Just when I thought I was done with making movies, they dragged me back in…

And by they, I mean me. I came up with this all on my own. I think it might be kind of fun.

In a perfect world where people listened to experts instead of YouTube videos forwarded by drunk Uncle Carl, we’d all be fully vaxxed, there’d be herd immunity, and we’d be gearing up for preview night at San Diego Comic-Con tomorrow. Fantastic, right? Alas, this is not that perfect world and SDCC is online again this year.

I’m not doing any panels this time around. Really the only big things I’ve got planned are maybe building one of my larger, long-overdue LEGO sets (you can vote here) and doing one of my big, more public Saturday geekeries (more on that next time). You know, where I live tweet a movie and talk about all the things it’s doing right (or wrong).

For the past few years, I’ve also tended to mark this viewing party with a movie-related blog post. Usually an updated version of my Top Ten B-Movie mistakes list. But this year I decided I wanted to do something a little more positive and maybe even a bit instructional.

So this week we’re going to talk about about how to make a better B-movie. As in, if you and your friends were thinking of shooting a movie together, here’s a big pile of tips and hints. Today’s going to be about writing it, with advice based off my experience as a writer, screenwriter, and entertainment journalist. Then in our regularly scheduled Thursday post, I’ll offer some advice about filming said B-movie. That’s going to be based off my experience working on a few dozen B-movies and TV shows (some of which you’ve actually heard of), and also… yeah, my attempts to shoot a few low budget things with my friends. Which, y’know, you haven’t heard of.

Fun, right? Mildly interesting, maybe? I know a lot of you have no real interest in screenwriting, but I think some of the overall storytelling ideas here might still be kind of useful for you. They have been for me, anyway, in the long run.

So… let’s talk about writing a low-budget, fantastic B-movie.

First off, let’s be very clear on one thing. We’re talking about writing a very specific kind of script, and it’s kind of the reverse of what I talked about a few times in the past. This isn’t going to be a screenplay to enter contests with or submit to agents. It’s going to be a very solid script so you and your friends can make a good, cheap movie. It needs to follow some of the rules, but overall, this is just for you.

Second thing is all of this is written assuming this is a group effort right from the start. We’re writing it, but we already know our girlfriend’s directing, our friend’s going to star in it… or heck, maybe all of these people are the same person. Maybe I’m a writer-director-producer-actor. If that’s not spreading myself too thin… fantastic. Either way, this is the kind of stuff it’s good to know from the moment I start typing.

So…

1) Know What I’ve Got to Work With
If I’ve got a bunch of friends with Ren Faire costumes and armor, maybe I should consider something historical or fantasy. If I have open access to an office building, I should think about setting something in an office. The guy next door has an entire space station set in a warehouse he owns? Holy crap, you live next door to Roger Corman. Why are you listening to me—go talk to him!

Basically, I want to play to my strengths. If I’ve got a bunch of assets, I need to figure out the best way to use those assets. This can be a chance for some great creativity. We’ve got medieval costumes, one decent alien costume, and three or four really nice sci-fi props? Sounds like a spaceship crashed in the woods outside Camelot. Holy crap, was Excalibur really a power sword this whole time?

Also keep in mind—just because I’ve got  something doesn’t mean I have to use it. I don’t want to cram a dozen random elements into my movie just because I can. The goal here is to tell a cohesive story, not to fit in every plot point I think of. Phoebe may have a fantastic pirate costume from that theme wedding, but maaaybe the story just doesn’t need a pirate. I know it’s hard to believe that, but it’s true. Simplicity can be my friend sometimes.

2) Don’t Write What We Can’t Shoot
One of the unspoken truths about screenwriting is it often comes with a list of requirements. Maybe they’re budget things, actor things, studio things, who knows. If we’re making a B-movie, we’re probably going to have a lot of requirements. My scripts are going to be a lot stronger if I start with these limitations in mind, rather than forcing the director to deal with them when they eventually pop up on set.

