TRANSCRIPT

So, I’m going to talk about something that I don’t like. I don’t think I’ve ever met a creative person who likes them: deadlines. You have reached the point where you're ready to write a draft. It may not be perfect. In fact, I can guarantee you that it won't be. There's very little in this world that approaches perfection, but the goal here is to keep you on deadline, so I want you to set a realistic schedule for writing over the next week and over the next few weeks. You can do this following the outline in the course. Deadlines are my nemesis as much as they are yours. Just interestingly enough, I often produce a large volume of work as my deadline approaches, and I think that's because it comes down to the line and I have to overcome my fears, and I often ask myself, “Where do those fears come from?”

For me, it's maybe this daunting realization that I'm not sure that anything that I can make is good enough to occupy the time with my reader, or to occupy, you know, the screen time of the film. This idea that maybe what I'm creating isn't worthy of attention, and I really have to set that aside because that's a form of pride in and of itself. It's really focusing on me and what I think, and not chasing down the story. It's the opposite side of the coin, but it's also the same coin as believing that everything I do is great. You know, I’ve met some writers who just think, “Everything I do is great! I’ve got no room for improvement!” and that can be an equally difficult challenge to overcome. So, as you begin the drafting process, I really want you to just take a deep breath and ask yourself: What are you afraid of? What is going to hold you back? Write it down and put it on that little note and burn it or tear it up, toss it to the wind. What do you have to lose? If you create a draft that you want nobody to read, you don't have to show it to anybody! You know, if you create a draft that you're exceedingly proud of and you show it to other people and you think it's perfect and they tell you it's not perfect, okay! You start over and you try again.

Accept the fact that it's going to be a struggle and don't get discouraged when it is. I think that wrestling through the story, when I look back on the most meaningful moments in my life as a writer or as a filmmaker or as a professor or just as a day-to-day person, some of the most meaningful memories I have are things that I had to earn and to wrestle through in the moment. I often, for students, compare this to what it's like when we go to the gym. We have the expectation when we go to the gym and we lift weights that we’re going to be a little sore tomorrow, right? It taxes our muscles, it pushes us beyond our boundaries, it even breaks down the muscles a little bit. Then we rest and then we do it again, but over time we get stronger. That's what I want you to do as you go to draft. Be willing to accept that you're going to struggle, you're going to have to move past scenes without them being perfect, but the goal is to just get your 100 pages down, your 120 pages down on paper, and from there you can go back, fine-tune it, elevate it, work through it again. So keep pushing on, go over to the writer's community if you’re feeling discouraged, chat with other writers, take a break, go for a walk. If you're dealing with writer's block, I recommend that you just do something completely different. Don't sit in front of your computer and stare at it, but if you are distracted, force yourself to sit down and spend a certain amount of time writing every day. You'd be surprised how creative you can get when you put yourself on a deadline. It sounds like an oxymoron but it really is true. Deadlines: can’t live with them, can't write without them.

I think I realized I wasn't alone in hating deadlines, truly realized it, when one of my professors gave me permission to hate them, and this is again Richard Walter. So thanks, Richard, for the great influence our time in class has had on my life. I was in summer school on campus at UCLA and I arrived the first day of class, and I thought, “Oh my gosh, I really hope I can keep up with the work in this course,” and Richard began the course by telling us about what it took to be a writer. He said, “You know, writers get up in the morning and we check our email, we take the dog for a walk, we make breakfast, and then we have a cup of coffee, and then we think, oh, I really should go get the mail, and then by then it's nearly lunch time, so we really shouldn’t start writing because if we write now, we’ll be interrupted later, so we have lunch, a friend calls after lunch, they invite us to go see the next best movie, the Blockbuster of the summer, and so we’re like, sure, I want to see that movie, it'll inspire me to write, and then we come home from the movie, we're going to write, it’s going to be a great writing moment, but the dog needs to go out for a walk again, and then it’s nearly dinner time, and now we’re tired, so we'll just go to bed early, and then we'll get up and write tomorrow. Tomorrow’s going to be a writing day.” Richard looked at us and just sort of smiled and said, “Get up, live through that every day for two weeks, and then you'll be in such a panic that you will lock yourself in your home and you will write all day long and you will meet your deadline.”

Has it made it any more comfortable for me to write on deadline? Absolutely not. I hate them. I get really frustrated with them. Sometimes I feel like I'm just not going to find what I need to, and at the end of the day, as they say, the play must go on. It always does. So, you know, figure out what's good for you. I go for walks, I salsa dance, I watch movies, I read books, I talk to my friends, I get frustrated, I run out of time, and in the end I just have to sit down and write. So, I think I reach a point of frustration where I can't not write or I'm not going to be happy, and that's when the magic happens for me, but it's going to be different for all of you. I mean, write to me. If you find a way to not hate deadlines, or you find a way to make them more enjoyable, I'd love to hear from you because it hasn't happened for me yet!

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