Category: Writing Practices

WHY YOU’RE NOT AS PRODUCTIVE AS YOU EXPECTED DURING QUARANTINE…

July 26, 2020

It’s okay. Me neither. Apparently productivity and pandemics don’t go that well together.

Who knew?

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I returned from my Back to the Body Retreat throbbing with renewed sexual energy, and a new-found body confidence…

Just in time for the world to completely shut down.

Great. Now I had all these hot erotic ideas and sexual energy with no where and no one to put it on. I tinkered a bit with some online sexy shenanigans but that just added to my frustrations…

READ MORE… 

So it’s been a while…

July 13, 2020

Oh, hi there!

WARNING: Writer trying to be productive

Glad you’re still here. Yes, I know it’s been a while, since I posted here. (The irony of providing web content creation services to clients while neglecting your own…)

I honestly expected this time to be super-productive and to come out of lockdown with a stack of hot, polished ready-to-sell scripts that would pave the way for my decades-long illustrious writing career.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had to drastically lower my expectations.

Okay so not quite the pile of scripts I planned, but in between binge watching Netflix and Hulu, I haven’t been completely idle.

LOCKDOWN ACHIEVEMENTS TO DATE:

  1. MEDIUM – I’ve been writing a lot on Medium. You can read my stuff here. I’ll warn you – it’s a little bit uncomfortable, sometimes taboo and very racy. Not what you’d expect from me, I guess. But I’ve been getting a lot of positive and encouraging responses. The stuff I’ve written has really resonated with some people. Even if it’s not something you want to talk about at family dinners.
  2. PATREON– I would love you to be my patron on Patreon! My dream is to earn a living off my pen. A little support with this would be invaluable. Rest assured – it’s a two-way street! In return for your support, I offer you mine – help unlocking your creativity, getting your ideas flowing, maybe helping you just to do that simple thing of giving yourself permission to be creative for a few minutes each day. Being creative can be lonely. Let’s do it together!
  3. THE ARTISTS WAY – After hearing all my friends talk about this book for YEARS. I finally bit the bullet and bought it. After a few more years, took it off the shelf, dusted it off and started reading it. Now I’m doing morning pages. EVERY DAY. I’m taking myself on dates – learning how to surf, going to the beach, scuba. I’m adding fun and play to my sometimes monotonus weeks – and it’s HELPING. Ideas, blog topics, stories are starting to swirl around my head again.
  4. INSPIRING OTHERS – From my conversations with fellow creatives and what I’ve learned from “The Artists Way”, I’m pretty good at this. I like to mix a bit of practical magic, with some of the tricks and tools I picked up in my years as a copywriter – when I often had to write 20 ads a day and be creative – FAST. A huge part of actually creating for me is getting over the fear of not being good enough, letting go of the idea that everything must be instantly perfect and giving myself permission to play. And sharing it with you, helps me too.
  5. FIRST DRAFT OF A HORROR (yes it’s horrific – and not in a good way, like I said, I’m letting go of the idea of everything being instantly perfect)
  6. OUTLINE FOR A PILOT

LOCKDOWN TO-DO LIST

  1. Do ONE complete un-assisted chin-up on my chin-up bar.
  2. KEEP WRITING
  3. INSPIRE OTHERS
  4. BUILD MY RELATIONSHIPS

Originally I was also planning on losing 10 pounds, getting super-fit and looking like a supermodel, but since I barely leave the house anyways, there didn’t seem to be much point.

Anyway, that’s where I’ve been. If I’m not on here, you can find me on Medium and join me on Patreon.

What about you?

Self-quarantine Survival Tips (from someone who does it for a living)

March 24, 2020
If you’re currently under self-quarantine and working from home: Welcome to my world. This is my life. I mostly work from home. I know the big difference here is that up until now, it was a choice, but generally I love working from home. That’s not to say, sometimes it doesn’t get tricky. I mean, it’s me. And my head. Alone. We don’t get on very well sometimes. Anyway, being at home a lot – and being productive – took some getting used to and I’m still not perfect at it, but I’m kind of finding my rhythm.
Anyway, here are my 5  little tips that might be helpful to you:

1)Move all the treats to the back of the fridge.

