Strategic Thinking Feat. Pinetree & Metropolis

Well, at least I'm not alone. Everyone else procrastinates and gets involved in cool side projects.

This article, "50 Strategies For Making Yourself Work" by Jerry Oltion, is so copyrighted it scares me. So I let you access it there and I'll just comment on those strategies below.

I'll start with the first five.

No, I have never set a quota of pages to be written per day. Sometimes my hands fly over the keyboard, sometimes I stare at the pinetree in front of my window for... hours? I guess. Still, should I try it? I'm gonna give each strategy a rating, from "1" to "10", "10" meaning that I must absolutely go for it ASAP. This one's a "6".

Setting a quota of hours worked per day or week... Nah! I could never time my writing. A famous image from Fritz Lang's "Metropolis", the 1927 movie, comes to mind, and that's not even a clock, but it masquerades as one in my whimsical memory files.

So... Given the staring into the pinetree habit, how would this strategy work? I am not aware of the moment when I START staring, to stop the clock... And just measuring the time I sit down in front of the computer, heh, that's really saying nothing! I can do so many things while apparently WRITING. Like, what I'm doin' right about NOW... I'll give this strategy a "1".

Write a story or a chapter a week? This one sounds more interesting. Only how would it translate it into screenplay units? An act a week? Yeah, but once you're into writing the damned acts, it doesn't even matter anymore! That's cruising! The hardest, yuckiest part is nailing the structure, each and every scene, writing that darn extended outline (or treatment, if you prefer), while intimately understanding every character and their environment and their motivations, the situations and the why's and wherefore's. The rest, adding some meat to the bones, is just fun. So I'm afraid this strategy can't really work for screenwriters, this is for the lucky people who do novels, stories, essays, whatever. Even blogs, if you will -- yeah, this is yet another art form, I predict it now, in passing. So, about the strategy at hand: another "1" bites the dust.

Promising my sweetie a steady supply of bedtime stories doesn't even register as a strategy!What's that supposed to mean? That I should talk to my sweetie about what I've been writing/thinking during the day... at bedtime? You've gotta be kidding me! That's worse than talking about work during dinner! Sweetie time is sacred, and besides... What is the sweetie in question supposed to do? Shut up and be gorgeous while I go on and on about my character arches and turning points and... Nooo, this particular sweetie will answer right back with an educated opinion, offer solutions... And what if sweetie doesn't appreciate what I'm doing? I'd definitely lose a massive dose of interest in the project. So, yeah, I can discuss my work in progress with just about anyone else but the aforementioned sweetie. And it's mutual, been there, done that, wish we hadn't.

Huh! "Bedtime stories"! That's poisonous advice in my case! I'll give this a "-10"!

Now, to be paying myself an hourly wage for the time during which I wrote and not go out and do fun stuff unless I can pay for it with the money I thus "earned" (from my own bank account) would be... intriguing. However, since I have an issue measuring the time spent writing, as described, what with the damn pinetree getting in the way and all, that might not work out. But maybe I could combine something here -- maybe I could pay myself for the outline, then for each completed act, and finally for the completed first draft?

But who prevents me from cheating? I can feel it, I'm gonna pay myself so lavishly for the outline, that there'll be no suffering for the rest.

All joke aside, I don't respond to money as a motivation, unfortunately. Plus, I'm like Duchamp, I loathe the idea of living off of art, so I'll always find a nice techy job to insure my lifestyle and just sacrifice writing if I ever find myself in dire straits

Otherwise, if I can't afford something, I put it out of my mind, that's all. I don't covet more luxury.

And no, I'm never gonna refuse myself fun stuff I can afford just because I haven't "earned" it through writing.

I only have one life to live, and screw you, Seventh Art, if you try to steal it away from me! We invented you in order to enjoy life more, not to slave around your overblown significance!

On this seminal note, I leave you with a subliminal "Metropolis" image, worth 10,000 words this time.