Quitting
It’s really about what brings you joy.
Yup, just as the title suggests: sometimes you just gotta quit.
Except this isn’t about me. It’s about my wife. And don’t worry. I’m not mad or angry or concerned or scared or frustrated or jealous. In fact, I told her to quit her job. I told her to quit weeks ago.
Why?
Because she wasn’t happy with her job. That’s it. That’s the reason.
Sure, things will be tough for a bit. We still have rent and bills to pay, mouths the feed. (Side note: we’re moving out of our apt in about a month. To where? Who knows.) But, I’m working and cover our expenses for awhile.
But this is the key: life is too damn short to continue chasing cash or prestige. Sure, money is great. It solves TONS of problems. But it’s not everything. Being happy and living a fulfilling life of experiences and moments solves even more problems. It’s about taking a chance, without a safety net, and betting on yourself that you made the right move because you felt like it.
What does this have to do with writing and living a creative life? Everything. Writing is a damn hard pursuit. Most people fantasize about writing, but hardly anyone is stupid enough to do it. (I use the word “stupid” facetiously, so don’t come at me.)
I haven’t really worked on my current pilot for a few weeks. Sure, I sit my ass down and maybe jot down a few notes and ideas here and there. But have I religiously been sitting down for hours just cranking through exercises and prompts and free writing to figure what exactly my story is? Hell no. Why? Because I got to a place where working on the pilot wasn’t bringing me joy - the story brings me joy but the feeling of “I HAVE TO GET THIS THING DONE AND IT HAS TO BE PERFECT OR MY LIFE IS OVER AND I WILL NEVER HAVE A CAREER” doesn’t. Sure, I’m over-exaggerating here, but the idea is still the same: we get to a point while working on a project when we put too much pressure on ourselves. That stifles creativity more than anything.
So here’s the takeaway: if you’re working on something and either the story or the process of creating the story isn’t bringing you job, then quit. You can always come back.
Quitting doesn’t mean abandoned.
Today’s Accomplishments
Hey! I wrote a blog post 2 days in a row!
Did some SEO work on this website. Still have a ways to go before this thing can be found on Google, but it’s getting there. Building a website by yourself (regardless of how much it’s a plug-and-play website it is) is time-consuming work.
This sounds silly but I finally added the Squarespace app to my iPhone 12 Pro Max. I wanted to add the app to my old phone (iPhone 6s), but that phone was just too damn slow. I tell ya, it feels like a game-changer to have a website-app-tool-thingy on your phone. Now I can prewrite a lot of my stuff on the website instead of sending text messages to myself as reminders of cool shit I wanna write about.
Worked on the next module of The Craft Course I’m taking through the ISA. Some great stuff. Some of it is info/techniques I’m familiar with, but like I mentioned before it’s good to remind yourself of the essentials. This module was focused on the Secondary Character and the Opponent/Villain.
Sketched out brief summaries/loglines for each act and the teaser for my pilot. Nothing super fancy. Just jotted down what I think the A story and B story are about - who are the characters, what’s their objective, where’s the conflict.
Added the backstory I created for the Father in my new pilot to my list of ideas I keep on a Google doc. It’s weird but after I wrote the backstory to a character who will rarely be seen, though is a major factor into the wound/flaw/skill of the main character, I realized I laid out the structure and major storytelling moves for a feature film or a novella. It’s a great concept I came up with and will definitely figure what to do with it later this year when I have the chance.
Continued to work on CASUAL pilot script analysis. Lost a little bit of steam with this short project, but I was able to jump back on the horse today and work through analyzing a few scenes. My notes and analysis are pretty in-depth right now. When I start writing everything up I’ll have to clarify my thinking and remove any redundancies.
Tomorrow’s Tasks/Goal
Let’s keep the blogging thing going, shall we?
Gotta read two scripts and prep feedback for my Friday writers’ group. Hopefully I can get through one tomorrow and the other on Wednesday.
Revise my pilot loglines/summaries for each act and email it to my accountability group for feedback.
Finish up some behind the scenes work for this website - SEO and some new pages I’m designing.
Today’s Story Worthy Moment
Just circling back to what I wrote at the start of the post - my wife quit her job and our next steps are very much up in the air. Can’t find anymore drama and conflict in a story than that.
If I think about this idea from a drama perspective I’d probably focus on how a person’s job doesn’t provide them with the happiness they desire. In fact, it might be a story about how losing everything means gaining all the love you need to be happy.
If I look at the idea from a comedic point of view, then there might be some interesting story areas to delve into concerning a woman who’s undergoing a mid-life crisis and wants to do something drastic with her life - divorce her husband, quit her job, and become a social media influencer or starts her own dispensary, or some follow some crazy childhood dream/memory. Okay, I admit, I have no idea how I could make this idea funny, but I’m sure there’s a way.
