The Curious Outcome of Giving Up on My Dream

Last year I gave up a dream I'd been pursuing for 14 years, the dream of working in the film industry as a writer and filmmaker. My love started many suns and moons ago with a lightning bolt realization. I had daydreamed a vivid conversation between a grandmother and her grandson, and it was such an odd, cinematic vision that I wrote it down. Then it hit me, "THIS must be what it's like to write movies!" I went on to devour any book about the craft that I could find, and write my first feature-length script in a week.

As years passed I wrote more scripts, produced and directed my own short films, moved to Hollywood and worked for a big screenwriter. Later, I worked in casting and production. I won some small awards for my scripts and films, and worked for little or no money in pursuit of a self-made, hands-on education. As the years dragged by I saw more peers - and students - pass me by. And, I got more tired, more broke, more hurt from rejection, more sluggish in my output.

I had given up this pursuit twice before following long stints of feeling like I was in the desert without a drop to drink, but last year, on the eve of my 40th birthday, I did it again. I called it quits for good. I gave myself 100% permission to stop struggling. It was hard. Especially because I love screenwriting and filmmaking. But bitterness, come to find out, does not become me.

After I got over the initial depression and despair about spending my whole adult life pursuing an impossible dream, I felt liberated. My creative flow that had been so pinpointed, so stopped up, opened wide again. Other outlets and mediums presented themselves. Ideas started to bloom again along my mental riverbanks. Unexpected possibilities arrived at the proverbial doorstep. (This website being one of them).

The most curious part of it all? I've gotten hired for more film and screenwriting jobs in the last year since I "gave it up" than any previous year. Not only that, but the projects I was hired on were "real" jobs with reputable organizations and rising star filmmakers, and they were projects I felt qualified and excited to do. In short, I set free what I loved and it came back again with a vengeance.

This got me to thinking about WHY it happened this way, and that's lead to a few revelations about the power of giving up. I laid them out for you in nice bold letters below, 'cause I'm cool like that. Dig 'em...

We block energy with our neediness. When you squeeze your fist into a ball, your knuckles turn white and blood stops flowing, but when you relax your hand a bit it starts to flow again. The same is true for our creative pursuits. When I was clinging so tightly, working so hard, yearning so deeply for the Almighty End Result, I blocked the flow of energy - energy that freed up again once I pointed my attention in another direction.

Transmissions take time to reach the outer atmosphere.  When you work for years at something you reach a lot of people - people on the Internet, or students in your classes, or people who come through that gallery show, or who read your fiction as judges in a contest, or people you've submitted to for a project. There are so many ways your work ripples out into the world, but often we only focus on the shut doors and dead ends. The truth is you can't ever know what's happening behind the scenes. Your creative work, when you put it out into the world, takes on a life of its own. Sometimes it takes a lot longer than anticipated to find the right home, and just because you can't see things happening doesn't mean they aren't.

Releasing attachment to outcome allows for a happier outcome. I'm not going to say, "It's all about the journey," 'cause I'm a big fan of end results. But, when I stopped not just expecting a particular outcome, but an outcome AT ALL, they happened in a way I never would've imagined. Having specific results in mind kept me narrow in my focus, which in turn narrowed my possibilities. The more I did my creative work (yes, while enjoying the process) and released any particular idea of outcome, the more unimaginably wonderful outcomes flowed to me.

Begging the universe for assistance pays off.  At a certain point in the last year, I threw my hands up and railed at the universe, "HELP ME, WOULD YOU?" What happened shortly thereafter is, well, help arrived. (I wrote about that here, if you're curious.) I used to be an atheist, so it's taken me decades of searching, and more importantly, experiencing and experimenting, to understand that we are co-creators. When we partner with Source Energy (or Spirit, or "the universe", or God, or Higher Consciousness, or however you choose to identify it) we achieve results beyond our wild imaginings (which, it turns out, come from a much smaller vantage point.)

