Out of Control

Let’s talk about control. Control in life. Control in writing. Remote controls. (Like, why does my MacBook always start playing a fucking slideshow when I’m just trying to work my Apple TV?)There’s this line in Garden State, which is a great film that we all need to watch again, about how the choice to be an actor is appealing because it’s an opportunity to pretend to be someone else, all the time, as much as possible.

I mean, why be yourself and face your own life and problems when you can just live in a world of make believe? Mind. Blown.

In that same vein, one of the appealing things about being a writer and writing is that you control your story. You are the creator. You have the power. (Aw yeah…) You want a happy ending? Great. Write it. You want to blow up Chicago cause your ex-girlfriend dumped you while on a vacation there? Do it. You want to see a movie where midgets take over the world? Amazing. It’s all there for you to make real, in script life.The problem is, things still don’t always turn out as we want them to. Scenes don’t always work. We jam things in to make one plot make sense and then the other plot stops making sense and then in order to fix that reality we have to create a magical spell that makes the characters make inane decisions for no good reason. And then we decide it’s a chocolate cake that infects them all with this random inane decision disease because no one can resist chocolate cake. Now it all makes sense. Bullet. Proof. Plan. But now you kinda have a bigger mess of a fucking script and probably a lot of chocolate cake and frosting on your keyboard… because no one can write about chocolate cake that much and not go eat some.Huh? What happened? I blacked out eating chocolate cake. Here’s the point… You can’t always be the writer you want to be, sometimes you just have to be the writer you are. If your focus or artist boner is all about control, you are going to crash and burn.

You have to let go a little and let the work happen. Let the answers come to you. Don’t force it. Or else you just end up trying too hard and then, you know, lots of cake happens.

If you're struggling to write YOUR story in a way that resonates with your audience - and it's feeling a bit forced, you're in luck. My FREE workbook was designed to help you solve just that... you can grab it up right here, or click the pretty picture below. :)