If we know we don’t have a lot of special effects to fall back on, let’s not write scenes that depend on special effects. If none of our actors want to show a lot of skin, I shouldn’t put in a lot of shower scenes and torn shirts. If I live in New Hampshire, maybe setting half the movie outside in a rain forest isn’t the best idea.

Really, this is the flipside of my first point. Know what I’ve got to work with, but also be clear on what I’m not going to have. It’ll make the whole process easier in the long run.

3) Beware of Expensive Scenes
One of the first things people tell you about screenwriting is not to worry about budget. But, we have to worry about budget. We’re making a B-movie and doing a lot of it by calling in favors and debts. We don’t have money to burn on this thing. So if we can eliminate some essentially expensive scenes up front, that’s going to be a win for us.

Thing is, there are certain scenes that are very easy to write and look cheap at first glance, but the truth is they’re very expensive to get on film. I’m going to name a couple and explain why…

–Crowds—big groups of people on film are expensive for three reasons. One is that a responsible filmmaker’s going to give them food and drinks, especially if you’re not paying them (so at least buying lots of pizza and soda, plus enough plates, cups, ice, napkins, trash bags). Two is that you’ll probably need extra help getting them all to do what they need to do. Three is paperwork—if someone’s on film, they need to sign release forms for us using their image, even if we’re not paying them (especially if we’re not paying them). Essentially, crowds burn up a lot of our resources really fast.

–Food—let’s say I’m going to have someone take a bite out of a hot dog in this scene. That’s all. They grab a hot dog at a backyard barbecue, have one bite while they’re talking, put it down. So that’s one hot dog for the master shot, and one for the reverse master (because they’ll need an unbitten dog to take a bite out of). One for each angle of the overs. One for the coverage. So at the bare minimum, we just went through five hot dogs. And that’s assuming we got everything in one take. This one-bite shot can add up to three or four packs of hot dogs and buns really fast. And again—this is just one person having one bite. And we’re not even considering someone’s going to have to keep cooking them, so we’re going to need a working grill, fuel for the grill… seriously, just cut the food scenes.

–Kids and Animals—if we have kids and animals as possible assets to use for our movie, that’s fantastic. But it’s a safe assumption that every scene with kids and animals are going to take twice as long to shoot. That’s the big reason they’re expensive, especially on this level. They use up time we could be using for other things.

–Getting dirty—throughout the course of a story, somebody could get smeared with dirt or blood, maybe get a sleeve torn, get their hair mussed up, something like that. Maybe they just fall in the pool. Heck, maybe they’re just putting mustard on that hot dog. If I see a change like this happen on screen—let’s say Phoebe gets mud thrown on her shirt—then we need multiple shirts for every single take of this (again, I refer to the hot dog). Plus, it’s another time expense as the actress playing Phoebe has to go get changed, maybe clean mud off herself, fix her hair back to how it was. Again, looks simple on the page, but it adds up really quick when you talk about production. I’ve been on shows where they’ve bought four or five matching shirts for gags like this, and it still didn’t end up being enough.

–Night shots—it’s hard to tell sometimes, but exterior night shots in movies and television often use a lot of lights. Dozens. Yes, even some found footage stuff. There’s a real art to making well-lit darkness. That means good night shots require someone who knows what they’re doing and the equipment they need to at least do it passably well. If I have to have a night shot… could it maybe happen in a well-lit parking lot?

Okay, this one got really long, but you get the general idea. I could probably come up with five or six more examples. Thing is at this level, I need to think about how stuff will actually be shot and what that could involve.

Moving on…

4) Know What I’m Writing
Once we’ve juggled all these assets and limitations with our own goals and desires, we should have a pretty clear idea of what kind of movie we want to make. Yeah, it’s a B-movie, but is it a supernatural thriller? Urban fantasy? Holiday romance? Period sci-fi? I should keep this in mind as I’m writing. If it’s a horror movie, why are we spending twenty pages on this whole dating/romance scene?

Also, who is this for? Who’s our audience? Are we looking to make something family- friendly or a little more for the 18-35 range? All these decisions should help shape some scenes a bit.

