David Condolora

Of Mice and Men.

Or,

How I’m Trying to Stop Being a Mouse.

I have a few goals for 2012, and one big one is to stop consuming and start creating. Specifically, to become a screenwriter.

My hope is to alternate months between writing short films and outlining/writing features. In January, I wrote a short, in February I took a third stab at outlining my second feature, and today I wrote the first draft of my next short.

So far, so good!

It’s ironic that we need to learn about ourselves, but we do, and one thing I’ve discovered over the years is that I need outside motivation to actually get anything done. The 48 Hour Film Project is a great example of this: over four years, I wrote or directed four short films, all done as part of the “make a film in a weekend” competition. It was energizing, and it got me to stop talking about making movies and actually do something.  Every year after the competition, my friends and I would talk about making more films throughout the year, but we never did. It seems we needed a hard deadline hanging over our heads.

Screenwriting has proven to be no different. In 2008 I took a screenwriting class through UCLA, which resulted in the first 20 pages or so of a script, along with an outline for the whole thing. Yet even though I was freelancing through the rest of the year and well into 2009, I never found the drive to get past page 50. But once I signed up for a pitchfest that was happening in two weeks, I quickly threw out 20 pages and wrote another 80 over the course of a week, while still working full-time.

That taught me that I have a problem with motivation. It also taught me that I actually can write an entire feature film.

That’s an inspiring thing, and after writing that script in the summer of 2009, I tried to get the rights to adapt a book, which ended up falling through. But a new idea came to me, and slowly, off and on, I developed it into a rough outline by sometime in early-mid 2011.

Which brings me to today. It’s now early 2012, and that outline has gone through a few revisions, but a single page of script has yet to be written based on the idea which had its genesis in the fall of 2009. Over two and a half years. Something has to be done!

Enter Script Frenzy.

Script Frenzy is a competition of sorts, but one in which you compete only against yourself. The challenge is to write an entire 100-page screenplay in the course of a month, April to be exact. You don’t actually win anything, but you do get to write alongside thousands of others who also need the not-so-gentle push to actually get their ideas down on paper. It feels a lot like the 48 Hour Film Project, and it’s exactly what I need to get my feature written.

After all, I only need to write a little more than three pages a day. How hard can it be?

Self-control is really hard. So is nearly anything worth doing. Maybe that’s a by-product of the Fall, that creating anything, reflecting God in that way, is so much more difficult and unappealing (on the surface) than simply consuming things. It goes against entropy; it’s like defying gravity and flying.

“All writers hate writing, but all writers love having written.” I think Richard Walter said that, but it’s an old sentiment that applies to any great endeavor. We work hard to avoid taking that first step and actually going through it, but the reward at the end is great. Life is like that, especially the life of a Christian.

So maybe my struggle to be a prolific screenwriter is a microcosm of my struggle as a Christian, the constant battle to discard my selfish self and live for God.

It’s not easy, but it’s so worth doing.