You must know nothing before you can learn something, and be empty before you can be filled.

Is not the emptiness of the bowl what makes it useful?

You may well be right, Lloyd Alexander.

Kaffe Fassett

I spend a lot of time, really, what with yoga and meditation and the like, emptying my mind.

That's all well and good. Sometimes, I'm a bit too successful and then I'm left with...an empty mind.

You'd think I'd be congratulating myself and adopting Zen-like poses...

Stephanie Estrin

 Trouble is...when my mind's empty, I simply don't know what to do. That's okay for a while, but life must go on and, seriously, I cannot think of a single one of the thousand and seven tasks which really need to be completed...

You know To Do Lists? Well, they're usually for when you have so much to do you don't even know where to start, aren't they?

I'm thinking that when my mind's NOT empty, I'll have to write a To Do List of things I could be getting on with when my mind IS empty.

Nothing, of course, that involves any thought...

“The more Caroline waited, the more the doorbell didn't ring. Or the phone.”

Replace Caroline with Susan and you'd have it - a quote from Douglas Adams - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

 Yes...waiting...and the little girl in the photo looks spookily like me at the same age.

 I'm referring to the sort of waiting I'm doing a lot of at the moment - waiting to hear back from editors, animators, directors, production companies all of whom have pieces of my work.

I'm not very good at waiting. Or rather, I start off being very good at it, all full of gung-ho hope and optimism. Then, as time goes by that little voice in my head gets louder.

By Glenn McCleary

It's strange how the little voice in my head never says anything ENCOURAGING...

Mostly, at the moment, it's saying - "They think your work is crap and they're just taking their time formulating the right words in order to tell you this."

So how I cope with this waiting process is by blocking it out, by composing a mind-bogglingly impossible To Do List and thrashing my way through it at a hundred miles an hour so I don't ever have time to

THINK

when if I DID let myself think, I'd realise that the little voice in my head is...

crazy as a soup sandwich.

5 little known things that could affect your screenwriting

Expert screenwriter Caroline Coxon's tried and tested ways concerning how not to write screenplays.

* Free gift: Bonus advice at the end of this blog, born of many years experience.

1. Spend time writing a blog about procrastination.

This is an excellent way of not writing screenplays because you feel as though you're doing something useful and you can kid yourself that it's just a preliminary writing exercise to get your brain into gear.

2. Write a To-Do List 

An absolutely foolproof way of not writing a screenplay, even if you put that task right at the top of the list, because it helps you to create previously unthought of reasons to explain why you can't get on with writing a screenplay.

3. Sharpen your pencils

This is a particularly useful way not to write screenplays if you have lots of pencils. You can pretend to yourself that you might try writing in longhand even though you always use FinalDraft on a computer. It makes you feel eco-friendly.

4. Check e-mails and Facebook page.

...but so very crucial when you're trying not to write a screenplay. There's always the chance that there might be a message from Steven Spielberg or Christopher Nolan about your last screenplay and then you won't have to bother writing another one..


5. Read through the very few pages of the screenplay that you have already written

This will definitely make you despair and vow never to attempt a feature length screenplay ever again.

Now...*As advertised above

Totally free advice from screenplay expert Caroline Coxon about how to conquer these issues:

JUST STOP IT ...and start writing your screenplay


(It didn't work for me! Why should you be any different?)

Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.

(It makes me sad, [or is it annoyed?] that if I Google Winnie the Pooh, pages and pages of Disney images come up before E.H. Shepard.)

HOWEVER...when I took the trash can off my head (see yesterday) I could see that part of my trouble is that I'm not very organised. Another part of my trouble is that sometimes I spend a lot of time organising, with To Do Lists and plans and then spend very little time DOING. Sigh. Another paradox.

Option 37B - what I fondly call retrospective planning. Here is how it works: I make a list of everything I've already done.

Then I cross things off.

This works in two contrasting ways.

1. It makes me feel good about what I've achieved
2. It makes me feel bad that I've achieved so little.

Yesterday, I created a table. The title at the top reads 'THINGS I HAVE DONE TO PROMOTE MY CAREER AS A CREATIVE WRITER' 

It contains some uplifting entries - cataloguing those people I've contacted in the past few days, those production companies to whom I've sent scripts following requests, the index cards I've put together for my latest feature length screenplay.

It was only later I noticed that it doesn't mention me actually doing some writing.

Happiness is a very small desk and a very big wastebasket

A magician said this. A magician, comedian and speechwriter for Gerald Ford, which seems a strange marriage of talents...

...but maybe not. A little worrying, perhaps, to think that a president of the US.etc. etc.

I don't particularly agree with Robert Orben's definition of happiness.  Too small a desk and I wouldn't be able to fit my Very Important Objects on it.

Difficult to see clearly but may I introduce them? From L to R.

Hmmmm, there's my To Do List on a whiteboard. (More of a To Do Scrawl, really.)

Then there's my Inukshuk. It reminds me of my two boys, Jamie and Laurie, and their girlfriends, Breanna and Irene, living in Canada. It also symbolises "You are on the right path." I live in hope...

Next, my hare. If I had a daemon, it would be a hare. Then there's a little card...

 ...because I never think I am.

Under that, a beautiful golden horse...

...Christmas present all the way from Bombay, from my dear writing friend, Rusty, which of course reminds me of Poppy and Alfie as well.

Then there's Bad Bunny for when I'm feeling wicked and Black Dog who gets shut in a drawer if I'm feeling miserable, as a sort of symbolic gesture for banishing depression.

Finally,  there's Eck - from a Meg Rosoff story, There is No Dog - reminder of someone who's an inspiration to me, and Ecks are very nearly extinct so I am his guardian.

My life, in eight objects. Ooooh dear! Rather telling.

I HAVE got a very big wastebasket, but I so very rarely throw anything away...

Procrastination is opportunity's assassin

Victor Kiam...wasn't he the fellow that loved the shaver so much he bought the company?

Yes, he was. I always thought that wasn't such a great commercial - it made me feel something along the lines of 'Well, bully for YOU, Mr. Kiam, but some of us haven't got that much money at our disposal, you arrogant git.' However, I guess it was memorable so it served its purpose. (So memorable I thought it was Gillette and I now see it was Remington!)

His statement about procrastination is good though. I'm finding it quite tough to get going.

Thanks to:hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com

 Before Christmas, working like a maniac (only more sanely)...a few days of nothing...and now I feel as though my head's full of glue. It's not so much a case of not getting on with my To Do List, it's more a case of not even knowing what to put on a To Do List.

So - here's a start...

I was planning to do something today, but I haven't finished doing nothing from yesterday.

Lies, all lies! I was very busy yesterday. I just happen to like the quote.

But, you know how much I love To Do Lists. This is mine for today.

Last week exhausted me, pathetic little weed that I am. When Pete asked what I'd like to do this weekend, I said I'd like to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

It's harder than I thought, this doing nothing lark.

I need practice.

Perhaps I should write a list of all the things I'm not going to do today?