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writing schedule?
- Thread starter Lenny
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I write in the wee hours of the morning. Drink coffee, take up smoking, and throw in a barbituate, booze, or Nyquil.
Don't schedule writing in.. let it come when it comes. Inspiration might strike at the strangest time... just be prepared for it. Carry pen and paper everywhere.
Other than that.. writing something (even just a post on a forum) everyday also helps. If nothing, your typing gets faster, lol.
Don't schedule writing in.. let it come when it comes. Inspiration might strike at the strangest time... just be prepared for it. Carry pen and paper everywhere.
Other than that.. writing something (even just a post on a forum) everyday also helps. If nothing, your typing gets faster, lol.
I think it's very important to treat it like a job. And you don't wait around for inspiration to do your job. Schedule a regular time and place to sit down and write and make yourself do it. Discipline is a major part of screenwriting, especially if you want to do it for a living.
I have to agree...
Schedule a certain time of the day to do your writing. My recommendation is to make it at least a minimum of 3 hours... More if possible. Commit to that schedule for a week. Then commit to a second week. After your second week (even if you're not writing that much), you should be used to the schedule and looking forward to the writing...
I personally find it too difficult to write at home. Way too many distractions so I go to a local coffee shop and spend at least 3 hours a day there. It's almost like my office now... LOL. I wrote my last script there.
As for your girlfriend...
You have to sit down with anyone you feel needs an explanation and tell them that this is what you've decided to do i.e., write a screenplay. Tell them that you've come up with a plan and lay it out for them and ask them for their support. Tell them that you need at least 3 hours a day ALONE. Unless they are 100% selfish, they should understand. Make them part of your plan. Bring them in on it to get their support.
Now, as for drugs or alcohol...
That's up to you... I've written while drinking a beer or two with no problems. I don't do drugs so I can't speak to that but what I have experimented with is sleep deprivation and I've written some good but wacky stuff with little or no sleep.
My advice is whenever you come across a difficult scene or sequence to write and simoly can't seem to get through it, try staying up for a day or two and then write it. Lots of amazing things might come through and you might not even use all of it but the gold could be in there among the black sand...
Stick to a schedule... You'll thank yourself later for doing so.
Good luck!
filmy
I have to agree...Beeblebrox said:
Schedule a certain time of the day to do your writing. My recommendation is to make it at least a minimum of 3 hours... More if possible. Commit to that schedule for a week. Then commit to a second week. After your second week (even if you're not writing that much), you should be used to the schedule and looking forward to the writing...
I personally find it too difficult to write at home. Way too many distractions so I go to a local coffee shop and spend at least 3 hours a day there. It's almost like my office now... LOL. I wrote my last script there.
As for your girlfriend...
You have to sit down with anyone you feel needs an explanation and tell them that this is what you've decided to do i.e., write a screenplay. Tell them that you've come up with a plan and lay it out for them and ask them for their support. Tell them that you need at least 3 hours a day ALONE. Unless they are 100% selfish, they should understand. Make them part of your plan. Bring them in on it to get their support.
Now, as for drugs or alcohol...
That's up to you... I've written while drinking a beer or two with no problems. I don't do drugs so I can't speak to that but what I have experimented with is sleep deprivation and I've written some good but wacky stuff with little or no sleep.
My advice is whenever you come across a difficult scene or sequence to write and simoly can't seem to get through it, try staying up for a day or two and then write it. Lots of amazing things might come through and you might not even use all of it but the gold could be in there among the black sand...
Stick to a schedule... You'll thank yourself later for doing so.
Good luck!
filmy
Thanks everyone. That's kind of what I have in mind. Working out a schedule and sticking to it like a job. In about three weeks my girlfriend is going over seas for a year to study for her masters. So I'm a little consumed with spending time with her. But for the last few weeks I've been doing research and background studies on the characters for my story. I started writing on Friday for about an hour. I finished about 10 pages. I won't be able to dive in with the three hours a day till she leaves, but I think it's kind of forcing me to do more research than I normally would in the meantime. If she weren't leaving for a year it would be no problem, but again with her leaving for a year, I think I would regret not spending as much time with her as I could have. Anyway, I will be writing my butt off for the next year while she's gone.
Oh, I don’t do drugs or alcohol...I’m a Dr. Pepper man myself.
Oh, I don’t do drugs or alcohol...I’m a Dr. Pepper man myself.
