Over and over again, I keep being reminded of how powerful those words are that make up tonight’s blog title. Just keep writing. Every day. It “solves” everything.
I read a *fascinating* interview today from James Baldwin. I believe this was back in the 1980s, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, he was talking about what a hard-fought struggle writing is most of the time. I believe he called it “torture.” I wouldn’t say writing is like that for me ALL the time…but it is a lot of the time. It’s hard.
Really, what writing is, is sitting down with my most vulnerable, my most critical, my most fragile self…and existing with that self, trying to express that side of me, for hours at a time. It’s exhausting. Really, it is. But, it’s a part of me that needs expressing. I learned that without a doubt last year.
I write because I must. I stayed away from it for such a long time, and I suppose it’s possible I could do that again at some point in the future…but I highly doubt it. I’ve found my purpose.
Anyway…I buckled down today and wrote twice, like I’ve been scheduling all along. The second writing session has been hit and miss. I’ve done it quite a bit, actually, but my success rate can’t possibly be better than 50/50. Yet.
This pitch document for Icarus has been very difficult. Difficult in the sense that I’ve never put together something quite like it before, and in the sense that it was very hard for me to find a structure for it that worked. Over the past two days, I’ve looked up as much advice as I could find online, and it’s helped tremendously. I’m also tremendously grateful that Sundance asked for such a document to be included with their submissions; it forces me to answer some very important questions in language much more concrete than I’ve been able to articulate before doing this. Wrestling vague concepts and themes into simple, sleek, black and white words. Immensely valuable. And I finally felt today like I got it somewhat under control. A *lot* of solid work done today.
Tomorrow, some editing, tightening, deleting sentences, rewording…that kind of thing. Baldwin spoke about his first drafts and his rewriting process, and he spoke about how it was mostly cutting, deleting, and rewording. Crafting the showing instead of the telling. I feel like my first drafts are very much the same way and mostly need to be editing down, made more efficient, and made to show rather than tell.
It’s also going to be a work day tomorrow. Working a LOT this week. Full Netflix slate, this Sundance stuff taking so much time this week, and remilon work. Yikes. But, busy is good y’all. As long as I get my rest 😛
Speaking of, it’s time for the sleeps.
Just keep writing.
Good night 😉
Ps – the Ho and I did have impromptu dinner date tonight…went and got Pho, something we have done in sooooo lloooooonnngggg. It was out of control good. YUM.