Out of sight, so when you continue to circle it like a shark and open it to see if anything’s moved, the sub-conscious temptation to have “just one” of those yummy, highly anticipated “rewards”, will be slightly more conscious as you’ll have to dig past the “oh-yeah-I-should-be-eating-that-instead” celery to get to it.

2)Be (semi) structured with your time.

But don’t beat yourself up if you’re not sitting at your desk ready to work at precisely the allotted time. I have a list and I set goals, rather than time. I often re-write my list midday if need be. I try and do the hardest thing first to get it out of the way. If there’s something more time sensitive, I do that.

3) Take small breaks. Walk around the block or something.

Reset every now and then. It’s easy to miss things after a while and get stuck in a loop without progressing. A little change in scenery can help break it and you’ll come back to whatever you’re working on with fresh eyes.

4) Talk to people. Not just your cat (or dog).

The less time I spend without being around people, the less I want to be around people. This is not necessarily a good thing for me as it leaves my head to its own devices. I fight this urge by connecting with people. Picking up the phone. Even when I really, really, really don’t feel like it (which I mostly don’t).

5) Wear pants. Sometimes.

I’m always amazed at how productive one can be while still in ones pjs, BUT then, I have this tendency to wear them until 7pm at which point, it seems like changing out of them just for a few hours before I change back into them to go to bed, seems pointless.
Then what happens is the thought of going out and having to put on less comfortable pants seems even less appealing. So I’ve learned to save myself the back and forth and get dressed when I get up. (I know, I’m such a big girl getting dressed all by myself now)
 
 

Just bleed.

August 10, 2019

Are we bleeding yet?

“Writing Is Easy; You Just Open a Vein and Bleed” – Red Smith

Just bleed. Dig deep. Give that uncomfortable conversation you never had to your characters. Make your main character yell that painful, honest truth that you’ve never had the courage to say out loud. Bare your soul on the page. Go deep. Be fearless. Doesn’t have to be depressing. Doesn’t have to be serious. The deepest darkest truths can actually be hilarious when you put them on a page and give them to a quirky character to speak. Yes, bleeding your heart out over your keys is difficult. But this is where the universal truth of writing comes from. This is why I write.

IRL I’m kinda funny. Quirky. People tend to view me as someone who’s witty, upbeat, who has their shit together and is relatively stable (apart from my mildly unhealthy Star Wars obsession). I don’t often get emotional and lose my cool. That said, I do feel things. I have all the feels and unlike many people, I don’t have the ability to use the usual tools to drown them (like booze or Xanax). I have to do things – like sit with them. And fricking meditate. Anyway, I digress. The thing is, I wasn’t one to share my feelings openly. And as a result, for a long time, people found it hard to get to know me and vice versa. I thought the way I felt and viewed the world was entirely unique, and I felt very lonely. Then this thing happened. I took what I felt and how I saw things and I started writing.

And eventually this got layered into a story that became a script. And I showed it to the world. And this weird thing started to happen – first with friends and family and then with incredibly smart, talented people in various production companies and agencies – people related to my script and started to share their own very personal experiences with me. I discovered my feelings were actually universal. By putting a bit of my blood on the page, I’d (without realizing it) given other people a chance to open up too and helped them feel a bit less lonely. I’d given us both a bit of validation. And I suddenly felt a little less crazy in this crazy world. It was/is such a gift. (This is not to say that I think my writing is life changing or anything, I’m just pointing out that by me being vulnerable through my writing, I’d unwittingly allowed other people to be vulnerable too).

Truth be told, I don’t get people who say writing is easy. To me, it might start that way. And then it gets hard. Is this scene boring? What is this character struggling with? What does she/he really want to say but doesn’t? I also have this tendency that I’ve only just become aware of to subconsciously break dark moments with humor instead of letting them play out. Truth be told, I’ve been doing this my whole life. Then there’s structure – it’s vital. You gotta have it. But you gotta make the script refreshing enough that it’s entertaining and surprising, but not so out there that you literally don’t lose the plot. That stuff right there, is hard enough. Now layer in characters that need to be real and relatable – complexity, themes, etc. It just gets harder. But like most things in life, the hard stuff is the most rewarding. And that’s why you/I need to bleed. That’s where the good stuff is. Consider this blog the leech-pin to good writing. So stick a knife in your fingers and start bleeding…

