Step out of the norm.
A few days ago I saw a movie that made me laugh. It wasn’t a 10 by any means, it had low points, really low points, but mostly, it made me laugh. And I like to laugh. A good diversion from the mess of every day living. Lots of funny lines, practiced professional writers at work. Far from ground breaking, but it was timely in its own way and even with attempts at a serious undercurrent. The movie was Longshot with Charlize Theron and Seth Rogan, and let’s be honest, Theron can make anything work. She just let’s herself go there.
As you can with your writing. Your muse might have an incredible sense of humor, or it may even go to brooding, raunchy, even ugly places. After all, the characters you write about can’t all be angels. Dead boring. So give your muse a chance.
At times it might surprise you when you’re least expecting it.
A couple of months ago I decided to treat myself to a mineral spa. Nice idea. But, since I have to go for the everyman/person version, I instead, three of four times a week have a warm water Epsom salt foot-bath. Good compromise. Easy to set up and magnesium is so good for the body, ask any athlete.
Knowing I’d be captive for at least ten minutes, I took in a book I was reading. There was a line, I forget what it was, and I looked up, gazing at nothing, and my mind went on a mini trip somewhere. Then, like magic, within seconds the beginning of the next scene of a script I am writing, came pouring out of me. I didn’t want to step out of the bath to make notes, so I stayed there…and immediately, the next scene started writing itself. And then a third!!
Eventually, the more present side of me kicked back in. I stepped out of the bath and of course went straight to my note pad and jotted down all the key turning points. I’d spent 15 minutes with my feet immersed and as a bonus I had notes for two scenes. Nice combo. Thank you muse.
…Step out of the norm and stay open to your muse.
If you have your antennas tuned in you find material all the time. The truth is you are sort of living parallel realities all the time. Some people might say you are a bit crazy. Maybe so, but good crazy. Ideas for stories can come from anywhere it just takes having good antennas that are up pretty much all the time. The person sitting at the table across from you in a caffe can trigger a story.
And listen. Listen, to all the sounds you hear and every person you hear. And…to your own inner voice. And to your subconscious. Not your dreams, that’s valid too, Your subconscious is always there for you and it most certainly is while you sleep. Often if I have a thought about something I’m writing before I fall asleep, by three or four in the morning the workshop of my subconscious has written it. All I have to do is make notes ,and later, fill it out, and shape it. This doesn't happen all the time but often enough.
And wonder… and wander… Daydreaming is normal for creative types. Contrary to what others think you’re actually working.
Sometimes oh woe, it’s not always all a bed of roses. You might find yourself stuck in what feels like an unyielding place, like a baseball player in a slump.
When that happens stepping away, giving up, often helps. Rather like when you can’t find something you put in a safe place. Or you could try this. Take the person sitting next to you at a table in a restaurant, or on a plane, or shapes on a peeling wall…anyone of them might trigger a story idea. How about coming up with three possible ideas for a stor,y triggered by the image below. Not just in your head but written down on paper. Rough story ideas.
It’s just a game, child’s play you say, it is if you only play in your head but transfer it onto the page and you have a worthwhile writing practice. My advice is to do that all the time until you are firmly in touch with that side of you. That parallel you. “And then what?” you ask? Well to bring it all to fruition you can’t get away from process, working with a craft you can rely on, that will channel all that good stuff that began in your head, that you have been writing on the page out of which you will now create a screenplay. Craft. Process.
Lest I forget, days after I published my last blog talking about being able to ‘define your work in order to defend your work, I saw this in the paper: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/movies/el-chicano-latino-cast.html Nobody said the film business was easy.
I leave you now with a morsel of inspiration from something I read a while ago but that has remained on the shelves of my brain:
As a child, Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher would accompany her parents on road journeys, often at night, transporting the produce of the family beekeeping business. Whenever they arrived somewhere, she would sit in the dark and wonder where she was. “I’d have to work it out from what I could hear, not from what I could see, so I’d listen to the place and the information would enter my mind – and then I’d open my eyes.” That, she says, is why her three feature films all start at night, to put her viewer in the same position. “You have to imagine a world, and then compare the world you imagine with the world outside.”
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