5) Know Who My Hero Is
I’m mentioning this because it’s always the #1 problem when I’m watching my Saturday geekery B-movies. Like I was just saying about the genre, when we’re hammering out this story together, we need to figure out who our main character is. Is it him? Is it her? Are those three our mini-ensemble? This is storytelling 101—who should my audience be paying attention to? Who should they be rooting for?

Once we know who they are, we need to make sure they’re a good character. And, weird as it may sound, Wakko being our main character means they should be, y’know, the main character in the movie. There should be more pages about them than about Yakko. Or Phoebe who’s willing to wear that tiny bikini on film. The hero is the person we should be spending the most time with. They should be the one driving the plot forward.

6) Be Cautious of Camp
This is a tough one. At this budget level, it’s really tempting to just wink at the camera and make a joke out of how silly that costume is or that we’ve go three people standing under a paper-and-sharpie banner that says “WOODSTOCK.” Trying to hang a lantern on it can seem like an easy way to get around a lot of stuff.

Thing is, this type of comedy wears thin really fast. One of the secrets of camp is that the best examples of it never give the audience that little nudge-nudge, wink-wink. They play themselves completely straight. Too much obvious camp makes it look like we’re not taking this seriously, at which point… why should the audience take us seriously as filmmakers?

If we’re not making a comedy, resist the urge to lean into comedy. Especially as an excuse.  We want to embrace our strengths, not mock our weaknesses.

Speaking of which…

7) Think Big
I know with everything I’ve said so far, it probably feels like our best bet is that old indie standard “three people trapped in a hotel room that looks a lot like the bedroom of my apartment.” But just because we don’t have any money doesn’t mean we can’t have big ideas. We can’t have battlemechs fighting kaiju, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a big concept.

There are so many examples out there of high-concept, low budget movies. Saw is literally just the old bar question of “what would you do to escape this?” asked with some low level special effects. Primer is a time-travel movie where their big expense was some cardboard boxes wrapped in tinfoil. The Blair Witch Project. Monsters. Chronicle. All of these movies are really big story ideas that people figured out how to do in small, low-budget ways. We should absolutely aim as high as we can.

Okay, just a few more…

8) Format It
I’ve talked about screenplay format in the past. Technically, yes, if I’m only writing this to shoot with my friends, it doesn’t matter if I’ve got the format down or not

But… if I do have it formatted correctly, there’s a bunch of really helpful tricks I can use. Like timing my script. You may have heard that one page is about a minute of film time (according to a good friend of mine who’s a script supervisor it’s closer to 53 seconds on average, but one minute’s an easy rule of thumb). So if I’ve got this in the right format, I can immediately look and know this scene is probably going to run long, or that the whole thing is barely an hour.

Another good one. We should generally figure it’s going to take about 90 minutes to shoot one page (again—talking about a properly formatted script). Some may go faster, some slower, but in my experience 90 minutes a page is a good estimate. Which means now I can schedule a shooting day (more on that next time)

It may be a bit of a pain, but there are some serious advantages to formatting this correctly. I don’t even need special software—if someone happens to have it, cool, but I’ve written pretty much all my scripts in Word with a few formatting macros set up. Hell, my first few I just wrote ‘em and then went back through and got all the formatting right.

Yeah, fine, maybe you can come up with an all-new, far-better way to write and format screenplays. You’re not part of the Hollywood machine, churning out IP garbage! You can be the guy to disrupt scripts (yeah, if you’re thinking all this, I’m just naturally assuming you’re a guy). But the thing is do you want to spend the rest of the year developing your new screenplay format… or making a movie?

9) Top Screenwriting Tip—RIGHT NOW
I’ve mentioned this before so I’ll give you a link and not go into it too much here. Because this whole post is getting really long. Super short version, if it’s not on screen right now, it shouldn’t be on the page. Are we shooting backstory in this scene? No? Then there shouldn’t be any backstory on the page. No inner monologues or struggles. No character sketches. No notes to my friend (or future me) who’s directing this. What’s on the page should be what’s on the screen right now, and vice-versa.

