JONGSON PARK

What are you writing for? Why are you writing? This is answered when you know who you are writing to. Are you writing to some unknown audience… or are you really writing to yourself, to discover what it is you actually trying to say. Trying to remedy the discord between what you think you know and what you actually believe.

The resonance is when writing to yourself, but it’s the audience that is hearing what you’re saying.

If you’ve ever wanted to write a movie but never started, find a way to start writing. Start with 10 minutes, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, and just write but do it everyday. If you write one line, one page or one word. Let it be what it is, don’t put an expectation on it that it needs to be 10 pages, perfect or even make sense. Maybe it doesn’t make sense, maybe each scene jumps from scene to scene, or the dialogue isn’t how you want it to be. With that freedom you’re giving yourself permission to create, discover and explore. But ultimately do this enough times, regularly, with frequency, and that 5 minutes will become 10 minutes, to 15 minutes. The 1 line will become, one paragraph to one page, to 2 pages. Scenes will make more sense, dialogue will become better. Naturally. Instinctually. Intuitively.

You’re building the mechanics of writing, the foundations, the mind body connection between your thoughts and fingers typing the keyboard, making that reflex seamless and instantaneous. And even if this is all you did, without putting together a process or progression, you would organically become a better writer. Many of the mechanical parts or rough edges that seem difficult and awkward at first will start to become more automatic, developed and polished. So not even talking about, creating a process because that’s a different topic I’m not going to get into that here, this topic is just meant for how to get from zero to 1 – your first one. We are starting from the beginning so take on the beginner’s mindset, but the beginner’s mindset isn’t just for beginner’s it should be a lifelong principle to embrace and embody.

If you’re like me, creative expression is a difficult process, getting the idea out of my head and into the world, then you probably have a lot to say but sometimes it’s not all that clear, even to myself. The journey of discovering the storytelling process has really helped me formulate and crystalize my expression. And I just want to encourage you to be bold but humble, have passion and conviction in what you do but do it with openness and authenticity. Embrace your own uniqueness and differences so that we can embrace it with you. We need more compassion, understanding and grace, but unfortunately these are usually not the loudest voices. Be rare. Be open. Be bold.

I think the two actionable points. One, write everyday. Two, withhold judgment during the writing process. Just these two approaches helped me start and finish my first screenplay! The baseball movie I mentioned earlier. I wrote it with blinders, just worried about the next word, not thinking about the next page or trying to wrap my head around the entire story while trying to finish it at the same time. Which I’ve found just takes you out of the moment. Was it perfect? No. Was I happy with it? Yes. What I was most happy about was that it had all the ideas that I’d had in my head that I couldn’t get out and it was finally on paper, tangible in a physical form. That was an awesome feeling. To be able to read something that had just been in my head for years. But it also made what seemed so impossible… possible. Like it wasn’t as hard as I thought or made it out to be. The biggest mental blocksion of not having done it – starting and finishing something was now gone, it was nothing, powerless. No more blocksion. But of course there are more blocksions along the way but this first big one was now gone.

But maybe the biggest super power was overcoming the fear of it not being good or it being bad, self doubt, insecurity, vulnerability. At first, it’s just about managing the fears or shutting them out, by being present and in the moment while writing, the zone or flowstate. That seemed to be most manageable way to get fear out of the way. Yea but finishing that first script was a sign to me, that I could move fear out of the way long enough to get that story done. That’s probably the biggest self-realization.

You might have a love/hate relationship with your first screenplay. But hopefully you’ll mostly love it and hopefully this will be an experience where you are able to be gentle with yourself, have compassion and grace with yourself. We all want our work to be good, we all want it to be perfect, but that’s just an impossible standard to live up to… perfection. Maybe the standard is just “practice”. Just be. Just do. I’ve found wanting it to be good or having some kind of expectation around it, just takes me out of the work, it puts extra thoughts and stress on the activity that takes up energy that I should be using for the activity and keeps me from putting everything I have into it. And that seems like the recipe for getting pulled out of flowstate. Most people would say, our best work is when we’re in flow. I’d also add I think we can get the most development and leveling-up the more regularly and frequently we do the activity by being in the moment. Plus it generally feels way more satisfying, easier and sustainable.

The hardest part of writing a screenplay is everything. If you’ve never started one, the hardest part is starting. If you’ve never finished one, the hardest part is finishing. If you have written one, the hardest part is knowing how you did it and how you can make that one or the next one you write better. The invisible part of writing screenplays is being able to see, identify and understand the process, your writing process that is personal to you. But that’s a different topic for a different day.

I remember when I was trying to write my first screenplay, I just had ideas, they might’ve been scenes, lines of dialogue, what a character was like or thinking. They were just bits and pieces, like a dream I could barely remember. And no matter how I much I thought about it, I couldn’t put the puzzle pieces together to make it out into a story. That was probably the biggest technical obstacle that prevented me from being able to even start writing the script. Maybe I would write outlines, treatments, whatever notes I had but it just wasn’t enough to get me confident to start writing and know that I’d finish. Which, I think ultimately comes down to I was afraid of it being bad, or others thinking it was bad, or scared that I’d find out I wasn’t any good or not talented enough. Which I’ve learned, going through this process of being a writer, is an unfair way of looking at yourself and your progression. The beginner’s mindset is a beautiful thing.

The script I was trying to write, was about a single-father raising his daughter, working at the Oakland docks and taking one-last shot at a baseball career. So I’d watch movies, break them down, try to see how they did it. Good Will Hunting was a huge inspiration. As in I just loved that movie, not that I could or can even write at that level or comparing my work to that. I just loved the sense of discovery, self, connection, friendship and hope that movie left me with. Not to mention, it’s one of Robin Williams’ most inspiring performances.

One of the books that really helped get me out of my head and onto paper was “How to write a movie in 21 days” by Viki King. After going through books like “Story” “The Writer’s Journey” or any of Syd Field’s books. This relatively small book was just a nice kickstarter to get things moving, instead of feeling the need to over-analyze and map out everything. The book does have easy actionable step-by-step outlines but the biggest takeaway from the book or at least how I interpreted it was, preparing your mindset – trust your instincts, trust your intuition. Lay down a loose framework, roadmap for your story but rely on your intuition when it comes to filling the pages. The book helps you setup some rough outlines and structure before you write but really the most important theme is “just write”, first by putting yourself on a schedule to write everyday and second don’t judge it while your writing – writing a screenplay in 21 days means just getting it done, and more importantly to be able to finish it in 21 days you have to withhold judgment until it’s done. There are a lot more strategic and actionable points in the book but those were the two most important mindsets I learned.