Writing Process and Habits

Writing Process and Habits

June 18, 2019

People often ask me what makes me a writer. Which I guess is their way of asking what separates me from that person who props up a bar in WeHo every weekday happy hour, talking about the hot project they’ve got “in development” that a producer (who happens to be their best friend since high school) is interested in. The project they’ve been writing for five years but haven’t quite got around to finishing yet… The truth is, that was me a while ago. I drank expensive cocktails in cozy, plush bars tucked in trendy Melbourne alleys and told anyone who’d listen about my AWESOME ideas, while I mentally rehearsed my Oscar speech (it gets longer every year). But most of the time, I was having too much fun, was too hungover or didn’t feel like writing, so I didn’t actually write. At all. I was always waiting for inspiration to strike. And it rarely really did. Never enough to the point I’d actually write anyway.

That’s not to say I don’t have fun these days. I have a lot of fun. And now that I don’t drink like I used to, I not only wake up with a relatively clear head, but I have the added bonus of actually remembering exactly what and how much fun I had the night before. I digress. What makes me a writer – a real one, rather than someone who just talks about writing – is that I actually write. Every day. No matter what. That is my personal rule. Some days I write for hours. Some days it’s been less than 5 minutes, but I have written every day. No matter what. I was once on a camping trip, where we had stayed up talking around the campfire until 2 in the morning. I was about to drift off to sleep when I remembered I hadn’t written that day. So I wriggled out of my sleeping bag as quickly as I could and grabbed my laptop (which I might as well have surgically attached to my hip for convenience). I mostly have the doc I’m working on open for easy access. I think I probably changed two words and maybe added a sentence before I crashed – but I still wrote. I have written on the days of funerals, on days when I have not slept, when I have been sick. I think I have probably missed maybe 2 or 3 days of writing in the past year for various circumstances, but I have been fairly consistent.

As a result of all this continually writing every day, I have written and sold a feature, finished 2 pilots, had another feature optioned and am now working on a fictional podcast and another feature. Honestly, I rarely feel like writing. I will find myself procrastinating (right now for example, it’s 8:30pm on a Sunday night, I’ve had all day, the house is sparkling clean, there’s a roast in the slow cooker, I’ve watched 2 movies and I’ve only just sat down to write). I definitely wouldn’t have finished ANYTHING if I didn’t have the Freedom App, which completely locks me out of the internet for a chosen period of time. It’s funny because I didn’t realize I was actually flicking on to Facebook almost sub-consciously.  The minute I got stuck on a sentence or was searching for a word, I’d click away. Without even noticing. It would take Firefox proclaiming “Page not found” before I’d realize I’d even clicked off Final Draft (if I was researching, I would have to research on my phone). Most of the time though, once I get rolling, writing isn’t so bad. I mean it is hard. It does take work. And effort. The things that are worthwhile always do. I think it was John August who said he hated writing but loved having written. But that’s why I do it every day. Because the more I do, the more it becomes habit and less work. Like brushing your teeth. It’s just something you do without really thinking about it. And I’ve tricked my brain a bit too. “Just write for 5 minutes”, I tell myself. And then I get on a roll and it’s 4 hours later. I’m also less scared of getting stuck now. I can put myself through that excruciating torture of not really having a good answer to “what happens next” or “how they get out of that one” if I know it’s only going to be for 5 minutes and I don’t have to solve it all right then and there.

But me, as a writer (and well everyone really), still needs to have fun. I still need to get out and talk to people – people’s experiences, mannerisms and personalities are where I get a lot of inspiration from. So sometimes that means actually putting on pants and leaving the house and going to socialize. And sometimes this even inadvertently leads to actually having fun. I highly recommend having fun, even though it often takes effort (particularly in LA where it usually involves traffic). But my point is, after you have fun (or maybe even before), make sure you write. Even if it’s just for 5 minutes. Because 5 minutes of anything, can eventually lead to something. And what will 5 minutes of nothing get you?

Happy Writing! (Even if it’s for 5 minutes) Thanks for reading my first proper blog!