I know it’s tempting to put all that stuff in the script (it’s got to be somewhere, right?). But one of the reasons people growl about details like this is because it messes up all those estimates we were just talking about. Because none of this stuff actually gets filmed.

And now, my final big tip for writing a B-movie…

10) Actually Write The Script
Because this is just us and our friends making a movie, it kinda feels like we don’t need to bother with putting the whole thing down on paper. I mean, we hashed out all this stuff I’ve been talking about last night over pizza and rum, right? We know what genre this is, who our hero is. The big stuff’s done, we can work out all the fine details on set.

The truth is, a complete script just makes it much easier to tell a cohesive story. The less I plan out, the more things veer off the path. If the actors want to ad lib on set and the director wants to let them ad-lib and the ad-libs are actually useful and germane to the discussion, as someone once said… cool. But until then, I need an actual, finished script. For all those formatting reasons I mentioned above, but also so I can actually plan this out.

Plus, it’s just more professional. True story—I worked on a low-budget TV show and one episode… we didn’t get a script. Seriously. This was an actual, on-television show and they didn’t give us a script. The actors didn’t have anything to rehearse. The costumer and I got called into the line producer’s office to discuss prep and he just said “Get some military stuff.” When we tried to ask what year, what branch, dress or combat, for how many people… he actually got annoyed with us and said we’d have to “think on our feet” for the next episode.

Don’t be like this to your cast and crew. You can be more professional than that. Hell, you can actually be more professional than that professional.

And look at that. There’s ten tips for writing a better B-movie script. And a ton of links to guide you back to some other stuff I’ve said about the process.

Next time, we’re going to give this script to the director (who, granted, might also be us) and talk about a couple ways to make sure this whole filmmaking thing goes smoothly and maybe gives us something we’re willing to show people.

Until then…

Well, go write.

So, there’s something I was hoping we could avoid talking about this week…

Subtext is one of those things that gets mentioned a lot. In fact, I’d hazard a guess it gets mentioned more than it gets defined, and it probably get defined more than people actually give examples of how to do it. Which is weird because it is so important to good writing. It shows up in prose, it should be all through dialogue, it’s just… it’s everywhere

I think we all get a little nervous around subtext because when it’s done well it’s soooo friggin’ good it becomes intimidating. How many college professors went on and on about it? It’s also one of those things where if I dig deep enough, I can find almost any meaning to anything I want. Which then—through the power of the internet—makes it look the author crafted these twelve layers of intricate meaning when they wrote this chapter and holy crap I don’t know about you but I’m intimidated again.

So what is subtext? It’s the conversation beneath the one my characters are having out loud. Or maybe it’s beneath the conversation I’m having with the reader—that I’m telling you this but we both know we’re talking about this. And sometimes it can be that simple. Subtext doesn’t always have to be rich and elaborate and layered with exquisite meaning. There don’t need to be twelve layers. Or even six.

But good dialogue almost always has some kind of subtext, because that’s how people work. We talk around things more than we say them directly. We have in-jokes and shared experiences and understood context and all these things that let us say exactly what we mean without saying… well, what we mean. Without subtext, it’s really tough to do comedy. It’s almost impossible to flirt.

Here’s a few common examples of subtext you’ve probably seen before. Maybe even used before. They’re really simple and even just using these can bump my dialogue up a notch or two. Also, these are just my own names for all of these. I’m sure there’s some literary or psychological theory that gives them a much more accurate name. But I think you’ll know what I’m talking about, and that’s what matters.

The Friend— Let’s start with the most familiar one. So familiar it’s pretty much become a comedy gag. How many times have you read a story or seen a show where someone goes to the pharmacist to pick up their “friend’s” ointment for… their rash.  Or maybe I know this, uhhhh, person from my book club who got really confused by this one Doom level, and was wondering if you could explain how to beat it in simple terms. For him. And the obvious subtext here is that there is no friend, it’s just the character trying to put some distance between them and the embarrassment of needing that ointment. This is an easy form of subtext, because I’m still saying everything, I’m just pushing all the emotions and thoughts onto a different character—even if it’s a nonexistent character.

