Lighting Up Stories
Image by Лера_K from Pixabay What is Burnout? I didn’t know what burnout was until I experienced it in 2017. Before that, I knew what fatigue was. I knew stress, exhaustion and depression but I didn’t know what burnout was. It was so severe that …
Photo by StockSnap @ Pixabay Two years ago, I wrote a post called ‘Healing with Journaling’. I was a bit naive to claim that we could heal from traumas. What I should have said instead is that writing is a therapy. So, if writing doesn’t …
‘I have an idea for a film, a book, a play’…
‘Great! When do you start writing your first draft?’
Silence…
Usually followed by:
‘Ah, it’s a complex story, I need to do more research’
or
‘Yes when I quit (fill the blank) smoking, drinking, my job, my wife….
or
‘You don’t get it! This project is bigger than me!’
Oh yes, I get it.
It has a name: Procrastination which is a good friend of Fear.
Days, weeks, months, even years could go by, without writing a line on your big idea. It’s not nice.
In addition, you feel guilty about it. It’s not nice either.
So what shall we do about it?
Firstly we brainstorm ideas. This is my favorite phase of creation.
I bubble some ideas, some characters, plots, locations. I also do some research, I read books on the topic. I watch films on the subject, I write notes in my journal. Even more efficient, I tear pictures from magazines to make a collage of my next project. It’s a messy job but it’s soooo good.
This the time when you’re allowed to be CRAZY, to have FUN, to HAVE A BLAST with your brain and your creativity.
‘To live a creative life, we must lose our fear to be wrong.’ Joseph Chilton Pearce
Don’t take months to do this phase though. One month is enough.
I can hear you from here saying: ‘But what if you haven’t finished my research?’
No worries. Move on to the next stage AND continue researching.
Don’t give all your time to research because then it becomes procrastination.
Secondly, you organize your ideas.
That’s when you discover how bonkers you are and how creative more importantly.
What you need to do is to go through all your notes and decide what to keep and what to trash. Please trust the process, it’s all good.
It’s also a good idea to organize the ideas that you want to keep so it’s easier to find them while you’re writing.
Give yourself a week or two to do so.
Thirdly, you find the spine of your ideas. From there, as an architect, you’re going to build a solid foundation. It’s the structure. In other words, you articulate clearly what you want to say and how you want to say it. It’s storytelling.
You need to tell the story in a way that keeps everyone engaged that’s what the structure is for. It’s heavy work.
I invite you to divide your work into small pieces. First, build up your main structure, then your scene by scene. For each one, evaluate how long it will take you to write it.
I give myself a week or two to do so.
As I’m a lazy writer, I have small achievable targets. If they are too big, I get overwhelmed.
Some people like setting targets in terms of word count (500 words to 2000 words a day). Personally, I set my targets in terms of time I have available to write. I don’t bother with how many words I put on the page, as long as I write something.
How do I kick-start each writing session? I tell myself: ‘Let’s write for five minutes’.
Five minutes is not scary, right? So I go for it.
Consequently, I never write for five minutes. It’s always between 30 minutes and two hours. However, if I had said to myself ‘let’s write for half an hour’, I would have scared myself too much and find excuses not to write.
So put some music on, create a space for your creativity and just write.
Studies have shown that writing reduces stress faster than walking. So take it as a relaxing time for yourself.
A deadline of 2-4 months to write your first draft seems reasonable.
Please don’t expect to be brilliant on your first draft. It won’t be.
Hemingway said: ‘The first draft of anything is shit.’
That’s a good reason not to worry about it. You can relax your shoulders and enjoy the process. Have a blast!
‘The need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any art at all.’ Julia Cameron
I find it reassuring actually. It allows you to be bad writer and to make mistakes. It’s easier to write a bad prose than good one. Aim for excellence at the re-writes. And that’s another story…
Good luck!
Photo by Jess Bailey @ Pixabay Why would you spend time on a business plan? Probably because it’s the first step to take your artistic career seriously. ‘A goal without a plan is just a wish’ Antoine de St Exupéry If you’re driving, unsure of …
Photo by Colin Behrens @ Pixabay I have never liked January and its New Year resolutions time. I don’t see the point. Each year is what you DAILY make it… for 365 days. Many times, I saw people making plans and giving them up after …
It’s not you who choose a book, it’s the book that chooses you.
Have you ever come across a book that matches exactly how you felt? Or answered a question that you had in mind? Or simply felt a sudden urge to read a book?
When I was a kid, I was a lone child with no friends. My parents thought that boredom would be good for me, that it would stimulate my imagination. My options being limited, I decided to live there. In my imagination.
At school, my parents were often called by the headteacher: ‘Your daughter seems to be living with the fairies’. That fact seemed to upset everyone around me. I didn’t see where the problem was. The fairies were far nicer than my peers who often welcomed me by a ‘hey midget, did you have a fight with a mosquito last night?’ (referring to my spotty face).
