DISCOMFORT
DISCOMFORT —
I really enjoy Mark Wildman’s clips and I’ve always believed this particular clip, about becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable, has a lot of carry over into writing.
Writing’s not easy. Not the kind of writing we’re doing at any rate, taking a great big story and condensing it into a feature script which is only about a hundred pages and giving it focus and nuance and a driving story engine and strong characters and a build to climax all the time being screen friendly so that it will really move on that screen and be an enjoyable viewing experience for someone watching the screen.
That’s hard. And no one leaps out of the womb ready and able to do it. It takes work and practice and corrections and repetition learning and getting stronger at new skills and just like any endeavor, say riding a bike, it’s not going to just happen the first time. The first time you get on a bike, it’s a given you’re going to fall off a few times.
Falling off a few times is all very well if you are a little kid and fearless and don’t mind falling down a few times. But as adults? Adults really don’t like falling down. We have, as adults, lost the knack of falling down. Of being uncomfortable. Which is a necessity for any endeavor because that’s how you learn and master anything. You fall down. You get up. You fall better next time. And given time and effort, you mostly stop falling down. Not entirely. Even master cyclists have wipe outs. But it’s not a day to day thing.
So I thought you guys might like this clip. Don’t get discouraged if things are feeling hard or uncomfortable. That’s the right place to be. That’s the place in which you can grow. In any endeavor and that includes writing.
~ max
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Max Adams is an author and award winning screenwriter. She has written for Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures, Tri-Star Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Walt Disney Studios, Universal Pictures – and a couple others to remain unnamed because no one around here wants to get black listed. Max is a former volunteer AFI Alumni reader and WGAw online mentor, has appeared as a speaker at AMPAS, USC, and Film Arts Foundation, is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at University of Utah, is the author of The Screenwriter’s Survival Guide AND The New Screenwriter’s Survival Guide, is the founder of two international online screenwriting workshops, and has the dubious distinction of having been dubbed “Red Hot Adams” by Daily Variety for selling three pitches over a holiday weekend – which made her agents cry. [In a good way.] She answers now to both “Max” and “Red Hot” in crowds and dog parks.