Write-A-Thon
Contrary to the title, this post is not about writing.
Let’s start by talking about writing:
The fun of banging on the keyboard every day wanes. It becomes more about the afterglow than the work before it (“love having written, hate writing.”) There are times I enjoy the creating, capturing the moment perfectly in words as I imagined in my mind. These moments are far and few between, however. The majority of the time, writing is work. This isn’t a problem if you’re professional and treat the writing as such — you get up and get it done, regardless of how you “feel” or whether you’re “up to it.”
Recently, my writer’s group took on a unique challenge: our group of six would collaborate to write the first draft of a screenplay — in one night. One single all-night writing session to get from FADE IN to BLACK, dividing the labor equally amongst six people.
We held four meetings in the weeks prior to hash out an outline we could execute within the time frame. The outline was skeletal — we established only the main protagonist’s names, motivations, and back story, and agreed upon three or four settings. It did fulfill the single necessary requirement: get us from A to Z in 24 beats (a serendipitous coincidence, thanks to 24’s unique mathematical properties of being divisible by 3 (writing pairs) and 8 (hours to write.)
The remaining details were left up to the writers and created on the fly. This spontaneity led to moments throughout the night where one person would pose thoughtful questions like “wait, is Whitney impregnated by the demon before or after Adolfi is gored by the alligator?” and other pressing issues that affected theme, allegory, and continuity.
We met. We drank coffee. We conquered. Not in that order.
But we got our draft — a nonsensical, terribly violent yet wholly completed draft.
Take away lessons: this is a good way to get a draft written, but it’s not a good way to write a draft. I’d recommend everyone gives it a try.
Like I said: this post is not about writing.
Setting aside eight hours to stay up all night with a group of people with a single intention (“let’s make some s#%!”) was the most fun I had in this medium in a long time. Throwing down words that made zero sense logically or grammatically in a sleep-deprived state was a small reminder to enjoy the process of creating, not just the event of having created. I’m not talking about those 8-hours, either; I mean the whole process: surrounding yourself with people who want to make something, having the idea of the all-nighter, makingprogress with the outline week by week, anticipating the event as we moved closer and closer, and wondering if we’d manage to get everyone together for eight hours (a miracle in of itself.)
So now we got this draft, and what we’re going to do with it (revise it, revisit it, trash it?) is pretty unclear. I hoped it’d be a rough draft to add to the portfolio but I think even that may be a stretch. It may end up being nothing more than the only souvenir from a night where a group of people decided they were going to make something. And followed through.
That, and this blog post, that isn’t about writing.
