“Monkey

Wheels keep turning

A monkey

Something’s burning

Monkey

I don’t like it, but I guess I’m learning.” — Peter Gabriel.

 Last week I said that I thought anything that wasn’t outlining, drafting or editing was procrastination.  The revelation came because the more I think about the process of writing—and this blog has been invaluable in providing me insight on the subject—the more I realize that what may be the most important question for writers to ask themselves is “why aren’t I writing this?” Let me try to clarify that simplification.

This week my writing partner and I were discussing a YouTube tutorial he sent me regarding beats in a screenplay and where they should fall. It was a typical “do what the highest paid writers in Hollywood do,” type of video. It was rigid and workman-like and, beyond the fact that I would rather dig ditches than write like that, I don’t think it is good advice for any but the tiniest percentage of aspiring writers. That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works. However, I am not one to reject something out of hand, so I did some research to check credentials, and when I actually looked the person giving the advice up on IMDB, he had one pilot script under his belt, and one book to sell, which expanded on the system he had briefly introduced in the video. Call me jaded, but that was enough for me to disregard him. I view this type of thing similarly to commercials advertising a vibrating belt you can wear while watching TV that will make you shed fifty pounds in a month. It won’t. Just stop.  I won’t belabor this point, but I will add one other thing. Stephen King wrote a book about process called, On Writing. It is worth reading and informed a lot of what I do, but King prefaced everything he wrote with the fact that what works for some doesn’t work for others. King has a very particular method, yet he not only encourages you to find yours, he practically begs you not to think of what he tells you as rules.

My reaction to the video began a back-and-forth with my partner on the virtue of cookie cutter techniques to get your story written, and my partner, like all of us at one time or another expressed a wish that there was a standard method to write a story, a manual per se.  Unfortunately that manual doesn’t exist. Or if it does, it exists in exactly as many varieties as there are writers in the world.

That being said, I think what I wrote above may be close to a universal truth.  If you aren’t writing or editing, you should analyze what you are doing carefully to see if you are wasting time.  The many ways you can do that could provide me with enough material to blog through 2023, so I can’t cover them all. I am lucky if I can cover the ones I am guilty of.

A term I also mentioned last week was “monkey mind.” Monkey mind is a Buddhist concept used to explain all the distractions that come when one tries to meditate practically, and when one seeks enlightenment specifically. It is the name that I call all forms of procrastination in my writing. You try to get things done, and the monkey is being cute, or pulling you to the banana stand, or throwing shit at you, and you can’t get a damn thing done.

I am going to expound on the some of the ways there are to approach writing, and possible techniques to help you find what works for you specifically, but there are not very many people that will argue with me that if you want to finish a story you have to be actually writing it at some point. If I played devil’s advocate here, I could say that I personally feel I am writing when I am mulling things over in my brain in front of the TV or walking dogs because I rarely have an external outline. That, however, is being pedantic and actually makes my initial point that there is no one true way.

Rather than try to imagine every type of writer out there, I think it is better for me to give you a few overarching things to think about that might help you find your writing groove.  The first thing you need to do is realize you have a problem.  Every writer has this problem.  Dorothy Parker said it for all of us in the 1940s. “I hate writing, but love having written.”  Face it. It is me, and if you are have followed me for a month, it is probably you. Sure, you talk about writing and get excited about it. You feel good when you come up with a good idea or concept or anecdote that you know can be expanded to something good. Maybe you even give some heartfelt sage advice about a fellow writer’s character arc or thread plot, but when it comes to actually sitting down and putting the words down yourself, well you suddenly notice that picture frame across the room is just a little bit skewed, and god look at the dust! Oh, is that the mailman out the window. I wonder if my royalty check is in the pile. It’s such a nice day, maybe a nice walk will get my creative juices flowing.

I know, we all feel attacked right now, don’t we? I cast no aspersions on this condition. I am in the boat with you, frantically bailing water. Honestly, writing these blogs is fun and interesting and sometimes even magical, but I still have to force myself into the chair. This blog goes live on Friday. The first couple of weeks I had the draft done on Monday, the polished final by Tues and I was just waiting to post.  The first draft of this one was written at 2pm on Wednesday, even though I had the idea for it as I was writing the last blog! 

So we need to realize that there is resistance.  I am going to try not to use that word very much because I feel like I am risking plagiarism.  Stephen Pressfield, in his fantastic book on procrastination titled, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, uses the term “resistance” quite often. The book is a must read for anyone creative, writing or otherwise.  Poaching that word from Pressfield notwithstanding, we need to be conscious of the part of us that doesn’t want to do this. It doesn’t matter why it doesn’t. Maybe it is insecure: I’m not good enough. Maybe it is lazy: I’m too tired, I’m too stressed. It doesn’t matter. It only matters that we keep the idea in our heads that there is an enemy within.

With that knowledge, we should treat every hesitation in our writing as a potential appearance of that enemy.  Do you really not know whether the love interest slaps the hero in the face or just storms out of the room? Does it matter? Are you using her reaction to his remark as a metaphor for her inner condition?  What would happen if you commit to the slap and later on it turns out that it was a break in her typical personality that is distracting to the story, or contradicts the theme of repression and avoiding conflict? Would that be unfixable? And the most important question, “Can I press on and think about that later?”

I will wrap this up with a personal anecdote because I feel I have been preaching a bit much here and acting like my daily droppings into the commode give off the scent of lilacs and new car.

I am in the midst of a novel which puts a spiritual spin on a typical horror trope. The story idea was exciting, and I did an exhaustive amount of research, especially poring over the bible for references to certain words and acts. When I was ready to write, I thought it would be a smooth ride—oh naïve child how the gods laugh at you.  What I found, about forty pages in, was I couldn’t find a role for my only human character. She was a conduit between two warring factors, but I couldn’t see what she thought of that, or what her reaction would be, or how the story could move forward.  This stifled me for literally a year or so. I think I have resolved the problem, and I plan to revisit the story I shelved due to this problem, but I can feel that I am resisting it. It is easy to resist because my personal life is in disarray, I am very busy with school, and I have shorter, easier stories in front of me to write.  Some of these things are legitimate obstacles that I need to navigate to have time to focus on the story. Some of these things are just resistance.  I am the only person who can parse where responsibility ends, and resistance begins.

I recently began therapy for a long laundry list of issues that stretch as far back as when I was eight years old. Making that step to seek help was difficult and terrifying, but the things that I accomplished in a month were astounding. What I realized is, other than in the past when I spoke to therapists, this time I was completely honest. I went in with no defenses up because I was broken and disgusted with myself.  What happened was I answered some hard questions honestly, and though there were moments where I wondered if I could recover from the revelations I experienced, in the end, it was all cleansing and helped me understand a lot of my pain.

When you come to the page, even if you aren’t writing confessional material, come to the page as if it were therapy. When you feel resistance ask yourself why. Face the enemy. Give your monkey a name. Give him a name, give him fancy vest, give him a banana if you want, but then stick him back in his cage and write, no matter how much he screams and throws his shit at you.

Keep ducking my friends.

Sources:

Steven Pressfield. The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative  

Battles. ISBN: 1936891026