I wrote two thirds of a blog I was practically convinced I’d finished and posted.
I write my drafts in Evernote then flip them over to WordPress, so I did have a check, doubting memory and physical evidence all at once, and no…I hadn’t finished that blog. Or posted it. I mean, I remember why now – it wasn’t going anywhere I wanted to keep writing about and I was rapidly running out of subject matter and enthusiasm.
It was about Venom. And how it’s fun and services the character well and Tom Hardy is great, but everything else — especially the plot — is disappointingly safe and Seen It All Before.
Yeah, I was spinning that one into a whole article when I said what I wanted to say right there in two sentences. That’s kind of what writing blogs looks like – exciting inspiration and satisfying articles with the occasional bout of hours of work that ends up in a non-place with a half-finished piece you don’t want to post. You realise that what you thought would be a searing exploration of something would actually be better as a passing tweet.
I was writing that blog while I was on holiday. I was writing that blog when my head was full of seaQuest.
I did that thing again where I realise I’m forsaking one bit of writing for another – usually it’s me blogging religiously and ignoring any fiction projects. But no, this time, my script was taking my full focus. I didn’t have anything to say in a blog, especially, so it wasn’t a difficult thing to pull focus from; I set myself a mission to finish that script while I was off and, goddamn it, I was going to finish that script. The second I noticed I was guilt-tripping myself into that unenthusiastic Venom blog — blogging because I felt I should, not because I wanted to or had something to say — my already waning interest in what I’d written of it fell off a cliff and left a mess on the metaphorical rocks below.
But it’s fine. I ignored the mess. I mean it’s still there, two thirds finished and never to be completed. But it’s fine, I don’t care. It’s filed. Under X.
Why would I care? I finished the script instead.
That’s right – I FINISHED THE SCRIPT.
For the first time in three years I started, worked on and finished a script. I started, worked on and finished a piece of writing, regardless of format. That’s huge for me; that is actual physical evidence — now I’ve printed a copy — of me having turned a corner. As ridiculous as it sounds, it feels like a legitimate turning point – some kind of herald of change. I defeated a very persistent demon; several, in fact. Writing has always been my singular passion but the past three years had seen a resignation to making something of it being an unquestionable pipe dream.
It was like I’d forgotten how I ever did it. I’d sit down to start and would just…draw a blank.
That was the situation for the longest time. I had ideas but they never coalesced; there was too much in the way. Too much anxiety, confusion, sadness, introspection, fatigue, self-doubt, self-loathing…too little confidence. I would often get stoked to actually do it, to sit down and write, but the resulting moment was always a dead end, always empty. It was disappointing and soul destroying; it killed the confidence further.
I can’t point to what changed with this script.
The date — the original show having been set in a fictional 2018 — making it pertinent and giving me a deadline to meet by the end of the year, maybe? My passion and in-depth knowledge of the original show and the revamped world I’d adapted from it over several years, perhaps? My years of casual development of it, in fits and starts, making it almost fully formed anyway and, once I started exploring the characters, my passion re-igniting? The safety net of not actually owning it so never having to worry about trying to do anything with it when it was done, possibly?
Any of those things. All of those things. None of those things?
Maybe it’s simply being…better adjusted. Coming out the other side of the bad stuff since 2016. Feeling more confident in general; feeling more alive; feeling more like myself. It’s not until a moment like this, of personal achievement, that you can look back and realise that you haven’t been yourself, even when you thought you were. Like I said before, it’s surprising how long a time it can take to claw it back. What counts to you on the inside and even to some on the outside as functioning past baseline, post-breakdown…it pales in comparison to another twelve months of uphill climb. There’s always some kind of better…and it takes something like finishing a script sometimes to show that you’re there.
Because now I see that all my suspicions were correct and this will have a broader effect on the rest of my life.
I am in the right place to think about getting a new job – and seriously. Dialling back the tendency to overthink and ending up talking myself out of everything until I have nothing left to try; maybe I’ll even try living in Cheltenham again. I’m in the right place to think about…breaking this interminable cycle. I’d like to say I will try living in Cheltenham again, no maybe or perhaps, and that I am going to look for a job there specifically, but we’ve played this game before and such attempts at certainties are only ever disappointing. Because we know that dreams are dead, as I’ve said before—Let’s not call it a goal, let’s call it an ambition…its something to aim for, a possibility I could maybe achieve given the right circumstances.
Whatever the outcome, it feels genuinely more realistic than it has done in a long time.
I just feel like I deserve better and that I can do more – I’ve told myself that for a long time but I haven’t necessarily felt it for a long time. For the hype to work, you’ve got to buy into it eventually. But to buy into it, you’ve got to get to that moment where you can actually believe the hype. And something as simple — “simple”, there’s a lie if ever I’ve told one —as finishing this script, this script that means a lot to me anyway but also now represents so much freakin’ more…that’s made me look at the possibilities a little less cynically.
And I actually liked what I wrote. I’m pleased with it. Also monumental. I don’t even really care if no one else reads it or if no one else likes it.
Every single line of it has had heart and soul poured into it; every decision taken was thought through; every single word is there for a reason. Every single page…makes me proud.
I Have A Concern. 