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I do that as well. Thank God for laptops
I agree with Filmy and Bebblebrox, having regular time to write is the only way to get it done. The only difference between what they do and what I do is that I set myself the task of turning out so many pages per day, rather than having a set block of time. I'd agree though that three hours is about the optimum amount of time needed because it's actually the first thirty to forty minutes that are the hardest, when I'm getting back into the story and not much is happening. After that, I've usually got about two hours when it really just flows, providing I don't get any interuptions. The problem with interuptions is it then takes me twenty to thirty minutes to get back into the story again. I think this is the reason I try to get out of the house to do it.
One confession though, for some reason I only really get motivated to write when I've got a pressing deadline. Lots of writers seem to have this problem, I know Douglas Adam was famous for putting stuff off until the last minute. In my case, I was funded to rewrite one of my feature scripts and they gave me a year to work on it, so I of course haven't looked at it since (7 months now). Now if they told me they now needed it this Thursday I wouldn't have any problems, it would get written. I think the thing I've really taken from this thread is just that reminder that I need more discipline in my writing time. I've actually got two feature scripts that I could easily finish with a few weeks work, both of them are commercially viable, I just need to put hte time in every day.
Good thread guys.
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Lenny, what I suggest is that you start off small. Don't jump straight in on the three hours a day - that takes real dedication and is best saved for the mid-to-end point of writing a script.
Before that point you need to collect ideas, bits and bobs, that will come to in the day from anywhere and everywhere (so do have the notebook or dictaphone - my preferred method - with you). Spending three hours writing something is great when you already know what you are going to write about - plot, characters etc - but at first you need to take smaller steps or it can be baffling.
Try taking 30minutes a day thinking about it. Do 15 in the morning, and then 15 at night, when your mind has had a chance to take the morning's ideas and evolve them.
30 minutes a day is not very long and you should be able to ease yourself into it with little difficulty.
30 minutes a day. Monday to Saturday. Sunday is 'reviewing the past week' day. Thats 180 minutes+ a week. Thats 720 minutes a month. Imagine what you could do with that!
Thats like five Pink Floyd albums.
Try this 30minute idea and then, after a while, you have a script idea, characters etc - and then get into the longer time periods.
good luck,
N
Before that point you need to collect ideas, bits and bobs, that will come to in the day from anywhere and everywhere (so do have the notebook or dictaphone - my preferred method - with you). Spending three hours writing something is great when you already know what you are going to write about - plot, characters etc - but at first you need to take smaller steps or it can be baffling.
Try taking 30minutes a day thinking about it. Do 15 in the morning, and then 15 at night, when your mind has had a chance to take the morning's ideas and evolve them.
30 minutes a day is not very long and you should be able to ease yourself into it with little difficulty.
30 minutes a day. Monday to Saturday. Sunday is 'reviewing the past week' day. Thats 180 minutes+ a week. Thats 720 minutes a month. Imagine what you could do with that!
Thats like five Pink Floyd albums.
Try this 30minute idea and then, after a while, you have a script idea, characters etc - and then get into the longer time periods.
good luck,
N
5 pages a day...
I too set a minimum page limit of 5 per day NO MATTER WHAT. I only mentioned the 3 hour minimum because I find that along with the 5 pages, this seems like enough time to actually accomplish something. I would hate to recommend to someone else 5 pages a day no matter what because they might be able to do more or not able to get past 2 or 3...
After all these years of writing, I've kept fairly good track of my time and after about 3 hours, I'm a little burnt out however, every once in a while, I get a second wind and ride that 3 hours out to 5 or 6 hours... I feel kind of guilty staying at the coffee shop that long so I tip well. LOL.
One last point... I only WRITE at the coffee shop. I try not to check email, go online, etc. I do all my research at my desktop at home and save the coffee shop for writing. I will admit that every once in a while, I end up screwing around for 20 to 30 minutes but that's why I like a 3 hour minimum... I still have to sit down and write for the next 2.5 hours. LOL.
Just remember... Even though your girlfriend will be gone for a year, always bring the people you love into the plan. If you don't, they will make the process horrific. Bring them in and get their support and before you know it, you're writing guilt-free.
Good luck.
filmy
clive said:I do that as well. Thank God for laptops
I agree with Filmy and Bebblebrox, having regular time to write is the only way to get it done. The only difference between what they do and what I do is that I set myself the task of turning out so many pages per day, rather than having a set block of time. I'd agree though that three hours is about the optimum amount of time needed because it's actually the first thirty to forty minutes that are the hardest, when I'm getting back into the story and not much is happening. After that, I've usually got about two hours when it really just flows, providing I don't get any interuptions. The problem with interuptions is it then takes me twenty to thirty minutes to get back into the story again. I think this is the reason I try to get out of the house to do it.
