Now I get it

It is time now to start shifting into writing about the graphic novel, still awkward since I have not finished it yet. There are a few posts that I can definitely safely do before having it completed and posted, though I hope the long weekend sees some progress.

Also, it is an election year, and now that the convention is past, all of the coffers can be unloosed (previously only funds raised for the primary could be spent), so I am expecting an inundation of ugly, ugly ads that will make me curse the names of Koch and Adelson and raise my generally low blood pressure. There may end up being some political posts, is all I’m saying.

Speaking of awkward, when I was writing earlier about this project, I believe I expressed some embarrassment about feeling a need to create fan fiction with no commercial value. The need was there, so I was going to do it anyway, and I was going to do a good job of it, but it seemed so pointless.

I justified it as needing to get it out of my system, but also as a way to get back into writing. I had not done any screenplay writing since October or November of 2010. This way I could get back into the habit, and if I was rusty or weird it didn’t matter, because it was not going anywhere. Now I think there is more to it.

I got on Facebook in late 2008, shortly after coming back from Australia.  I had been blogging since late 2005. What you may not know is that about a year before that I had started on a writing project that had been poking at me for quite a while.

I called the document “Everything”, because it really was. I went over my faith, my fears, my family, and other things that did not begin with F. I had the feeling it would end up being about 200 pages, and it ended up being almost exactly that, except one page is a table of contents, which I added on about halfway through, when I realized I would never be able to find anything.

I have said before that writing is therapeutic for me, and cathartic, and little bits of writing here and there were helpful, but this spoke to a need for me to feel unified. It was about whom I was, and was I even being the person I wanted to be, and a lot of it was about seeing myself clearly and working out junk.  Mainly, though, I just felt it was something I needed to do.

Obviously, it took a while, and I could not even tell you how long. I have some dates scattered here and there for some parts, but it was spread out. What I do know is that within a few days of finishing I had the dream that became Jade Mask. That was my first screenplay, and over the next two years or so, I wrote six screenplays and a television pilot and workup. And of course, then things changed around and I fell badly off track.

I have documented the ups and downs of that whole time period, and getting back into it now and how writing to Aaron has helped and the blogging has helped, but getting back into the creative writing side has its own needs, and maybe one of the biggest needs is to work through the emotional static so the reception can be clearer.

One reason I mentioned the timelines for starting the blog and starting Facebook is that there was something I did with the blog before going to Australia that felt very important, and that was going over my romantic history. Romantic history implies something it wasn’t, because generally it was only what I felt, with no follow through or reciprocation. Anyway, that was an important part of “Everything”, and then it felt very important to blog it, and I felt like I needed to finish it before we left on the trip.

I believe the reason I felt like I needed to get it done then was because soon I would be connecting with these people again through Facebook, and while I knew there was a chance some people could stumble upon the blog before, if I had been in touch with people when I was writing it, the pressure would have felt too great. Recently I went through it again, though that was more about my emotional state than individuals.

The point I am trying to make is that there is a cycle to our periods of growth. I remember a friend expressing frustration once that she thought she was done with something, and here it was again, but that is so normal. Even if you face your problems and weaknesses head one right away, you can still only deal with them at the current level of your maturity and experience and knowledge. Yes, those things should grow during the struggle, and that may be more noticeable growth, but the life continues and your horizons expand, and you deepen, and suddenly you find there are corners you have not explored.  You make peace with an issue to the level of your ability, and then you have more ability and it’s time for another round. If you think that’s frustrating, try repeating things over and over again without the growth.

Anyway, what I am getting too is that “Danger Days” is the new “Everything”. It’s different in that it is fictional, and yet all of me is coming out, and I am working through things, and I suspect it’s going to unleash another sustained period of productivity. And so I am impatient that I am still not done, and yet I am also cherishing this time and this new round of growth.