Enjoying life needs to be priority #1. It's not just New Age Hocus Pocus to say we vibrate at a certain frequency, it's a scientific fact. When we vibrate with joy our spirits are raised and so is our frequency. Since like attracts like, that frequency attracts more joy. The more I dedicated myself to joy and feeling good this year, the more joyful opportunities came to me. Those opportunities not only supported my own vision, but served a much greater number of people than I ever could have envisioned. That's what they don't tell you about being joyful - it truly is contagious.

It turns out that our deepest dreams and desires can be our greatest teachers. It's just that when we're stubborn, narrow-minded students like I used to be, it takes a bit longer to get the lessons.

All Creativelike: An Interview with The Unknown Screenwriter

There comes a time in every aspiring screenwriter's life when they discover The Unknown Screenwriter. For many, including myself, it's the moment they happen across a much-needed blog post filled with juicy, rant-y, truth bombs about the craft and business of screenwriting. For others, it's finding his prolific and interactive Twitter feed. (If you stick around long enough you'll surely get a shout out.) The presence of Unk, as he's affectionately known - though I'm sure he'd stare affection in the eye until it slunk away defeated - has brought me both comfort and unease over the years. There is no sugar-coating with Unk when it comes to the industry and the unforgiving structure of screenwriting, but there's always humor, surly charm, and hellluva lot of insight.

Unk, how would you define creativity?  Hard work. Long rides. Long drives. Daydreaming. New. Valuable. What if? Pushing the limit. Living on the edge. Luck.

Explain to those who don't know you - actually, even to those who do - a brief history of your anonymous screenwriting persona. Brief... Okay. I was reading screenwriting blogs back in 2005 for no other reason than because I like screenwriting and there was nobody I could sit around have conversations about screenwriting with. And while I found some interesting sites, I kinda felt that most had very similar ways of looking at the craft similar to what you'd find in a book or article. And while there's nothing wrong with that, I wondered if sharing my own perspective might work for some of those who are tired of the usual perspective that seems to be out there in droves.

I work with a production company and we make films but we also do script consulting on studio and larger indie films. We fix screenplays... Movies you've either seen or heard of. We do this for absolutely NO CREDIT -- just pay -- and business is good since the meltdown because everyone wants to keep their credit. Hence, Unknown Screenwriter.

How did you get involved in screenwriting? No different than a lot of people... Grew up loving movies. I never really thought, "I could do that," or I can do better than that..." I was always thinking, "I WANT TO DO THAT!"

Just started writing with abandon in the 80s. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Bought a couple of screenplays of my favorite films, BLADERUNNER and THE THING. I still have those two scripts today and read them at least once a year.

Between the mid 80s and early 90s, I wrote but I wrote for myself because I was trying to become a filmmaker -- not a screenwriter. I was inspired by John Sayles, actually. I figured out very early on that if I was going to make my own films, I needed to know how to write. So while I had several completed scripts lying around, I knew they were for ME and not for the market. In the early 90s, I finally sat down and wrote my first screenplay that I hoped would sell. This was at the beginning of the Internet and I used email for querying producers. Back then, a lot more producers were willing to post email addresses on websites. I queried 7 or 8 producers and one very well-known producer who I cannot identify here, got back to me and wanted to shop the script around Hollywood. I let her but after a few months, she finally wanted to meet. At the time, I was in the Navy and nowhere near Los Angeles and when she found that out? She abandoned the script which was fine because it validated to me that I was on the right track when it came to both concept and writing.

I kept sending the script out and eventually got some meetings and a few uncredited (do you see the theme here?) rewrites, tweaks, and polishes. I kept reading scripts and now screenwriting books were coming out so I devoured them for years until one day I realized that while I still had a ton to learn about the craft, wasn't going to learn it from reading any more books.

And often, writing a blog post about some element of the craft is what solidifies my knowledge of it. I've read so much good and bad information... Read so many screenplays... Seen so many films that I have all this information bouncing around up here but it's not until I focus, think it through, and write it down that I finally get it. So The Unknown Screenwriter site is just as much for me as it is anyone else interested in the craft.