One confession though, for some reason I only really get motivated to write when I've got a pressing deadline. Lots of writers seem to have this problem, I know Douglas Adam was famous for putting stuff off until the last minute. In my case, I was funded to rewrite one of my feature scripts and they gave me a year to work on it, so I of course haven't looked at it since (7 months now). Now if they told me they now needed it this Thursday I wouldn't have any problems, it would get written. I think the thing I've really taken from this thread is just that reminder that I need more discipline in my writing time. I've actually got two feature scripts that I could easily finish with a few weeks work, both of them are commercially viable, I just need to put hte time in every day.
Good thread guys.
I too set a minimum page limit of 5 per day NO MATTER WHAT. I only mentioned the 3 hour minimum because I find that along with the 5 pages, this seems like enough time to actually accomplish something. I would hate to recommend to someone else 5 pages a day no matter what because they might be able to do more or not able to get past 2 or 3...
After all these years of writing, I've kept fairly good track of my time and after about 3 hours, I'm a little burnt out however, every once in a while, I get a second wind and ride that 3 hours out to 5 or 6 hours... I feel kind of guilty staying at the coffee shop that long so I tip well. LOL.
One last point... I only WRITE at the coffee shop. I try not to check email, go online, etc. I do all my research at my desktop at home and save the coffee shop for writing. I will admit that every once in a while, I end up screwing around for 20 to 30 minutes but that's why I like a 3 hour minimum... I still have to sit down and write for the next 2.5 hours. LOL.
Just remember... Even though your girlfriend will be gone for a year, always bring the people you love into the plan. If you don't, they will make the process horrific. Bring them in and get their support and before you know it, you're writing guilt-free.
Good luck.
filmy
FilmJumper said:
Good advice Filmy. Writing can be such a solitary existence, I still feel guilty when I write almost anything because it feels too self-involved. I agree with bringing the people you love in on it completely. I (and I don't think filmy did) don't mean get them as equal partners, but let them know that you its a passion for you - thats its your ambition and your future. This way they will always want you to work at it, and it feels less like you are doing it for the internal-gazing, but more towards a social goal so that the ones you love may love you more and that others may actually gain something from your life's work.
John Kennedy Toole was a young man when he killed himself after failing to get his second book published. His mother (a loved one) dedicated herself to it, because she knew how much it meant to him, and eventually the book became a bestseller, a modern Penguin classic and i believe they were/are making a film of it starring that Elf bloke (the confederacy of dunces). Bringing loved ones in saved his life's work.
(thats was quite a pointless story, but I quite fancy ending every post now with an irrelevant anecdote...)
Exactly...
The most important thing is to set your internal writing clock and schedule a time for it... Hopefully, every day. Then, on days you do have to miss out and not write, you'll feel the withdrawal and it'll make missing it the next time that much harder.
filmy
Exactly... and you're correct. I didn't mean bring anyone on as a writing partner... Just let anyone who might be able to make you feel guilty know this is your passion and you have to do it. Makes things a hell of a lot easier in the long run.Nique Zoolio said:
The most important thing is to set your internal writing clock and schedule a time for it... Hopefully, every day. Then, on days you do have to miss out and not write, you'll feel the withdrawal and it'll make missing it the next time that much harder.
filmy
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Actually the timing of this thread is perfect for me. I've spent the last seven months dealing with the financial consequences of dissolving my business partnership and having a £350,000 feature sitting around, not sold.
The end result is that I've not put regular time into writing, because I've been too busy trying to pull together projects that will put food on the table. Now that that's starting to happen, I've got to pull back my comitment to writing everyday. It is the only way to do it.
Getting away from distractions I think is one of the keys for me as well, I once wrote 90 minutes of radio drama in seven days, by taking my laptop into coffee shops and switching my phone off.
Around relationships I think I'm really lucky, my wife is the one who is always saying stuff like "It's 11am, I thought you were going to write today!"
The other thing that I find useful is to write at place the film is set. So the film that I should be working on now is going to be set in either Budapest or Bucharest and it's very tempting for me to get onto a plane next week, hire a cheap apartment and just plug in the laptop. Again it's a getting away from distractions and also getting a feel for the landscape thing. (Of course this is hard to do if your film is set in outerspace/the future or the lower realms of hell
)
Anyhow, enough of this avoidance behaviour, back to the script.
