Making space for screenwriting
Figuratively but also very literally
Welcome to another week of life on the road. This week, we’re currently in Tucson, Arizona, enjoying views of mountains all around us and bright, desert sunshine almost every day.
In our Seattle townhouse, Aaron and I had two small bedrooms. One we used as our bedroom, and the other started as a reading/music room (plus my closet, because the closets were tiny and there was no sharing one bedroom closet). Then the pandemic hit, and the second bedroom became an office.
It went through several iterations, but we finally landed on a setup that worked well for two people working from home. We each had a desk on opposite walls, and I set out to make my side the perfect writing space.
I put a cork board on the wall for outlining scripts. A thin bookcase in the corner pulled double duty as a getting ready station (hair products, makeup, etc.) and a shelf for writing needs. A peg board directly above my desk with cups and shelves held pens, note cards, stapler, and so on. I got bookends that spelled out WRI-TER for Christmas one year, and I gave them a prominent spot on my desk.
I worked downstairs for the day job while Aaron used the upstairs office, but after work hours, I had my functional and cozy writing spot all to myself.
And then we decided to travel and move around, and my cozy writing space was dismantled and put into storage. And my screenwriting took a dip.
Now, I already wasn’t writing a ton in 2022. I finished a draft of a feature early in the year, I hadn’t started the next project yet, and then we got sucked into moving and traveling for several months. And I got myself back into writing at all by starting this newsletter. So other than a few revisions on that feature, I didn’t write anything else.
But lately, I’ve been feeling the itch to start the next script project, and that’s when I realized how much I missed that dedicated space.
See, when I write essays, I tend to just sit down and write, either by hand in a notebook or on my laptop. The whole process from idea to first draft to final published version happens in basically the same place.
This is not how I write scripts; I’m much more physical. I used the cork board in my office to pin up notecards as I worked on the story and outline. The pinning and moving of cards is a part of the process. (Pacing, sitting on the floor, and groaning in frustration are also part of the process.)
And as we’ve moved from Airbnb to Airbnb, without a cork board or those other tools, I haven’t set aside any space for that outlining and pacing.
Recently, I had a Zoom call with another screenwriter, and it got me excited about writing the next script. After the call, I immediately went to the dining table and started making space for my next script.
I cleared off two-thirds of the table (the other third is where I’m set up to do day job work). I made labels for the different sections of the script (for a feature, I go with Act 1, Act 2A, Act 2B, and Act 3).
And then I got out the note cards.
Oooh it felt good! Just giving myself permission to take up this space with my writing got the juices flowing. And once I started writing down big story beats on cards, I realized how much I do already have in mind for this script.
Every Airbnb won’t have a spacious dining table, so I’ll have to think about how this process moves from one place to the other (maybe I can use something like sticky tack for putting cards on a wall without damaging the paint - is that still a thing?).
But I can already see that it helps. It’s a visual reminder that there’s a script in progress to come back to. It’s a puzzle to walk by and ponder as I go about my day. It’s a cue to block out the time for working.
Making a physical space for the creative process is part of the process. And I need to honor that, everywhere we go.
What else is going on?
We don’t love desert weather. The sun is amazing and the sunsets are gorgeous, but the winter cold is so much sharper than you expect it to be. Even knowing this, we struggle to dress appropriately when we go out.
I finished reading The Body Is Not An Apology last night and really enjoyed it. It’s a hard look at the internal biases we’ve all been raised to have about people and their bodies, but once you get into it, you can’t unsee it. I definitely recommend it.
Wandering around downtown, we stepped into the St. Augustine Cathedral to look around. It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a church, and it was kind of nice to wander through and admire the artwork.
Are you watching The Last of Us on HBO? It’s so good. I love the anticipation of watching a new episode every week, but also…it’s so good and I just want to see it all! (Mom, it’s scary, you are exempt from watching this.)