Creativity comes when you call.

Steve has this gem in his current post:
"I think the most important thing here is something I've always known but it can be difficult to convince yourself: Making the decision to create is what actually makes the creativity flow. It's not the external thing that many people would like to think. It comes from you and your decision."

For years I've convinced myself I can't write poetry unless the Muse hits, but then I don't generally want to try writing poetry most of the time anyway. So not a problem.
When it comes to story writing though, I realise I've been doing something similar: somehow seeing the delay-time needed to get into character as an external factor working on me rather than being a fully internal process that I can control.

Getting in to the heads of the people that you are writing ...
Craig Mazin has a great post on this You Need To Be A Little Insane, go read it!
... while I definitely didn't have this under the same Muse-only category, I know I can force myself in to it; it is just hard work and serious concentration to put myself back in the correct shoes until I've got to know the characters well enough that they start talking to me.

Plot is also a sit down and make it happen thing for me, but generally so intimately linked to character ... I find I create both as I go along, and I generally don't get the story locked down in any real way until I'm about three quarters of the way through the story outline/treatment. And I find I can't start writing "good" dialogue until the characters are talking and acting/reacting of their own free will.

I think this is part of why it takes me so long to write anything on spec.
[Does this make me a method writer, rather than just a writer? No. Wrong analogy. ... Ah ha!*]
And I know that this is where the gap lies between being a professional writer whose career and money earning come from writing, and a writer who just writes.
And that is something I've been wrestling with for years.

I want to be a professional writer. I'm going to have to refine my approach even further. *sigh* At least I've twigged this part of it consciously now. *rolls eyes* Took me long enough.
Thanks for the inspiration Steve! :)

*The Ah ha! was me realising that I need to embrace my insanity rather than shy away from it. ... Which might make me even odder than I already am. Ah f*ck it! We're all unique in our own special ways, mine just might be a bit more special. ;)

Trial & Error - the start of my screenwriting journey

I'm one of those unfortunate souls who was cursed with "writing" at birth. I guess my Fairy Godmother has a wicked sense of humour -- but since I suspect that she is in fact a cat, I'm not surprised.

You've probably already guessed that I'm a little eccentric ... well, okay, mad. But I figure as long as I'm not a danger to myself or others, where's the harm?
Erm. Don't answer that. Where was I?

... Writing.

The curse of writing.

I've been writing snippets of stories and making up worlds for as long as I can remember, but then in 1992 something happened that changed my life. I saw Batman Returns, and it sparked against an old thought I'd had watching the Batman & Robin TV series (well over a decade earlier), and that was that. Inspiration. Struck down by the Muse.

Over the next two months I watched the film 8 times and rewatched Batman 14 times, investigated the Batman comics (Arkham Asylum - from Vertigo, is a favourite), and then went on holiday to Tuscany with my family and spent half of it locked in a room writing.

My family thought I was mad - why this seemed to be a new concept to them, I have no idea ... or maybe I just hit a new depth of insanity as far as they were concerned? Quite frankly, I don't care. I loved every second of it. While they were enjoying Italy, I was staring out of the window at the sky.

Best. Holiday. Ever!

By the end of it, I had written Batman's Grave, and thus committed the first major error of many aspiring screenwriters: creating a spec sequel to an existing franchise. I then made the second error -- convinced of its excellence and thus gaily ignoring the rules of format, I tracked down an address for Tim Burton and sent it off.

Oh boy. I cringe to think about it now.

I can only apologise to any one who had the misfortune of trying to read it back then. Hopefully it hit the bottom of the round file unopened.

But that was when I first really realized that someone, somewhere wrote a screenplay for each film that was made. And that possibly, just possibly it might be something I should be doing with my life. -- The length of a screenplay was less daunting than that of a novel, AND it was moving pictures and moving emotions ... and that held a magic for me - a sparkling desire - to see my story playing on the big screen at my favourite cinema. I was hooked. My Fate sealed. I had glimpsed that screenwriting is who I really am, who I'm supposed to be, my destiny.

...

Bugger!

There's a cat laughing somewhere, I know it.

What have I been doing since then? Procrastinating.