Getting Unstuck When You’re Feeling Stuck

I’m having a challenging time writing during this Frenzy and I wasn’t sure why until I had a quick chat with our ED, Grant Faulkner. This year I decided to write a feature that is comprised of four shorts linked together by a river. I thought it would be a snap because in my mind it meant that I would avoid the stormy seas of writing the second act of a traditional script. I was wrong. Every single time I sit down to write I feel stuck, and I can’t help but feel a little defeated.

When I mentioned this to Grant he pointed out that it’s probably harder to write four short films than it is to write a 100-page script because I would have to write four beginnings, four middles, and four endings. Bells and whistles went off in my head when I heard those words. In essence I’m doing four mini-Script Frenzy’s this April. I guess it means that I’m a “superstar!” (Said in the voice of Mary Katherine Gallagher.)[[MORE]]

While this realization doesn’t make the Frenzy any easier for me, it does shed light on why I’m feeling stuck. Taking on such an ambitious task has ruffled my inner critic’s feathers, and when my inner critic’s feathers are ruffled, its voice gets really loud. This voice has triggered my perfectionist streak, and now, every line of dialogue I write and every scene I set up just makes the rest of my script seem wrong.

The author Julia Cameron explains in her book, The Artist’s Way, “The perfectionist fixes one line of a poem over and over—until no lines are right.” She also says, “The perfectionist writes so many versions of scene one that she never gets to the rest of the play.” This is exactly what I’m doing, and since I intend to reach my 100-page goal by April 30th, I’ve decided to start using a technique called the “Morning Pages” that she mentions in her book. It’s a technique that helped keep me writing in the past and I’m banking on it working now.

It works like this:

Buy a spiral notebook and a pen (we’re kicking it old school).
Put them beside your bed.
When the alarm goes off in the morning, grab your notebook and pen and fill three pages of longhand writing with whatever comes to your mind (pure stream-of-consciousness).
When you’re done close the notebook and place it back on your nightstand (don’t go back and read what you wrote).
Nobody is allowed to read your pages except for you (wait six months before you read them).

I’ll let you know how it goes. In the meantime, I’d love to hear about techniques you use when you’re feeling stuck!

Photo by Flickr user Alyssa Murkin