On Tuesday April 1st, I completed work on the first draft of a sports film I wrote. The last twenty pages felt like pulling teeth.
When I read this post back the first time, I realized that I used the word "hate" a lot, and as such, I would like to preempt this blog by clarifying my usage. I don't hate writing or the process of it or any of it really. When I say "hate," what I really mean is "frustration." The problem is that "frustration" doesn't hit the same as "hate." It's not sharp or tart the way that "hate" is. It's less satisfying. Nevertheless, I am frustrated because writing is difficult and requires rewriting in order to get a piece to where you want it to be. And this entry is about the inability to reach that place on the first attempt.
Every writer approaches their work differently, views their work different, and feels strongly one way or another about the process. Almost every writer I know hates some part of the process. Some hate the actual writing, yet can't help themselves from doing it. Some love all of it. I don't know those people, but I know they both exist and also look down on those of us that wrestle with it. Your process is almost certainly different than mine. My personal belief is that you are not allowed to love your work until you have hated everything about it first. That's been my experience, so it's what I believe. Ask me in a year whether that's still true and I will probably have a different answer (please don't, actually.)
I don't claim to have any grand knowledge on writing or the process or anything like that. I'm not successful by any measure, let alone as a writer. Even when I am successful, it's in a very specific context. What I do know is that this draft (like any early draft) was satisfying in some ways and profoundly difficult in many others. I am still learning how to write features at this stage of my career, not just broadly speaking, but how I write features. The longer I pursue this deeply foolish and profoundly silly career path, the more I come to believe that not only is their no set path for a career in the arts (surprise), but the most valuable thing an artist can do is to know themselves fully. More simply: How I work is different from how you work because we are different people. I didn't fully understand that concept until this year, and as such, I am still figuring out how exactly I do things rather than just following some template I read on the internet for writing a feature script in eight weeks and then hating myself when I don't pull that off.
I wrote my first feature by winging it; I threw it on to the page and figured I'd sort it out later (I still haven't, but I plan to later this year.) With this, my second feature (also a first draft), I very specifically sought to work out a decent outlining process. It took three months for me to have an outline I was comfortable moving forward with. As I was finishing my outline, I started to hate that part of the process because I wanted to move on to the script. When I wrote the script, it was a relief and a pleasure until I also started to hate it. There have been many moments of joy. Sometimes there is pure happiness in writing an exposition scene or a small middle scene. The ending was a pure pleasure to put to page. Other times, there is unending misery in writing a scene that worked in your outline but is a disaster in practice. Experienced writers surely know this because that is the secret definition of professional experience: knowing which parts of your work will make you miserable.
But I don't know these things until I know them. I am hard headed like my father and stubborn like my mother and I have to learn these things the hard way. So this draft, like most first drafts, blows. It is hilariously uneven, the characters are driven by the plot needs instead of a cohesive psychology, the story has weird beats shoehorned in because I didn't realize I needed a scene until I needed it, there are too many characters that all serve the same function, and honestly, the language is probably repetitive and terrible and I hate it.
But that's why it's a first draft. I will not hate it forever because someday I am going to make it good enough that maybe, just maybe, someone will read it and think "hey this isn't bad." I will sink the years into it that it deserves because I love this story and this world and this theme, even if it is very far from what I want it to be. It's a first draft and it is done. And that is all that matters.
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