I've spent a great deal of time over the past several years trying to convince talented people to write. I've had some success at it, and turned that goal into a couple of interesting projects--first The Offbeat and now Revelator.
Still, I've had to admit to myself my efforts have been both self-interested and self-defeating. Part of my goal in encouraging the people around me to write has been to try and create a context for my own work. I've always been fascinated by Lost Generation writers of the 1920s and Beat writers of the 1950s. I love the idea of a common project with overlapping goals and assumptions. I love artistic movements.
At the same time, trying to get other people to write has been a form of creative procrastination. If I have a hand in someone else's work, then it mitigates my responsibility to create my own. There is a great deal of the editor and the archivist in me, but I like to think that's not all I am.
I've found myself on the other side of the equation in the past couple of years. A friend of mine has been trying to draw a script out of me. We've been talking for quite a while, and it's time to put some concentrated work into it again. I need to revisit some of my short story ideas and rediscover if there's anything there.
There are few things more terrifying than the blank page, but there's only one way to get over that fear: confront it again, and again, and again.
1 comment:
We'll get through this together. As soon as you get that copy of Final Draft 7 it's on!
Post a Comment