A close relative of the Friend is the Hypothetical. That’s when we’re talking about the accursed book of damned souls and I ask you, “well, just for argument’s sake, what if I had read a page of the book out loud? What would happen? Not that I did it, I just want to be sure we all understand the stakes here…”

The Metaphor—This is basic subtext 101. It’s the one I mentioned above, when we’re  talking about X but everyone knows we’re really talking about Y. It’s like talking about my friend, but we’re broadening our palette a bit. I’m talking about cleaning out the garage, but it’s really about letting go of the past. Perhaps my co-worker and I are talking about how much we enjoyed doing this project together when it’s clear we’ve fallen in love. Or maybe the boss is telling his new employee about how much he loves the Klingons in Star Trek, and how in their society you advance by taking out the people above you. Ha ha ha, anyway, welcome to the company. Good luck!

Sometimes an example of this sort of subtext gets repeatedly used so much the metaphor becomes a euphemism—it’s so broadly understood, the subtext has essentially become the text. If my partner calls me up at ten at night and asks if I’m up for some Netflix and chill, we all understand she’s not hoping I’ll sit through the first three episodes of Sweet Tooth(although we may have it on in the background).

The Reverse—Another simple way to use subtext is for my character to just declare the exact opposite of what they really mean. At one point or another, we’ve all probably heard something along the lines of “It’s okay, I really didn’t want the promotion. It would’ve been too much work, anyway.” And we all knew Wakko was lying, but we just nodded and politely agreed with him. Or think of Michelle in Spider-Man: Homecoming, who’s not obsessed with Peter Parker or anything, she’s just knows his class schedule because she’s very observant. That’s all.

Worth noting–a lot of times the reverse can be sarcasm, because sarcasm is all about the subtext. Odds are all of us have made a suggestion where one of our friends has rolled their eyes and said “Oh, yeah, I’d love to do that.”

The Next Step—If you’ve ever read about someone ordering a double at the bar before they break some bad news to their tense friend, you know this method. Or maybe when I know the in-laws are coming for dinner, and I take three or four pictures down from the wall and put up other ones. It’s when a character shows they’re one or two steps ahead. She’s not thinking about now, she’s thinking about fifteen minutes or an hour from now, and planning accordingly. Through their words or actions, my character’s saying “I know where this is going and I know how it’s going to end.”

The Blank—This one’s a slightly trickier way of doing subtext. It’s when my character demonstrates their opinion on something by offering no opinion. Sometimes they do it by ignoring the topic, like when Wakko asks his brother’s opinion on Phoebe and his brother instead pointedly wonders aloud how much the DJ gets paid at this club. Other times he might just dance around it, saying he doesn’t know Phoebe that well or giving a very vague non-answer (“Look, how well can you really know anyone, right?”)

And there’s five easy ways I can put a little subtext into my writing. You’ve probably seen a lot of them already. You may already be doing it—good on you.

It’s worth mentioning that all of these methods need a bit of skill and practice, because sometimes people are just really observant. Every now and then we really do just want to relax and watch something on Netflix. And maybe the boss just really likes Star Trek and I wasn’t supposed to shove Dot down that elevator shaft. 

Y’see, Timmy, the trick with subtext is making sure it’s clear what I really mean. I can’t be so blunt that my characters aren’t really hiding anything, but I also can’t be so subtle that people think my characters… aren’t really hiding anything. It’s a fine balancing act, and it’ll take a few tries to get it right. Nothing to be ashamed of. I have this one friend and none of his early writing had any subtext in it at all.