At home, there was no books. My parents were too busy working, no time for reading so therefore no books.
Once, I hid in the attic of my grandma’s countryside house, among the spiders. There, I discovered a treasure: Agatha Christie and Ian Fleming (my uncle’s books). These books were old, smelled of naphthalene and humidity and I loved it. That’s how I became a bookworm.
At 11, I had a new french Teacher, Madame B. (I send her many blessings wherever she is). She asked the headmaster to make a library out of the built-in wardrobe in her class-which was granted.
One day, she called me and asked me to choose one book out of her ‘Narnia’ wardrobe.
I didn’t know what to choose, it was all a bit overwhelming. She gave me ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’. I read it within hours. Every week, I came for more: Italo Calvino, Samuel Beckett, Albert Camus….
The following year, Madame B. gave feeding instructions to my next French teacher, Madame D.: ‘This girl eats books’.
Madame D. (bless you wherever you are too) took her feeding instructions very seriously and gave me ‘Le Rouge et le Noir’ (‘The Red and The Black’) by Stendhal. It was a shock. From the first page, I couldn’t leave the book alone. When I finished it, I told her: ‘I’ll never be able to read another book again. This was the best one ever’.
Madame D., who was a beautiful human being, laughed out loud. ‘Don’t be silly, of course you will!’. She gave me other books to read: Flaubert, Boris Vian, Pascal, Balzac… I did enjoy them all but not as much as ‘The Red and the Black’. It wasn’t as… intense.
With her, however, I discovered a taste for philosophy. One day, she gave me to read Candide by Voltaire (the French equivalent of Shakespeare). Saying that I loved this book would be an understatement.
At 17, I do my Baccalauréat. My French exam is an oral where an examiner has to choose a text out of 15 books. I enter the room very nervous and wait for her to tell me the name of the book. She scrolls down her list and stops her long fingernail on a name: Candide, Voltaire.
I couldn’t believe my luck.
For 20 minutes, I couldn’t shut up. When my time was up, she said she had never met someone who knew so much about this book. She gave me the highest mark she has ever given.
I walked out of her office, feeling as tall as the Eiffel tower.
That day, I had a revelation. It wasn’t a coincidence.
All the reading moments in my life led me to that one. That book chose me, Voltaire, chose me.
Something is guiding us. The French philosopher Pascal was right.
That day, I had the confirmation about something I had suspected all my life: there is something more to life that what we are all brainwashed to believe. It’s not all about the economy.
2012. I’m married with two babies. They are my life, my reason to live. Yet, my bubbly self is gone. Whatever I do, I seem to go on downward spiral. A friend, who knows me well, is desperate to see me happy again. She puts a book in my hand: The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.
I read it and I didn’t feel anything.
It was a bit too much for me, this ‘positive thinking/outcome’ thing. My life was dark, I couldn’t see any way out. I gave it back to her. She tried to convince me to look deeper into it but I wasn’t having it.
Years later, I worked in a little shop in the UK. Once a customer gave me a gift: The Secret. This book again! I thanked her and told her I had already read it. But she insisted that I should read it again. I accepted it but soon after, I passed it to another friend.
2016. Another friend gives me the same book. It couldn’t be just a coincidence. Why did it keep showing up in my life? I sat down and looked at it: ‘All right then. Show me what you’ve got’.
While I was ready to give a shot to the message of this book, something happened. Three upsetting things came up all in the same week : The council wanted to close my husband’s business, a huge debt showed up from a gas bill, and a problem with my son at school.
I started to panic but quickly I understood what was going on. I had decided to change my ways and I was being tested.
I had the choice. I could either react like I always did or I could try something new (and totally unfamiliar) and follow the guidance of a little book. I opted for the latter.
I won’t give you the details because it would bore you to death but within two weeks my three problems were gone and dusted.
The school admitted they had made a mistake, the debt was illegal so it got erased and my husband’s business kept going.
Needless to say, I didn’t sort everything out by myself, a lot of people helped us to make it right again but I looked for these people, I expected solutions to appear. And they appeared. All thanks to a book.
The book itself is irrelevant.
The last book I read was ‘Happy Money’ by Ken Honda. Before reading this book, I never thought you could put these two words together: Happy and Money.
Turned out, apparently, you can.
This book changed my perspective on money and moreover, on spending.
‘Happy Money’ was suggested to me by a friend, I followed her piece of advice and I’m glad I did.
In other words, each book carries a personal message for us. They change our perception of life and enlarge our vision. Books are Dots.
However when the book presents itself to us, we have no idea it’s a dot. It’s only looking back that you realized it was one.
As Steve jobs said: You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
2018. While on a train to London, I was reading a book from my mentor Lucy V. Hay. The woman in front of me was intrigued by it so we talked about it. I didn’t know it then, but this person was going to be one of my closest friend and also a strong business ally. A book, a dot, connected our paths and has changed my life.
