Cant get motivated for a rewrite...

sigepwriter

sigepwriter

Member
Okay so I've written quite a few feature length screenplays, and my last one I consider my best work... so much so I plan on directing it myself in 2010. Problem is I know there are some flaws. I know what I want to change about it, but for some reason I just cant get motivated. It's not like I'm starting with a blank page one or anything...

I work a 5 am job as a simulcast morning show producer (don't get excited its a no name TV station) so right now I'm using "I'm tired" as an excuse... but It's not writers block... my journal is full of my chicken-scratch rewrite ideas...

Dunno... Ideas?

/end rant
 
This may be a dumb suggestion, but read your script. Often times reading a script in it's entirety will give you good motivation.
 
Fear of actually fixing it, fear of actual success? Because if you fix it, i.e. revise it, then you know what that means-- you will have to direct it as you said. And that means a whole new bundle of work. Maybe tell yourself you might not direct it, you might sell it, and then buy a nice Porsche and villa in France. :)
 
It's work... and work is difficult and we want to avoid it.

But it has to be done. So just carve out an hour a day and rewrite 5 pages a day. If your rewrite involves major changes, find the way to break that up into bite sized pieces so that you can do a small amount of work a day and actually finish what you set out to do every day. If you try to do too much it is easy to get discouraged... so keep the tasks small.

Then, just do it. You may not be in the mood, but when you are at the day job you may not be in the mood to do something and you do it anyway because you have to. Well, you have to do this, too. When you are your own boss, sometimes you have to be a mean boss and crack the whip.

A big problem is momentum - it is always more difficult to start than to keep going. So force yourself to start - and that may not be pretty. But once you get going and you are rewriting your manageable pieces every day, you can make it to the end... and then go back and look at the beginning where you had a hard time getting started and rewrite that again.

Writing is work.

- Bill
 
Another way to approach a rewrite is by looking at one character and fixing dialogue, cutting things by focusing like, maybe on your main character. While this may seem a little off-beat, you'll begin to see the script as vertical color lines that you are tweaking on your tv screen to make sure blue is blue and green is green.

Think of your script as a vertical puzzle and work on a character at a time.

Before you know it, you would have revised the whole script.
 
The more I read my own scripts, the more stuff I feel needs to be rewritten/changed. I'm just picky like that.
 
You'll find by the time the script is "done" in your mind, the entire thing will have been rewritten. A pilot my friend and I made was like that. from first draft to final draft not a single thing was kept. But it wasn't a sudden change, it was a very gradual change over a number of rewrites.
 
Hi siegpwriter, I noticed you wrote:

I work a 5 am job as a simulcast morning show producer (don't get excited its a no name TV station) so right now I'm using "I'm tired" as an excuse... but It's not writers block... my journal is full of my chicken-scratch rewrite ideas...

----

I agree with wcmartell's advice about setting an achievable target of 5 pages a day. Also, have you tried pretending you are a film reviewer writing a 5 star review of your film? Sometimes exercises like this help to unblock your mind.

However, from you've written, it sounds like that your job is what is causing the most strain on your creativity. I used to work at an accounting firm while making a short film. Because it filled up so much of my time and was so draining, it took about a year to write and finish the damn thing. Then I decided to get leverage and work in a different job that was less demanding and more conducive to my creativity. I find working in a supermarket gives me more time to put all of my energies into my film projects. My advice would be to find a job that is in congruence with your creative goals, not in opposition. If writing is what you want to do, don't let your other job hold you to ransom.
 
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Thanks for all the encouraging replies! I know I have to get it done, I know I want to get it done I guess all I need to do is just sit down and get started... maybe I should stop browsing DVX user and actually open final draft...
 
I leave my computer on in front of me on the project so that everytime I look up it's there...can't avoid looking at it.

I find if it's infront of me I am more likely to do it than if I have to open it up...
 
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