I've found screenwriting to be one of the most challenging art forms I've ever worked in. Why is it so darn hard, and yet so satisfying at the same time? I think it's hard because it's so different from traditional writing. While it certainly does contain elements of traditional writing, let's face it... You can't write about what's going on inside a character's head and that's often what makes a novel so compelling and whether we realize it or not? It's what makes characters in a movie so compelling as well.

As a screenwriter, we have to figure out a way to SHOW and NOT TELL i.e., through exposition, subtext, and action, we have to show what our characters are thinking. That's yet another perspective a lot of screenwriters don't seem to get. We're simply making the INTERNAL EXTERNAL.

Once you KNOW how and combine THAT with a great concept YOU can commit to? You're going to start getting paid.

You also write books. Was that a reaction to screenwriting, or something you've always done in tandem? I really don't write books. I've written two books. One about Blackjack and card counting and a novella, I guess you could say. It's not long enough to be a novel but it did come from screenwriting. I've always had this IDEA that a screenplay should make a great outline for a book so I took my last spec and used it as one just to see and I was right... Worked great and I would recommend this to anyone having a spec lying around. With it being so easy to publish a kindle book on Amazon, why not give it a try? Not to mention that I've been contacted for a few writing jobs just based on my book and author's page on Amazon.

Having said that... I will definitely write another book especially seeing how the film industry climate is these days. I still have a hell of a lot to learn when it comes to writing a book and at this point in my life, it's best to just write. Write and learn.

Your blog has been a popular resource for aspiring screenwriters. What made you want to support others in that way? Like I said before... I FEEL like I have a very different way of looking at this craft. I started writing before there were any books on the subject. All I did was try to mimic screenplays of movies I loved. I have no way to qualify this -- it's just a feeling but most everything I read about screenwriting -- the craft of screenwriting -- is very similar. And while that's fine for a lot of people, the proof is in the material. I can talk to someone who really seems to have a handle on their knowledge of screenwriting but then I'll read their screenplay and see that they've not applied all that knowledge to their spec. Upon questioning, I find out that they simply didn't completely understand that knowledge. The books, the workshops, the articles, and most of the blogs only go so far... Rarely do you find anyone really breaking it down into bits and pieces EVERYONE can easily understand. I think that's just something that I've taken with me when I retired from the Navy. We always had so many people from so many different places with so many different levels of understanding that we were often taught ways to break things down so EVERYONE can learn and not just a handful of people.

I haven't blogged as much since my brother died a few years ago but I hope to get back to it soon yet the site still pulls hundreds -- sometimes thousands of visitors a day and I get emails almost every day from someone who tells me that they finally GET IT. That, in and of itself is very rewarding. If I can break something down for someone who's having a difficult time with some element of the craft so they can truly understand it and get back to writing? I love that!

What do you consider ideal conditions for being creative? For me personally, it's taking a long drive or a long ride on my motorcycle. For whatever reason, I have my greatest creative epiphanies during these times. After that? It's sitting down in one of several coffee shops I patronize while I listen to music. You will often find me dancing in my chair as I listen to music and write. When I'm moving to the music in my chair? The material just seems to flow.

Any favorite screenwriters or influences? John Sayles hands down. He writes a book, then eventually turns it into a film. How cool is that? Michael Mann. Enough said. After those two, I've managed to meet and talk to a few heroes of mine but the biggest thing I noticed? And this is not a criticism by any means... I noticed we all put our pants on the same way. In other words, they're human just like me. They have problems just like me. The only real difference when it comes to screenwriting is that they get paid more... At least for now.

Best advice for aspiring screenwriters? That's hard because what's best? I think if you want to write for a living and or sell something you've written, then you need to know up front that it really does come down to two SIMPLE PIECES OF THE PUZZLE... concept and execution. Execution comes the more you read and write screenplays and to a lesser degree, structure.

A lot of beginning and aspiring screenwriters don't really understand structure. And while I'm not advocating one size structure fits all, I am advocating that you consider finding a structure you like -- one that works for YOU and become an expert on it.

