Photo by Dakota Corbin on Unsplash
The hardest part about “getting there” is this – the waiting. I’m writing. I’m doing everything right. My writing is good. My productivity is through the roof. I’m working with a film company . I’ve sold scripts.
It’s the waiting.
People who don’t write but love books (that’s probably most of you) all probably wonder what it was like for Baldacci, for King, for every writer who finally made it… what was it like before then?
Frustrating!
I KNOW that if I could just get enough time to write, I could finish up enough projects to get something sold and into production.
My first novel just has a minor structure problem, and then it’s probably publish ready.
My second novel is publish ready.
My third novel needs a slight re-write, then is publish ready.
I’ve got about 30 film script projects that have log lines done, and just need time for me to beat sheet them (I think I’ve got about 12 beat sheets done).
The way I write, 30 film scripts would probably take me 2 years. I know that it usually takes other people about well… 30 years to write 30 movies. I kind of work really fast.
It’s just the waiting. It’s just the tapping your fingers, waiting to get somewhere.
Here’s where it applies to you.
If you’re not at this point, the dreams remain a dream.
Every day you are not working to make your dream a reality is another day where nothing happens. Whatever your dream is, you have to have a plan.
Then work that plan.
I developed the saying years ago (I’m sure someone else has said it) plan your work – work your plan.
So years ago, I sat down with two packs of 3X5 cards, a copy of “the Making of Trouble With Tribbles” by David Gerrold, and a pen, and I talked with a couple of guys I did karate with. “Let’s make a movie.”
They agreed. “What’s it going to be about?”
Well, Sho Kosugi was popular then, so… “Ninjas!”
Step one. Start buying Ninja props.
Step 2. Write a script.
Step 3. Get a production company.
Step 4. Get funding.
Step 5. Film it,
Step 6. Produce it.
Step 7. Get someone like Cannon films to buy it.
Step 8. Market it and release it.
Literally, we got to step 4 before things fell apart. HALFWAY.
Here’s where things went wrong. The funding fell through, and then the producer decided to try a different script, on a karate tournament. So I started writing that. The production company ended up dissolving before we could get to step 5.
What should we have done? Kept going with Script one, sought financing elsewhere, and KEPT GOING, while I wrote script 2! If this had been today instead of the 1980’s, I’d probably have a string of really bad martial arts movies credited to my name, and I’d probably have been writing novels and movies for the last 20 or 30 years.
I just literally gave you a plan to get your dreams done.
Plan the work.
Then work the plan.
One final key – do not stop. To quote one of my favorite movies (The Untouchables), there’s a Kevin Costner line that he actually delivered well… “Don’t stop fighting until the fighting’s done.”
Whatever your dream is, it requires the notebook paper, or creating a new note in Evernote or a sticky note on your desktop or whatever your system is for keeping track of it…!
- What is my dream? Write it down. I’ve read recently about the incredible power of writing something down. I’m not weirdly superstitious, but I know from a logical standpoint that writing down a goal in a place you’ll see it every day forces you to confront it, and make moves to get it done.
- What will it take to get me there? Let’s say you want to be a virtuoso violin player. How are you going to do that? Back in thew 80’s, there was a lot of talk about “visualizing’ things. Sorry, but essentially, that’s telling you to daydream. Daydreaming accomplishes nothing but wasting your time. You need to determine the steps you’d need to be a virtuoso violin player.
- Write down the steps needed to get good at it. If you were going to be an artist, maybe the Joy of Painting TV series on DVD? Set up a TV and DVD player in your art studio? Buy enough canvases, gel medium, paint brushes, pallet knives, thinner, paints, etc to stock your art studio? Or if you’re a writer, get scrivener, get some books on writing, decide on 25 short stories you’re going to write, write loglines for all 25, write Save The Cat for all 25, set up Scrivener, set up deadlines in Microsoft Outlook, and begin writing!
- Begin working at it. I’ve read statistics that say 15,000 is your magic number. You need first of all 15,000 hours of whatever it is to get good at it. Whether it’s gymnastics, Karate practice, writing, painting, sculpture, etc. I can remember LONG hours of just working on a side kick. I can remember LONG hours of working on roundhouse kicks. I can remember the long hours of taking a roundhouse kick, morphing that into a side kick, then a crescent kick, then a hook kick. It took HOURS. 12 hours a day for over a year. Other people never got that good, because well…. They didn’t work at it. If you’ve had a dream that’s been a dream for years, why is it still a dream? Work at it!
- Intermediate goals. The one thing I keep forgetting is that your first novel, painting, screenplay, is not going to be your Mona Lisa or your Sistine Chapel. You need to have short term goals, intermediate goals, long term goals. It doesn’t matter what your dream is – you have to work at it. Each step is a milestone. Each step fills you with confidence. It’s like Mark Spitz said after winning so many Gold Medals. “It’s just a lot of swimming.” Without knowing it, Spitz had set himself up for success. If he’d determined to do 10,000 laps in a pool, each lap was a goal he could reach. “One… Two… Three…”
- What do I need to make my ultimate Goal? You know, as I’m writing this, my mind is jumping back to Go Rin No Sho, or A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi, a 16th Century Samurai. The subtitle is “a book of strategy”. It took people centuries to understand it, but Japanese Businessmen literally spend time each week reviewing this small little book, and checking their progress against it. Sounds stupid? Not really. How successful is Sony? No kidding, that’s how they became a success. Determine your goal, find your intermediate steps, review, and keep correcting until you’re there. You have to have a PLAN to get there.You have to Review that plan! My goal is to get movies sold, which in turn will lead to my getting signed to a publishing deal with a major publisher, which will lead to a home in New England, where I can sit and write, happy as can be. What do I need to do to get there? I need to write good product, get it publish ready, get a literary agent, get published. I need to get Michael Hyatt’s book on Writing A Winning Book proposal. I need to get more film seminars on writing by Dr. K, and by Karl Iglesias. I need to write, write, write!
- Review. You need to constantly measure your progress. If you were going to be a gymnast, you need to be almost brutal about your floor routines. Is it Olympic Caliber? If not, find every flaw, work that out. If you’re trying to be a painter, does your artwork still show signs you didn’t visualize it? Have you gotten the feel of loading your brush? Did you cheat a line or a corner? Spent the time learning the feel of that brush? If you’re a writer, have you run your writing through Hemingway, to find your flaws? Mine is complicated compound sentences and excessive passive voice. Compound sentences come from my heritage, so I’ve got to work that out. Passive voice comes from growing up in Rhode Island, where everyone speaks in continuing passive voice. Have I made my goals? Did I work on them today? How can what I write today be better than what I wrote yesterday? Have I read books on screen-writing and writing novels? Have I began to put into play what I’m reading? Have I started working on my books to make them flawless?
- Accomplish. This is the last part. You can dream about being a painter. But you need cold hard reality, twenty or so masterpieces. Until you get that, you cannot have an exhibition. Until you have written a lot, your dream novel shouldn’t be done. Once you’ve got it, is it ready to send to a literary agent? Have you written your query letter? DID YOU SEND THE QUERY LETTER OFF? At this point, it’s time to STOP DREAMING and DO.
Eight simple steps. Simple planning. Simple execution. But if you don’t plan it, you’ll be where you currently are – still dreaming.
Stop dreaming – do.
