Take the action

Some days it seems as much as I might try and as much as I may want to I just can't write for the writing of it. I know I should sit and do my 15 min free write to get the juices flowing, but can't seem to find the right pen. Ideas come to mind of the various scripts sitting waiting for me to start marking the page, but the time just doesn't seem 'write'.

At these times there's nothing much that seems possible to do. I wonder if I should give up this writing mularkey for good. In what way am I a writer anyway when I can't even sit down and write? It's not that I don't want to write, but just simply that if I write I don't know what could possibly happen next, to my writing and then also to my life. Could I actually make a go of this career? What would that mean? Hours of solitude with the voices in my head pouring out onto the screen of my MacBook (which coincidentally has no free gigs of space left! Lucky that, huh?!) don't seem to be the way I wish to spend the majority of my time. Yet, I love it. I love more sharing those ideas with others and coming up with ways to make them better, but that can only be achieved when you've written the darned thing.

What if I never put pen to paper again? What would I do with all those scenes playing out in my head? Sit back and dream of what could have been? That doesn't seem like much of a prospect either.

So, instead I sit here and I write all this mindless babble into a compose box. Thankfully, while I'm moaning and groaning about the act of writing that in itself has allowed me to achieve the one thing that will keep me writing, keep the ideas flowing - I've written it all down. Fair enough it might not be the most interesting thing to read, but the act of writing is one that many a writer has struggled with and just goes to show that even writing your shopping list down can be enough to keep the ink flowing for another day. Check out Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott if you don't believe me.

As my weekly compulsive blog read from OmFreely.com said today 'Take the action' even if it is just to write down the alphabet. Once you start those ABCs there nothing stopping you from getting to z.

Check out Omfreely.com for it's weekly insights.

Betserai Script Festival Update

Betserai the script is a semi-finalist at the SoCal Independent Film Festival in Huntington Beach 2010!

Finalists will be announced closer to the end of August! Watch this space...

Why It’s Hard to Trust Our Instincts and How to Start

Why It’s Hard to Trust Our Instincts and How to Start

It's funny how Buddhism creeps into my life in ways that seem opportune and coincidental. Everything seems to be falling into place right now in ways I never believed would happen.

My trip to Savannah this summer almost didn't happen for personal reasons, but a little voice in the back of my head (and my mom) convinced me it was the right move to make so I jumped in with both feet and then the most amazing opportunities opened themselves up to me. All the experiences I had this summer enabled me to learn how much I've changed through my practice of Buddhism and strangely enough how my life is mirroring that of my latest script character to enter my mind. Everything I have dreamt up and wanted her to be is mirrored in the changes I have made for myself and the dreams I haven't dared to believe would come true until now. I didn't force the dreams either for myself or my character, they simply opened themselves up to us and we stepped inside rather than thinking and questioning, and all the usual things I do to rationalize the steps I take towards the future.

This leads me to conclude that Buddhism is opening itself up to me in similar ways. It's not that new ideas and concepts suddenly appear at the right time, but that when I finally take heed of certain ideas, they appear to me because I am ready to see them. I am ready to open myself up to them and accept them in order to move forward in my life and also with my writing. I am not a religious person in any way, but the more I practice (or do my best to try!) the more my life improves. I'm not saying that I don't suffer and that my life is perfect - right now it in no way is - but everything in my life is perfect in that this is where I am right now and that's what my focus should be in order to live a good life. As I accept the moment new opportunities appear - such as my plan to move back to Savannah - and problems I had with my characters and how their lives would unfold start to open up to me. This is where faith and intuition give me the motivation to keep on writing; not to give up. I have faith that although it may take time, the answers my characters pose will come to me, and that often in the moment if I don't have all the answers to my life's questions, how can I necessarily have answers to my character's lives' questions as well?

What I do know for sure is that I should keep writing. I feel it in my soul in the same way that I know I should move back to Savannah; in the same way I know I'm finally in love with a great man and that my life needs to move towards that now; in the same way that whatever happens will happen, but that I can do my best to make the choices I instinctually believe are the right way to go in the future while still doing my best to live in the moment.

Reading Joyce Carol Oates' 'The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art' is a great book to read if you're struggling with the writing process.