Writing Sucks

Commiserate with us

Anthony

As of the time of writing this, I have seven incomplete journals. I’ve gone through the same three phases of ownership with each of them. First, I purchase a new journal with a specific purpose or goal in mind. Second, I actually follow through with this goal and write in it for a couple of days. This second phase never lasts more than two weeks. Finally, I suddenly lose interest, motivation, or completely forget all about the journal entirely. Once we reach phase three, these journals have about ten percent (and that’s me being generous) of the pages filled out. I wish I could say that there is a fourth step where I donate or recycle them responsibly. Instead, they live stacked in the liminal space that is my closet’s shelf. Let’s recap and reflect on my seven failures

I have two pocket journals that I take with me everywhere. I never know when inspiration will strike and yet I always forget to use them for this purpose. These are somewhat easy to fill out because I have a lot of dumb thoughts and jot them down quite frequently. I have two more journals for writing down my film ideas (I got the second because I didn’t end up liking the binding on the first). I have one journal that I bought to write down Spanish words/phrases that I was learning when I was actively trying to learn. I have not picked this one up in over three months. I have one journal that serves as my diary for posterity—I think it’ll be cool for my (grand)children to read about my early 20s. I have about 10 pages left in that one and can’t wait to start another one.

Finally, I have two sketchbooks. The first, I’ve been using for random doodles—I’m not an amazing artist. The other, is a 300 drawing prompts journal that Keila got me as a gift but I can’t, for the life of me, bring myself to finish. It’s too daunting of a task.

The only journal or sketchbook that I have filled out in my life was the one I got during the pandemic 4 years ago. As I got towards the last half of the sketchbook, I started dedicating one page to each of the movies that I watched. I would typically try to draw the title and some memorable props or lines of dialogue that stuck with me. I would dedicate half an hour or so to sit down and reflect on the movie I had just watched. The only issue with this was—at that time, I was also in a competition with Livia to see who could watch the most movies in a year. Filling out two to three pages a day in a sketchbook got extremely tiring.

Since then, I’ve been chasing that high of being consistent with writing (or writing in general) in a journal and actually filling the entire thing up. A few days ago, I did the predictable and irresponsible thing, and purchased another journal. This time, I promise it’s going to be different.

I think what failed in the past was that I created too many restrictions for myself. I forced myself to dedicate 100-150 pages to one specific topic. I also had ridiculous expectations: I had to write in each of these journals on a daily basis, and it needed to be good enough for other people to read. It takes me days to write my section of this newsletter, which is only a couple of paragraphs. I was setting myself up for failure every time.

With this new journal, I’m throwing all of that out of the window. It will be used for my newly improved method of reviewing movies where one page is for drawing and the other will be a brain dump on my thoughts about the movie. It’ll also be for writing down reminders, plans for the weekend, thought experiments, writing practice, and whatever the hell I want. That’s the beauty of it. I know I’ll stick with this journal until the very end because I don’t feel a ridiculous amount of pressure from myself. Sometimes, you need to create things in a void that no one else will see.

I’m excited for this new journal and will keep you updated as I continue to write in it. For now, I must go. I just booked tickets to see the Raimi Spider-Man trilogy so I need to clear my schedule so I can write 50 pages on what seeing those movies in the theater again will mean to me. Time is of the essence!

Livia

I love writing. I do it a lot, for work and personal projects, but I’ve never really gotten my “process” down. For work, I usually just put any random idea or thought to paper, then figure it out later. And you’d think I’d do the same for the stories/scripts I write, but it’s a lot more complicated.

I wish I could have my section of the newsletter be all about giving advice on how to be a better writer, but I am not at all qualified to give that kind of advice. What I am semi-qualified to do is to pass the advice I’ve been given to you:

Piece of advice #1: Write a shitty first draft

A professor in college told me this in my freshman year and it’s stuck with me ever since. It sounds so simple to just go for it, but it’s hard to let yourself write something shitty when you want so badly to be a good writer. Even with this section, I’ve deleted this paragraph so many times and had to remind myself to just get my point out, then go back and edit.

I think another big part of it for me is embarrassment. it sound so silly to be embarrassed that a story that nobody will ever see needs a lot of rewrites, but I feel it constantly. There are some stories sitting in my Google Drive that I cringe at when I read it back, but I still love that they exist. I go back to them every week and with each edit, I feel like I’m clearing the debris and uncovering a great story.

Piece of advice #2: Show, don’t tell

I don’t remember where I heard this, but it’s probably the most vital piece of writing advice I’ve ever gotten. I don’t want you to just tell me the main character is scared of the house at the end of their block. I want you to describe to me how she feels when she passes it on her walk to school or how loud her heart pounds as she runs past it, avoiding eye contact with the woman looking out the window at the front door. I want to be made to feel that fear, I don’t want to just read that the character is scared.

Piece of advice #3: You don’t make the fish, you catch the fish

The most overwhelming thing about writing is having to do it when you’re not feeling creative. What’s helped me is thinking about ideas like they’re objects that you have to catch, rather than create. David Lynch thinks of them as fish, famously saying, “You don’t make the fish, you catch the fish.”

Sitting down and trying to come up with new ideas can be overwhelming. Sometimes it feels like sitting on a dock, trying to fabricate a fish from nothing. I mean, it’s nearly impossible. But when you think about it as casting a line to catch whatever fish takes a bite, it’s less overwhelming and even freeing.

To put it in non-fish-related terms, sitting down and forcing yourself to have an idea is not conducive to writing. You should let your mind wander and let the inspiration come to you however it finds you.

Recommendations

Anthony recommends Brigsby Bear

Available on Hulu

This movie felt like the perfect recommendation for this newsletter because it’s a movie about making movies. It made me feel motivated to write and direct, honestly just to create something. It’s the type of movie that’ll inspire you to embrace your truest self, whatever that meant to you, and that everyone else in your life will follow suit. We see that in the way no one shames James for his niche obsession, it actually helps him connect to others.

Brigsby Bear captures the beauty of filmmaking as an art form (what an obnoxious sentence, sorry. I hated typing that out more than you did reading it). Even if you’re not an aspiring filmmaker, I think everyone can find something or some character to connect with. To me, filmmaking is about taking a piece of your own unique experience and creating a visual experience that audiences can connect their own lives to. It's inspiring to watch James as an indie filmmaker. He takes ownership of his situation and creates something beautiful out of it. I hope that Livia and I are able to capture that feeling in whatever movies we end up making. 

Learn from my mistakes and go watch this heartwarming movie as soon as you can. This was recommended to me by Livia and it took me probably a couple of years to get around to watching it (it's kind of fun to not watch movies she recommends to me) and I wish I had seen it sooner! If you do end up checking it out, I’d love to hear what you think about it.

Livia recommends Austenland

Available on Max

I have a Letterboxd list of all the movies that I will eventually force Sebastian to sit and watch with me. The last movie I forced him to watch was Austenland, starring Keri Russell as Jane, a woman who is a little too obsessed with Pride and Prejudice (which I just so happened to read for the first time). Jane is tired of the men she meets in the real world, so she decides to spend all her savings on a Jane Austen immersive experience. The cast includes Jennifer Coolidge, JJ Feild (who Sebastian said looks like if Tom Hiddleston and Lee Pace had a son) and Georgia King (who is a complete scene stealer, her performance alone makes this movie worth watching).

This movie is the perfect rom com to wind down a hectic day with, especially if you love Austen’s novels or movie adaptations.