Next time…

Okay, so, next week, in a world where everyone had masked up last year and gotten vaxxed as fast as they could this year—in that world, next week is SDCC. Alas, we don’t live in that world, so next week is another virtual con with lots of Zoom panels. Which are fantastic, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not doing any of them. In fact, at best, I may do a more public Saturday geekery and watch a couple fun B-movies. Like maybe the MCU Incredible Hulk and Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

I was also thinking about the blog post for that week. Normally I’d just update my “Top Ten B-Movie Mistakes” list (found footagewas finally going to get a slot). But that just feels kind of needlessly negative, especially after the past year, and I want this place to be more constructive.

So here’s what I’m thinking about doing…

Next week I’m going to do two posts (Tuesday and Thursday) about how to make a better B-movie. Tuesday’s going to about writing it (based on my experience as a writer, screenwriter, and entertainment journalist) and Thursday’s going to be about filming it (based on my experience working on a few dozen B-movies and TV shows, some of which you’ve actually heard of). It’ll probably just be a “top seven tips” sort of thing, and I doubt anyone from the Asylum will ever see it, but I’ll feel better putting something more positive out into the world. And maybe it’ll help somebody.

Sound like fun? 

Cool.

Until then, go write.

And get your shots!

I (finally) wanted to step away from the usual process stuff we talk about here—structure, dialogue, characters, editing, and so on—to talk about another important part of the process.

Dating apps.

When we’re looking to find that partner for life—or, y’know, maybe just for the weekend—these apps can be phenomenal. They’re not perfect, no, but they can save a lot of time by, well… weeding out a lot of folks that aren’t going to work for me. For whatever reason. Maybe I have some really firm personal philosophies. Perhaps I know exactly what kind of relationship I’m looking for right now. Maybe, hey, there’s a certain body type I prefer—or one I don’t. Regardless of what my criteria are, whether they’re right or wrong, these apps can help whittle down my prospects to a manageable size by matching me up with the people who meet my requirements.

Except… well…

Okay, look. Clearly there can be basic misunderstandings now and then. She said she likes football, I said “hey, I like football,” but it turns out she meant soccer and okay, well… this was awkward. Sorry I scheduled our first date during the World Cup.

Or maybe it was a little more deliberate. Maybe I realized I get a lot better matches when my profile says I’m six foot even and 179 pounds with a thick head of dark hair. Which, for the record, is a 100% accurate description of me that I’m just using for this example. Except then we finally meet face to face and now I can’t hide that, okay, yeah, I’m closer to 5’9” and 225 pounds (look, lockdown was very stressful) with a silver-gray widow’s peak that’s pulled back a bit over the past decade or so. But I have a great personality and I’m sure… well, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if the matchee wasn’t too interested when they finally saw me. They might even be justifiably annoyed. I mean, they spent time looking for a good match on this app.

Hell, maybe I’m just going to be kind of obnoxious about it and rationalize away their criteria. Her profile clearly says she doesn’t want short guys and no sci-fi/superhero geeks, but she’s hot, dammit. I’ll just explain to her how short guys are more dependable (in so many ways) and that Star Wars is actually more in the science-fantasy genre, so we should definitely hook up. I mean, that’s what DMs are for, right? To make my case and skip over all those limitations she’s putting out there to weed out other guys exactly like… me.

Anyway, where were we? Oh, right, why the hell are we talking about dating apps on this here writing page? What’s going on?

Well, as I’m sure a lot of you have already figured out, using a dating app is a lot like submitting my work somewhere. It’s trying to find that perfect person who’s looking for what I’m offering. Either a long term partner like an agent or maybe just a quick, one-time thing like placing a short story in a magazine, anthology, or a contest. And I’m going to have my best results with these submissions if I’m being honest. With myself and with them.

Yeah, sure—there’s always going to be the occasional mistake. I might spell someone’s name wrong or misread a requirement. Hell, one time I submitted to a magazine and the editor politely wrote back and pointed out thanks but they’d gone out of print six months earlier. These aren’t a lack of honesty as much as signs I’m maybe rushing things a bit at times and need to slow down a bit.

