I ran into a friend waiting for the bus to work; he's a comic book/horror writer, and though most of his projects are smallish, he's very talented, scary-smart, and getting good buzz. He usually works at home, but he's been heading into his friend's office of late to work there, as he says he finds it difficult to write about horrible nasty things when his daughter is running around and wanting to play. Fair enough.
Got me to thinking about where to do writing - seems that a lot of people do so in coffee shops and so forth. I suppose home is too filled with distractions - I can totally understand that. Even so, my 'favourite' memories of mad paper-writing is of the times I dragged myself from bed at 4:30 or 5 AM. The still, silent, not-much-on-TV, no-one-online time of day worked so well for me - from like, 5 to 9, I would be able to sit and work, feeling a bit tired - but rested and focused.
I need to try to get up like that again, but I find it difficult to wake immediately, to pull myself out of a warm bed when it's dark and cold. I'm going to try to start working Sundays at the Metro Reference Library with the SO - now that I have a laptop, it'll be that much easier to do that sort of thing.
Where do people write? How much discipline is involved? Is it good to schedule time, or work when the mood/deadline strikes?
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musings of a minion in canada's tv industry.
"Like Assistant/Atlas, the Canadian version." - DMc
About Me
- TV Minion
- TV Minion is a producer and web writer working in Toronto. Her blog title comes from a David French play called 'Jitters'.
5 comments:
First off, let me just state for the record that I absolutely HATE writing. Yeah, I know, I'm a screenwriter -- but it's not really by choice. It's by necessity. I don't have $20,000 to pay someone to write the pilot script for my TV series for me, so I had to learn how to do it myself. After several years of study and mentoring under a few of the best in the business, I think I'm pretty good. I'm no Alex Epstein or Jane Espenson by any stretch of the imagination but I'm good enough to get read by some of the most powerful & influential agents & producers in North America (not that that's helped me much, mind you.) But I digress...
Your question was, where do I write, what are my writing habits. Well, I like to write alone, late at night, in the dark, with a cup of tea or a glass of wine at my side...perhaps a little instrumental jazz playing in the background. It's all very relaxed and civilized, at present, because I have no deadlines to meet. However, I'm sure I'll end up an emotional basket case like Dix or DMc when my series finally goes into production, hopefully before I die of old age.
KJC
Definitely not in a coffee shop. I get too distracted and just people watch and eavesdrop.
Home, on my dining room table, is best. Preferably with a pot of good strong Irish breakfast tea if it's daytime or a glass of pinot grigio if evening. I have a desk, but cannot write at it. I can plot, beat, email, etc. at the desk, but not write scripts. Weird, I know.
In the summer, I will sometimes head for the beach near my house ... it is generally not too populated and I can get a few good hours in the morning at a picnic table and watching the boats. Water is soothing and inspiring at the same time for me. I find music too jarring usually, so I often opt for tv in the background, usually a news channel of some sort. Too much quiet is not good, either.
All Laptop all the time...so I'll wander to different part of the house as the mood hits me (mostly bed or couch or dining table) - tv or cd's ALWAYS on...coffee shops are okay, but get antsy and distracted easily. What am I saying...even at the office, it's all about staying distracted UNTIL THERE'S A DEADLINE. Then I turn it all off and focus and don't move until its done. Sad, no?
But then again, I'm a basket case...
Will, now that you are on a break, I think we should run a little lab rat test on you. See if you can actually produce without the deadlines and distractions. Totally throw your writing routine out the window and change it up. Just see what happens? Are you game?
Generally, I am a TV person too - if it's daytime/weekend TV especially, it's easy to only tune into it when I want to (IE: What's happening on Starting Over?).
Will - I am the deadline freak too - every paper I have ever written in school was done at the VERY LAST MINUTE, even WITH deadline extensions. One of my profs once said 'If you're a procrastinator now, it never gets better' after explaining that he was going to write his paper to present at Harvard ON THE PLANE.
I want to break that cycle, but it's SO HARD. Especially if there are no concequences to it. :P
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