JUST DO THE THING

Sitting at the kitchen table, sipping ginger tea. Tomorrow will be different. I won't do that thing I've been doing all week: Writing. Another thing I won't do: Criticize. Because I'm not the same person I was 8 days ago...I've written the first rough draft of a script.

Months of writers block...a little thing I've come to identify as FEAR, has kept me from doing the only thing I want to do most. No amount of study, research, or character development, can substitute for, "words on paper."

How did I do it? Permission for heart, not head.

You don't know what you're doing? Good. You don't have the story yet? Great. You've never done this before? Even better.  Just write. Just do the thing. Start. Because if you don't do the thing, you never will. The only reason you want to do the thing is because it's inside you...so use what's inside and go. Go heart, go. 

An author I met in NYC said, "98% of writers aren't published." I believe that. I've been frozen for months working so hard and going no where. Why? I only discovered as I wrote.... 

I am afraid to see what I don't have, what won't come, and what I'm not. Now beginning, middle, end...and the term, "screenwriting," no longer means day dreaming but hours at a desk, head to fist, hand to pad. Reality.

Today is the hardest day of all. I can't judge whatever's on those pages. It's taking ALL my energy. If I pass this test I will have taken a solid swing at perfectionism. I need to do the next 8 days the way I did the last, give myself enough love, grace and room for error to, "Do the thing..." The more I do, the less practical that paranoid phrase will become that says, "you can't", because, you are.

 Here's to first steps, and dreams becoming reality.