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I've talked to enough screenwriters about the process of writing and completing a screenplay to know that everyone approaches it differently.
It's different if you're working on a paying job. Your motivation to not waste time or take too long to turn in a draft is that you'll be fired. So money has a way of pushing even the laziest of writers.
But what about when you're doing something on spec? And what if you have a day job? And what if you're married and have responsibilities to your spouse? And what if you have a kid or more than one kid? Suddenly, finding the time to write becomes a huge priority.
What has worked for me is to wait until a chunk of time becomes available. Say you have two weeks vacation. Or the busy season has ended in your profession. Or your kids are going to camp. Or...whatever.
But suddenly you have a window of opportunity to finish that script that's been nagging away at you.
A screenwriter I know found himself with a chunk of time, roughly two months, during which the bulk of his days were free to work on whatever he pleased. He decided to return to a script that he'd started four years earlier. He'd worked on it sporadically, between assignments and between a book that he'd managed to write. He'd completed two-thirds of the script, had a vague idea of where the second act would end and an even more vague idea of what the third act would be.
He had no other irons in the fire and after reading the pages he'd written, decided that he would devote those two months to completing it. All the usual distractions came including a handful of new ideas that sounded vastly more fun to start than concentrate on nailing down a workable third act on his four-year project.
He lost momentum. Got it back. Lost it again. Was ready to throw in the towel. Found himself in that horrible position of hating the idea and everything he'd written.
But guess what? He finished a draft. Not in the two months he alotted himself, but in 7 weeks. And he passed it around to his circle of critics or dutch uncles, if you will, and he got their respective notes and spent another two weeks rewriting and revising the script.
But what he's enjoying telling people is that had he not set his mind to finishing the script in those two months, he knows he wouldn't have done it. It would still be one of many unfinished documents in his screenplay file.
This has worked for me. It worked for him. Maybe it can work for you. |
