Do The Thing
but first, I'm going to talk about The Thing
Hi friends,
When I started the year I wrote down one goal1: Make a movie and submit it to a film festival.
That’s it. I told myself that if I did nothing else this year, it wouldn’t matter as long as I made a movie. Or at least made significant progress toward making a movie i.e. finish a script, make a schedule, find a location, talk with actors and cinematographers and musicians, etc.
I’ve never made a movie and have no idea what I’m doing. I’ve heard it’s hard. I’m giving myself grace and trying to be patient, but 25% of the year is gone and I have nothing to show for it. I realized this week that I do not have the habits or routine of a person trying to make a movie. I’m reading books like The Power Broker and playing video games (Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, Breath of the Wild) and watching TV (Severance, The Wire, Nobody Wants This) and scrolling Instagram. I’m thinking of and drafting Bite Size Reviews. I’m listening to Sarah J. Maas audiobooks that make me blush.
These are not bad things or a complete waste of time, but they also aren’t intentional behaviors of an aspiring writer-director. I need to make some trade-offs and sacrifice some of the things I like in order to pursue the main goal.
I lied earlier: I have done some good things so far this year. For example, I have a weekly writing group now: The WG (which stands for Writing Group if you were curious) meets on Tuesdays to bounce ideas off each other and give feedback. I’ve written about 9 pages of a work of fiction that I think has potential. That’s not nothing!
An instigator of these realizations was listening to Tina Fey’s Bossypants2 and Amy Poehler’s Yes Please. These women are highly talented and successful writers and their books were funny and insightful. In Amy’s book, she says: “We did the thing. Because remember, the talking about the thing isn’t the thing. The doing of the thing is the thing.”
And Tina said: “Yes, you’re going to write some sketches that you love and are proud of forever — your golden nuggets. But you’re also going to write some real shit nuggets…You can’t worry about it. As long as you know the difference, you can go back to panning for gold on Monday.”
They’re saying the same thing: Do the work. Write the thing. Churn out as much writing and creative output as you can because that’s how you become better — by doing it. And it’s not all going to be good. Most will probably stink. And that’s ok!
It’s a variation of something Sarah LuAnn Perkins posted on Instagram: “Just make it EXIST first. You can make it GOOD later.” It helps to give myself permission to write a bad first draft. Get the worst version out of me and down on paper.3
What doing the thing looks like for me
Here’s what I’m committing myself to do:
Write for 30 minutes a day for 60 days. This can be outlining, character development, story boarding, or writing entire scenes. Finish the first draft of a script. I expect there’ll be times when those 30 minutes are unbearable and I’ll have to just grind through them, but I also hope for times when things are flowing and the 30 minutes turns into an hour or more.
Attend WG weekly with new material for them to critique.
Read books/journals/magazines/articles about film making, writing, cinematography, editing, producing.
Write Bite Size Reviews that are truly bite sized and not over thought.
Shelve The Power Broker. Unfortunately, this is not the season for that book.
Finish Throne of Glass and ACOTAR on audio because I can’t leave my girls Feyre and Celaena hanging and I need at least one “shut off my brain” type of activity.
Wish me luck. I plan to make time for Bite Size Reviews since I love this little newsletter and I appreciate all of you who read it and support me. Thank you for being here, it means so much to me.
Kyle
Reader Shout Out - Sharon (@sharon981798) pledged $50 this week and I couldn’t be more grateful. I will be using it to purchase a year of American Cinematographer. Thank you, Sharon.
End Notes featuring a few more illustrations by Janis Ozolins:
Actually, it was two goals, the other being “Get ripped.” But that’s always a goal and this isn’t a fitness newsletter.
Shoutout to friend and fellow book lover Cat for encouraging me to read this.
As a case in point, I wrote this out by hand in a Field Notes notebook during a slow work meeting, typed it up in about 10 minutes, then edited it to its current shine. Didn’t overthink and didn’t seek perfection.
You’ve got it. Now get going.
Respect you for putting your big goal out there! I think you’re going to do it!