Getting Shit Done

A few issues ago I mentioned that I was going to do the #1000wordsofsummer project started by Jami Attenberg at the Craft Talk Substack.

The idea is simple: write a thousand words a day for fourteen days.

Shortly after I posted it a friend of the newsletter named Bob DeRosa reached out to say that he had done it before and had a great experience. He was planning to do it again and asked if I wanted an accountability partner. We did a short zoom meetup a few days before it started and settled on the simple task of emailing each other daily with our word count. I’m so glad he asked me, it was exactly what I needed.

Today is day 14 and I’ve written at least a thousand words every day, except for one day where I drove from Ironton to Nashville with Ellie, my nephew, and his girlfriend. I was so wiped out that night that I didn’t write a single word that day, but I doubled up a few days afterward. By the end of the day today I should have just a little over fourteen thousand words.

In the days leading up to it I pulled out the previously abandoned novel to see if It was worth revisiting. I was hoping to come out of this period with real momentum toward a first draft but that’s not what happened. I was all over the place the first week, which makes sense because I was literally all over the place, first in Ohio, then Tennessee, then back to LA. In week one I worked on the abandoned novel, used a day to do some brainstorming, played around with some various voices, back to the novel a bit, and I wrote the last issue of the newsletter.

Finally, in the second week I abandoned the old novel (again) and started on my latest idea, Vesper, now called Sparrow. (I had a great reason for calling the main character Vesper, then somebody reminded me that Eva Green played a character named Vesper in one of the latest Bond movies. So it goes.) As of the end of day today I will have three respectable chapters. It’s not unstoppable momentum but I’m also not stuck at the starting block, daunted by the sheer enormity of the task ahead.

I’m only somewhat daunted.

I think it took me the whole first week of just showing up every day and writing a thousand words to get past the fear and inertia of starting a new project. When the old novel wasn’t working I pivoted to whatever was fun so that I could fulfill that day’s promise to myself. And it helped that I didn’t want to email Bob and tell him I was throwing in the towel. For better or worse I still have the capacity to feel shame.

So I just kept going, a thousand words a day of something, anything, to make me spend time in the chair.

In hindsight, it’s clear that the most transformative part of the whole experience was making the commitment and sticking to it. A thousand words is totally doable in a day. If I was on a roll it took me an hour, at most an hour and a half. By making a commitment to get that hour in, no matter what (except for that one day), I was establishing a new practice. Once my regular practice was established the creative part started to take care of itself. Now it’s fun and fun is sustainable.

That is a lesson I will have to relearn over and over again, no matter how long I do this.

Screenwriting is second nature to me now. It doesn’t matter if I switch genres or play with the structure, if I have even the most basic of beat sheets I am off to the races. My voice on the page of a script is just part of my DNA. It took me the first whole week to settle into a voice for this new piece. It’s not flashy or stylized. It’s simple and straightforward. I want it to feel like I’m sitting across from you telling you a crazy story about a girl I knew. Turns out that kind of effortlessness take a lot of effort.

I’ve got a long way to go but as of today I’ve at least taken the first few steps.

My #1000wordsofsummer experience dovetailed with something that’s been on my mind as I’ve been walking the picket line this week.

We’re wrapping up week nine of the strike and I’ve had a few conversations with friends about the creative projects they’re working on. Some of them have said, “I don’t want to come out of this empty handed,” which is something I’ve also said, a lot.

Another friend pointed out yesterday that there’s still going to be plenty of time to write new material when this thing finally ends, because there’s going to be a huge pileup as the studios decide what to do with existing projects. Just like in the weeks leading up to the strike, priority is going to be given to the things that are already in motion. There will be a lot of triage. It will take time to get to the new things.

This is part of the reason I wanted to spend this time exploring a different medium. I have enough projects ready to go when the dust settles, so whatever I’m doing right now is really just for me. Still, I want to make good use of the time and I feel like I’m in good shape at the moment.

I’ve heard from other people who are having a hard time getting back in the creative groove and I totally get it. It reminds me of the early days in the pandemic when it felt like we had all the time in the world to take on our dream projects. A lot of us, me included, struggled to do anything creative for a very long time.

I heard Tim Ferris say something on Andrew Huberman’s Huberman Lab podcast that crystallized my experience then. He said, “Time doesn’t matter if you don’t have attention.” Back then, we had a ton of time but our attention was on trying to survive a global pandemic. Even those of us who were fortunate enough to be safe in our homes were glued to our phones or cable news channels. By the end of June I was working on FIREKEEPER’S DAUGHTER and I had producers and a writing partner that I was accountable to. It helped me focus my attention.

Writers for TV and film have time right now but again, it may be hard for a lot of us to turn our attention toward that dream project. We’re required to picket and even if you’re just out there for a couple of hours a day there’s a physical and mental toll. There are family obligations and pets and basic life maintenance to take care of.

That’s why I think that this #1000wordsofsummer was so helpful to me.

It gave me three key ingredients that Ferris talked about for getting shit done:

1. Accountability

2. Deadlines

3. Space on the calendar

I had an accountability partner in Bob. I had a daily deadline. I made space on the calendar. I kept to it (mostly) and after spinning my wheels for a few days good things started to happen.

The last bit of advice that Ferris gave in the podcast was, “Do the things that give you energy.” For me, that’s another way of saying what George Saunders says, “Go where the fun is.” If I’m having fun writing something it gives me energy. I can’t wait to get back to it.

If you’ve been struggling to get that new thing going while the strike is on, you still have plenty of time. You will still have time if it ends tomorrow. (It’s not going to end tomorrow) If you still want to do it, if you can manage to find an hour in between picketing and taking care of the kids or the dog, find an accountability partner, give yourselves deadlines, and make space on the calendar. Then… show up.

I hope you have a great holiday weekend. As the weeks go on I meet more and more people who read this newsletter. It gives me great joy to know you’re out there and that you find this helpful.

Keep up the good work and the good fight.

I have no doubt we’re going to win it!

I did not make this sign but I appreciate the artistry.