondering what’s with the rather lush picture of a certain Anne Hathaway it is because I have spent the last 90 minutes deciding on the perfect wallpaper for my desktop, with that image being the one that finally won out. What can I say, my favourite things in a girl are thick textured brunette hair, big brown eyes and general cuteness, which this picture has in abundance.
An aside: Girls with thin hair generally suck (unless its an uber funky haircut). Thick, textured hair, preferably wavy or curly is where its at. Also long nails are vile, all girls should have short nails. I mention this because all girls seem to want overly manicured nails and thin straight hair, and that is DUMB.
Anyways…
That 90 minutes spent picking a desktop image could have been put towards writing the greatest blog entry ever to grace this site. But had I actually thought about spending that much time on something like a blog then the voice would have told me off. Wallpaper searching though is just fine!
I once read a book called Writing from the Inside Out about all the mental hangups faced by screenwriters which I cant recommend enough. Its a while since I read it, but if I remember rightly it said that procrastination was basically about fear. Fear of having to work hard; fear of failure; fear that your idea might not actually work come the end of the process. Basically the author put forward the idea that its much easier to think about starting a masterpiece tomorrow on than dealing with the realities that what you do today might not actually be any good.
I guess the solution therefore is to realise that its about fear, rather than beating yourself up with guilt trips, because once you have realised its about fear then you can give yourself the necessary permission to ignore those fears, E.g. Permission to fuck up if you’re scared of your work not being very good.
Also if I remember rightly, it said that since writing begets writing if you are struggling to write your screenplay then you should go write something else, anything at all, a list of things you like doing, a report on a film you watched, whatever you fancy really…. because even if its just random stuff, the very act of writing will allow you to go do more writing, and more writing.
And you know what, now I’ve written this blog I feel like I might be able to do some more writing on my feature!
Sometimes shit is good January 28, 2007
Posted by James D Hartland in First Draft, Index Cards, Rewriting, Writer's Hangups.1 comment so far
The famed theatre director Harold Clurman once said “bad work is the manure from which good work emerges.” He was talking about the crap plays on Broadway at the time, but I think this is a wonderful quote for Writers to take note of and learn from.
Your initial idea, often called the seed of the idea is in fact, for the purpose of this metaphor, a SEED, and for a seed to grow from a tiny little thing into a big strong PLANT (screenplay) it needs MANURE. What is manure? Well its shit, both in the real world and for the purposes of this metaphorical theory. Basically to make your seed grow you need to throw as much shit on it as possible, because leaving your seed to grow with no added nutrients wont work. As you heap shit onto your seed over time the plant will grow bigger and the stronger.
Why do I love this idea so much? Because it gives you licence to come up with shit. It makes it OK for you to sleep at night without feeling guilty that all you gave your seed today was endless shit, because you know what? After your seed has festered under all that shit over night, or maybe for a couple of days, it will start to grow into a plant. Your seed wont grow at any where near the same rate if you don’t put any manure on it, so it teaches you to not be so precious about your ideas at the expense of never making progress.
How cool is that? This simple analogy gives writers permission to write stuff that isn’t perfect. And since battling with your own insecurities and personal battles is half the struggle of screenwriting, by eliminating the guilt associated with only having crap ideas it frees you up to come up with great ones!
Many of the hang ups writers face are simply cured by removing the guilt attached to those feelings… removing the guilt from procrastination, removing the guilt from writing blocks, etc, The knack is just knowing how to remove that guilt, and in learning the seed and the shit theory I believe everyone can remove those negative feels about the crap you come up with.
In the past I used to worry endlessly about whether I should put an idea down or not, does it fit or not, will it work or not. Now I just make a note of the idea and move on, because now I know that simply having that shit out of my head and festering on the seed is going to help it grow.
I have a terrible first draft feature film sitting in my drawer at the moment which I need to get on with soon, but the fact that its terrible has never bothered me in the slightest, because I knew it was always the start of a long process, and simply by having a first draft, as shit as it may be, I am now in a much stronger position to go forward and write the killer feature than if I had stalled and waited for all the good ideas to turn up.
Actually, I’m going to take a moment out here to say that I don’t really condone people writing without proper planning. I think that nearly everyone will benefit from planning the film properly before they sit down and write it. What I am NOT saying here is that you should go and write the first page of your screenplay with the first idea you have and worry about fixing it later. What I am saying is that that you should start your PLANNING with the first idea that comes into your head, and continue to come up with new ideas regardless how crap until you have enough good ideas to write a screenplay that no longer sucks. When I talk about a seed I really do mean the early stages of your ideas life cycle. Actually writing the first page of the script proper usually comes months into the plants life.
Anyways, that aside, my main point in this blog is to comment on the fact that a lot of writers I’ve met in the amateur bracket let the fact that their first draft sucks get to them (but I am sure it is something that comes to haunt professionals from time to time as well). They don’t realise two things… Writing IS rewriting (first drafts of anything suck), and your seed needs shit. When you realise these two things you come to discover that actually writing a terrible first draft is a strangely liberating experience, because now you have gotten all that shit out of your system and onto the seed where its needed, now you have a healthy young plant and you can go forth and write the killer second draft.