You can not only use structure to strategically place story elements in your screenplay, but you can also use structure to brainstorm plot twists and character arcs. Then, after your first draft is complete, you can go back to structure and use it to polish and tweak what you've written. Structure doesn't just have to be where you place story elements that elicit the most emotion from your audience... It IS THAT of course but it's also a nice big hammer you can use later hence, I mention it as part of execution.

Concept is something not often talked about nearly as much. You really do need to spend just as much effort on your concept as you do writing the screenplay and hopefully, your concept is high enough for people in the industry to sit up and take notice. If your concept isn't high enough or different enough for anyone in the business to sit up and pay attention, then you'll either have to turn the screenplay into a movie yourself or realize you just spent 6 months writing something that probably isn't going to sell. And even making it yourself? If the concept isn't high enough or different enough? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Will we ever get to know who the "Unknown Screenwriter" is? Who? Look... There's really no point in knowing who I am. I'm nobody. I'm everybody. I'm no different than anyone else and that's really the point of being the Unknown Screenwriter. I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything. Not trying to sell anyone anything. People are smart enough to KNOW if what they hear or read is correct when they hear it or read it. It either makes sense or it doesn't but even when it doesn't? Hopefully it clarifies something they already know about story to finally make sense.

That's the way it should always be.

The Unknown Screenwriter is a screenwriter, producer, and script doctor for hire. He works with director Roland Joffé and a New York Times best-selling author that must remain anonymous as well. He enjoys riding his motorcycle extremely fast and the occasional triple of Wild Turkey.

All Creativelike: An Interview with Filmmaker Jim Burns

Jim Burns and I met on Twitter a couple of years ago. Our mutual love of filmmaking and screenwriting brought us together. Jim's good cheer, kind heart and talent were evident from the start. (Plus, he tweeted me pretty pics from Scotland, a far cry from my outpost in the Northeast U.S.) Jim's documentary feature film SERIOUS DRUGS revolves around musician Duglas Stewart and seminal UK pop band, the BMX Bandits. (Kurt Cobain once said if he could be in any other band it would be the BMX Bandits.)

Jim paints an intimate portrait of Stewart, documenting his creative process and struggle with depression. It's a moving, humane and, ultimately, uplifting story of a quirky character overflowing with creative energy and childlike charm.

Jim, how would you define creativity? That's an enormous question. My mind goes on a long journey when I think about this too much. I think that creativity is a bit of a misnomer really, because I believe that at one level there's no such thing as creation. It's all about changing shapes. Molecules being re-arranged and that sort of thing. I remember reading a great book called "Buddhism Plain and Simple" where the author, Steven Hagen poses the question, something like: "When does a book become a book?" and it stunned me. Is it when the book is printed? When the publishing deal is signed? When the author decides to write it? And when does the book cease to exist? When it is reduced to ashes? So that suggests to me that a creation can be a thought, a feeling, or an object. But to notice these things requires some consciousness, perhaps. So is creation, then, just consciousness? And if I create something am I just focusing my consciousness towards some kind of goal that makes sense or has value to me?

Where does inspiration come from? Inspiration has always come from either pain or pleasure. Both forces have fired me up in equal amounts. When I started making SERIOUS DRUGS I had been in a lot of pain and had been depressed for some time. So I think I was moving away from the darkness towards the light.

When do you feel most open to your creativity, or at your creative peak? I'm most open to, or conscious of, my ability and desire to create something when I'm at the extremes of these forces. Writing a poem helps me focus on a situation or person's behavior that's causing me pain and turn it into words and lines that make sense of it and get it out of my head. For a short period last year I experienced a strange feeling that every time I met someone it would be the last time I saw them. I wrote some poems about that experience and it seemed to help me externalize it and dull the pain.

Can you tell us how filmmaking found you? Filmmaking found me when I was about four years old and in my grandfather's living room, helping him set-up the projector and screen for the Saturday night movie show. We edited his home movies, added magnetic stripe to the Super 8mm film, and dubbed music that he'd recorded either from the TV set during the long test-transmissions in the 1960s and 70s or from his collection of Reader's Digest LP box sets. Cut to a few years later and I was pointing the Super 8mm camera at cranes in the harbor, following their movements as they unloaded cargo. I was able to let myself drift when I had my finger on the shutter release and was completely relaxed. I feel the same way today when I'm behind the camera.

