A documentation about writing the ultimate heist novel.
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I’ve noticed my blog posts and videos over the past couple months have the same recurring theme about writing this book – keep showing up - like a broken record. I’m recognizing that it’s been a subliminal message to myself.
Here’s why I think I’ve been saying it and something we can do together about Day 1.
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I have this vision of a complete book, done and published. I would like to say that it is enough to have made it but in reality I also dream of lots of people reading it and liking it. Followed by movie rights. Then flying first class to watch the Monaco Grand Prix. All very reasonable, and likely.
Despite my shortcomings, I know that none of these things could really be the core driving force behind my effort. It’s too much work.
I’d love to say that the process is its own reward but I’m not enlightened enough to say that yet.
So today I will try and psycho-analyze myself in another way.
Yesterday Minus One
After taking a little more than a week off after draft two I began to get antsy. I felt something creeping in and in this I realized the reason I needed to work.
When I work every day I feel like I’m climbing the long stair case to some dream. I feel progress. Closer to what I hope to achieve (I know ‘achievement’ is not very Zen, can we please table that for now please?).
I thought one was supposed to relax after a long stretch of writing, so I told myself. I planned to chill on the book for a few weeks. It sounded like an author-ly thing to do.
Relaxing and just living is key but what I found was when I stopped working for too long I felt like my dream was the same distance away as it was yesterday. Frozen in the future, beyond arms reach. And there it would stay, out of reach forever.
So, even though I am beginning to embrace process over results and even though I sometimes even embrace a glimmer of patience I still can’t get over being the same length away from this goal as I was yesterday.
I don’t even know how many days away I am. Five hundred? Five thousand?
Whatever it is, I need today to be one less day than yesterday. ‘Yesterday minus one’.
So there you go. I’m no Buddhist.
The Case For Creativity
I will still attempt to say something in the defense of the process, after all I do enjoy it.
It feels like I’m sorting out some kind of cosmic jigsaw puzzle, one I have to solve in order for humanity to survive.
This is funny because in the grand scheme of things it’s not at all critical to the human race whether I finish this thing or not.
Or is it?…
Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) says something like, you have to believe that your creativity is both the most important thing in the world and that it doesn’t matter at all.
Both. Simultaneously.
Let me come back to that.
I have this re-occurring thought that pops into my mind: what is the first thing you do when you get out of work?
We take our walks and talk to our people but we also turn on Spotify, crack a book, and watch some good Netflix. I could also ask - what do we turn to during a pandemic?
See what I’m getting at? Given all that, how could we say that creativity and storytelling is not important?
Say you and I were standing around a burning oil drum, warming our hands in the aftermath of the apocalypse, I already know the first thing I’d ask you: know any good jokes?
Nothing is at stake. Everything is at stake.
On Starting
Getting started is hard. Getting re-started is hard. It’s so daunting, but here’s a trick.
That first day there is only one thing you need to accomplish: get your butt in the chair. Twenty minutes, fifteen minutes, ten. It doesn’t matter.
Forget progress, forget milestones. All that matters at the end of your first day is that you showed up. So sit down at the typewriter, stand in front of the canvas, walk around the gym picking your nose, whatever it is.
Twyla Tharp (famous dancer/choreographer) once said about never missing a morning workout that the key to the whole thing was getting in the cab.
Once you show up the stuff will happen.
But don’t worry about that. Just get in the cab.
Showing up starts momentum.
Ron Jones (famous composer) said the only genius of the Beatles was that they sat their ass in the chair, everyday. I’m seeing a pattern.
So, whatever your dreams are. Big, small, medium, I’ll give us all one easy, attainable objective that we can do together for day 1: sit our asses in the chair.
Let’s worry about day 2 tomorrow.
Have some thoughts? Feel free to drop a comment or hit me up: charlie@charleskunken.com
Other Posts In The Hollywood Heist Series
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