But I really don’t want to be lying about what my manuscript is. I shouldn’t reformat it to make it hit a certain page count. I don’t want to call it a romance when it’s a thriller with a minor romance subplot. I definitely shouldn’t say it’s got strong religious themes without being clear the “religion” is a doomsday cult trying to summon the old gods to cleanse the Earth.

I especially don’t want to ignore what they’ve specifically said they want. Yeah, they don’t want urban fantasy novels—but they’ll want mine, dammit! All short stories have to be under 7500 words, but once they read mine they’ll understand why it’s 11,000. No explicit violence toward women or animals… but I mean, they just say that to weed out the real weirdoes, right? And I know I’ve mentioned the guy who sent his sex comedy to a Christian values screenplay competition… ?

If I want to make a connection—a serious one that’s going to lead to something, even if it’s only something short term—I need to be honest. I can’t lie about what I’m offering. I can’t ignore what they want. If I do, I can’t blame them when they toss my manuscript in that big pile on the left.

Or, y’know, if they swipe that way.

Next time, I really want to not talk about something.

Until then, go write.

I had a post on dating apps all ready to go but… well, the past two weeks have been especially rough for me. On a bunch of fronts. I’m still here at the desk, though. Scribbling away. Being pretty productive, honestly, even though I’d really rather just be drinking, building toy robots, and listening to Lore again from the beginning.

Which got me thinking. The past few years—2020 especially—has been tough on creative folks. It’s been crisis after crisis, and it’s been exhausting on so many levels. Spiritually. Emotionally. Even physically. I don’t know about you, but I feel seriously beat up after 2020.

And when you’re already that beat up, every new wound hits that much harder. Bad news is the worst news. Any little bit of criticism is a knife in the back. Self-doubt can swell up into this Hulk-like manifestation of your childhood bully to make everything even worse. Or I guess Abomination-like is more trendy right now. You get the point. It’s friggin’ huge.

Not surprising at times like these, we all feel the urge to walk away for a while. To take a mental health day or three. The desire to put this project down and come back to it when we’re feeling a little less beat up and a little more inspired. Maybe to just spend today—and maybe tomorrow—comfortably playing games on the couch and not thinking about anything.

Because holy crap, there’s a ton of stuff it’d be nice not to think about, isn’t there?

All that said, I just want to warn against something that becomes really tempting at times like these. And that’s waiting for something to make me want to write again. Waiting until the muse pushes me, until I feel inspiredagain.

Yeah, okay, we all write for different reasons. It might be more of a hobby. It might be therapeutic. But I’m guessing for most of the folks reading this, the hope is to someday make a steady living at it. Financially speaking.

And if I’m one of these folks, I need to accept that writing is work. Most of the time it’s fantastic and fun and creative, but sometimes I need to do it even when I don’t feel like it. Sometimes I need to do it when I don’t want to. I just need to get in there and write another thousand words about this guy going down into a haunted mine. Or that woman trying to find out the secrets her parents hid from her. Or those college students on that boat trip that went… well, less than great.

I’m not saying I need to work twelve hours a day, seven days a week. Neither do you, if I wasn’t clear. It’s 100% understandable to need a vacation or just a mental health day. Real life is out there with vet appointments and grocery shopping and maybe even another human or two we kinda enjoy spending time with. No job should be my whole existence, no matter what it is. And like I said above, it’s a rough time in a rough world. We all need to take care of ourselves and the people we care about.

But also… we need to be sure we’re not using all that roughness as an excuse.

Y’see Timmy, at the end of the day, I should want to write. I should enjoy it. Yeah, some days are less enjoyable than others, like any job, but it shouldn’t be the thing I put off for the third week in a row because I’m just not feeling it. I can’t put things off waiting for the perfect inspiration or a certain mood or a precise atmosphere. If wanting to write isn’t my default state, if the thought of it makes me miserable…

Maybe that’s my brain telling me something.

Anyway, just some random thoughts. Next time, we’ll talk about getting the most out of those dating apps.

Until then, go write.

No seriously. Go write. Stop making excuses.