In conclusion, I would invite you to observe the dots sent to you. Take it as a game if you wish. Try it for a week or two, just observe the dots, the messages, the people who are sent to you. And each time ask yourself: what is there for me to learn?
Let me know.
I would like to finish with a quote from Catherine Ann Jones: ‘What we read influences us as thought is a powerful thing — both positively and negatively. What food are you putting inside your mind?‘
Thank you for reading x
This post is dedicated to my dear friends and book whisperers Saskia and Sally Bibb.
Photo Montage Daniel Gardiner Born Depressed Virginia Woolf, Anne Rice, Paul Verlaine, Stephen King… for many writers, depression is not an unknown guest and often takes its roots in early childhood. The reasons might differ – emotional or physical abuse, abandonment, neglect… the list can …
Picture by Mohamed Hassan @Pixabay You might come across them in stories or in real life. They wear all sorts of disguises. So who are the mentors? What is their purpose and why do we need them? Let’s dive in… 1. The Master of Craft …
Phil Clarke (aka Philmscribe) is a UK-based script consultant and screenwriter with over twenty years service to cinema.
After years working at the coal face of film on such features as Sleepy Hollow, Enigma, The Beach and two of the biggest box office franchises: Star Wars and Harry Potter, Phil turned to writing – both for the page and the screen. His screenplays have been optioned both in the UK and Hollywood and his books have been published worldwide.
Phil: Pleasure!
Sophie: Why is it so important for a screenwriter to work with a consultant?
Sophie: You often say that the writer’s voice is important, why?
Sophie: Do you think screenplays competitions are still worth it? And if yes, which ones? Which events a screenwriter should attend?
Sophie: Who is/was your mentor and what has she/he taught you?
Phil: I never had one single individual who acted as a mentor; it was more of a collective. The years spent working for movie productions, on the sets of major films, seeing first-hand how the likes of Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam, George Lucas, Chris Columbus, Michael Apted did their thing was a huge learning experience for me. I was fortunate to closely shadow Chris Columbus on the first two Harry Potter films, was with him on-set, in the rushes theatre watching dailies, in the production office, in editing, and accompanied him to all departments during principal photography and this priceless level of access – not to mention having the chance to bend his ear and get his take on filmmaking and writing and having him read my early work – allowed me to fully understand the filmmaking and script development processes.
I’ll never forget the best piece of advice he gave me. At the time, I was poring over paradigms and screenwriting formulae, and when I asked him about the validity of these, he turned to me and said: “Just write an entertaining story.” It was his way of telling me not to rely on these overworked plot structures, but focus on telling a story that entertains. If you can do this honestly, then you’re on the right track.
Sophie: What inspires you?
Phil: Great writing. Indomitable perseverance. Plucky underdogs. Unwavering self-belief. Beautiful cinematography. Effortless prose. Unyielding passion.
Sophie: Which screenplay do you wish you had written?
Phil: Oooh good question! Hard to pick just one. Those that come to mind right now — Se7en. Back To The Future. Raiders of the Lost Ark. There are also some I wish I’d written as I feel I’d have taken them in a different direction… but out of respect, I think I’ll keep these to myself!
Sophie: What is the project that challenged you the most? How did you get through it?
Phil: That’s a tough one to answer. I can’t really go into specifics about a particular script, but consistently the projects that tend to challenge me the most are those for which I’ve been hired to perform an Anglicisation Edit. I do have quite a number of writers who don’t count English as their first or main language but have written in this tongue and wish for me to improve the authenticity of their dialogue and action. This can be quite the task, particularly when the writer’s intention isn’t clear. Consequently, there is a lot of back and forth to establish intention so I can communicate exactly what the writer requires.
Sophie: What do you do when you get stuck on your writing?
Phil: Ask questions. Work out WHY I am stuck. What am I struggling with. Then study the answers I’ve come up with and within these should be the way forward on how to get unstuck. Sounds simplistic, but it works.
Sophie: Are you writing at the moment? Can you tell us something about it?
Phil: I’m always writing. Whether it be lengthy reports on scripts, script commissions, polishing other people’s projects, rewriting, creative email correspondence, articles on writing etc etc… But I assume you mean, writing my own creative projects. The answer’s yes though only when I can spare the time as my clients’ work comes first, always. Right now, I’m doing some major world-building on an ambitious time travel idea. That’s about all I can say right now.
Sophie: If you could share one secret about screenwriting, what would it be?
Phil: These days, I don’t believe there are any secrets about screenwriting. There is no magic formula to success, no shortcut to making it. You just need to do the hard graft, keep practising, keep honing your craft, work on your storytelling abilities and writing style and build that portfolio of solid, engaging, entertaining work. Secrets suggest there’s some kind of hidden way, that all the people who have made it and are working in the industry are aware of it and aren’t sharing. Not so.
Here is a list of books that have changed my craft. I really hope some of them will help you too. So to be clear with everyone, I don’t get sponsored for this list and these books are not classified in order of importance either. …