Making a film is a long process, much longer than many other art forms, perhaps. What keeps you going for the duration? I think there is a combination of things that keeps me going for the duration. Initially, it's about the unknown. There's a germ of a thought that's planted in your mind "What is this? Is there something here? Can I understand this? Can I learn the skills to capture this?" and there is a desire to uncover and explore a concept or idea. So that tantalises me and keeps me hungry. There is also a compartmentalization process where I divide the project into chunks. Each of these can be juggled and managed separately. So that helps the overwhelming feeling of "This is a huge project," and helps me see that there's an end to it. SERIOUS DRUGS took about four years between the idea and the premiere. I must have been pretty hungry.

Documentaries are often crafted in the editing room on the back end of the shoot. Was that the case for SERIOUS DRUGS? How much of the story did you know going into it? I knew there was a story, because I'd found it interesting enough to follow for four years. I also had strong ideas about how the viewer should feel when they saw the film, and I had an idea about who might like this story. But I didn't know whether I'd captured enough of the sound and vision that would support retelling the story that I had experienced on my journey learning about Duglas and the music of BMX Bandits. So when I decided to start editing I needed to invite someone onto the project. Initially, I thought of SERIOUS DRUGS as a music documentary, and started talking to editors with experience of that genre. But for some reason I was drawn to working with someone who had broader experience. I found a post on a UK film website and got in touch with Fiona Macdonald and loved that she was interested in the story and wanted to help. Fiona and I watched all the footage and transcribed every word together. It became clear after that we had a story, and the footage supported it. There were some gaps, and I shot a few scenes during the edit, but within a week of starting the edit we had a storyboard and Fiona got busy building the sequences. Once I had a rough cut of about 3.5 hours I screened this for a filmmaker friend, Ruth Carslaw, who was moved to tears by what she saw. I knew then that there was something special in the air. So I think it's true that in this case SERIOUS DRUGS was crafted in the editing room. This was my first film and I have learned a lot from the process that I think might help me feel more confident in the future and maybe shoot more efficiently and spot the story earlier in the process.

What was the biggest challenge in making the film and how did you overcome it? The biggest challenge in making SERIOUS DRUGS was my lack of confidence. I had been depressed for some time and that had eroded my already poor self-esteem. You're in this rut and scraping the sides to climb out just makes the rut deeper. It is hard enough to produce, direct, shoot, and edit a documentary film, but when your confidence is shot it's almost impossible. To approach the participants and ask for interviews, organize live concert shoots, etc, when you don't really believe you have the right to ask is just crazy. But somehow I just managed to plug away and got the film made, despite this sometimes crushing lack of belief in the project.

Do you have any daily or weekly habits and practices? I run three or four times a week for about an hour a time. I think that is my only habit. It helps reduce any anxiety I feel and just makes the world seem a better place. I spend most of my life sitting down at a computer so it's good to be intensely active for a few hours in the week.

What's next on the agenda for you? I have been involved in photographically documenting two recent street design projects across Scotland, collaborating with some established and internationally renowned artists. I have also started a new business project - I create bespoke software systems for a living - and I'll be concentrating on that for the next few years. I'd like to make another, shorter, documentary and shoot it beautifully. I can't help thinking about the next film. I think I have the bug now.

Jim Burns is a Scottish filmmaker. His first feature film, SERIOUS DRUGS, premiered at Glasgow Popfest 2011 and screened at London Popfest 2012 and Glasgow Music and Film Festival 2012. You can contact him at jim@brilliantfuture.co.uk, via the SERIOUS DRUGS website here, or on Twitter at @BrilliantJim. (Photos of Jim Burns by Barrie Spence and Nicola Atkinson/NADFLY, respectively. DVD cover image by Jim Burns/BINARYBURNS and Nicola Atkinson/NADFLY.)