The end result is that I've not put regular time into writing, because I've been too busy trying to pull together projects that will put food on the table. Now that that's starting to happen, I've got to pull back my comitment to writing everyday. It is the only way to do it.
Getting away from distractions I think is one of the keys for me as well, I once wrote 90 minutes of radio drama in seven days, by taking my laptop into coffee shops and switching my phone off.
Around relationships I think I'm really lucky, my wife is the one who is always saying stuff like "It's 11am, I thought you were going to write today!"
The other thing that I find useful is to write at place the film is set. So the film that I should be working on now is going to be set in either Budapest or Bucharest and it's very tempting for me to get onto a plane next week, hire a cheap apartment and just plug in the laptop. Again it's a getting away from distractions and also getting a feel for the landscape thing. (Of course this is hard to do if your film is set in outerspace/the future or the lower realms of hell
)Anyhow, enough of this avoidance behaviour, back to the script.
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Personally i prefer to write at home (even if i could get to a coffe shop i wouldn't). i find public placles to busy, and i easily get distracted. i get the creative juices flowing best at home, listening to Pink Floyd. I just put a CD in, turn on the comp. and start writing. without distractions, i write pretty fast (yesterday i wrote about twenty pages in one hour) because i'm not looking at what other people are doing, just writing.
You gotta find what works for you...
My coffee shop has a back room just for those people with laptops... Nice and air conditioned... Not a lot of light. They store a lot of coffee sacks back there and it's also where they roast all the coffee beans... For some reason, when I go there, it flips a trigger in me that it's time to write...
I have a friend that only writes in his car while sitting in the parking lot at a local public park... That's what works for him...
You gotta find what works for YOU...
filmy
I hear ya... You have to find what works best for you... For me, it's just the opposite. There's so many distractions for me at home that for me, it's just too difficult to sit down and write hence, I go to the coffee shop.pinkkingdom said:
My coffee shop has a back room just for those people with laptops... Nice and air conditioned... Not a lot of light. They store a lot of coffee sacks back there and it's also where they roast all the coffee beans... For some reason, when I go there, it flips a trigger in me that it's time to write...
I have a friend that only writes in his car while sitting in the parking lot at a local public park... That's what works for him...
You gotta find what works for YOU...
filmy
What works for me is
1) if writing isn't going well at the computer take a pad/pen, go outside, and work out dialog at a cafe or in the park, or near a location related to the story if possible. When you transcribe back to your computer presto! You are rewriting and improving the script already. It is stupid to lug your technology everywhere. You don't need scriptwriting software when just sketching ideas.. the format can be constraining at that stage.
2) set goal of X pgs/week - doesn't matter if they are good or bad pages, just get them written, they can be improved later. I have worked my way up to 20 pgs/week and cranked out my current project's first draft in 5 weeks. You will not write a perfect story in the first draft. Get the first draft out so you can rewrite!!
3) do not write in front of girlfriend (or any other friends), they will interrupt you, you will get annoyed, messing up both writing and relationships
4) I personally write better in the morning, a few hours after waking up.
1) if writing isn't going well at the computer take a pad/pen, go outside, and work out dialog at a cafe or in the park, or near a location related to the story if possible. When you transcribe back to your computer presto! You are rewriting and improving the script already. It is stupid to lug your technology everywhere. You don't need scriptwriting software when just sketching ideas.. the format can be constraining at that stage.
2) set goal of X pgs/week - doesn't matter if they are good or bad pages, just get them written, they can be improved later. I have worked my way up to 20 pgs/week and cranked out my current project's first draft in 5 weeks. You will not write a perfect story in the first draft. Get the first draft out so you can rewrite!!
3) do not write in front of girlfriend (or any other friends), they will interrupt you, you will get annoyed, messing up both writing and relationships
4) I personally write better in the morning, a few hours after waking up.
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I can really appreciate that statement, sometimes I'm deadlocked and don't know what to DO!
thanks, kind of an upping for me
-Gratzi
this is for
Beeblebrox !
thanks, kind of an upping for me
-Gratzi
this is for
Beeblebrox !
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My painting professor in college told me that there are two kinds of artists. One enjoys the process/journey. Almost to the point of not being concerned if they ever finish. The other enjoys the finished product and almost detests the journey getting there.
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