Everything Is Already Something Week 60: How To Be Like A Famous Writer

Allison Page is habit forming.

Every time I read an article about the habits of famous writers, I notice the same thing:

THEY ACTUALLY DO HAVE HABITS.

They have a routine. Something that I hate thinking about, because I’m not good at routines. Even the word “routine” has not-so-good connotations. It sounds boring and terrible. It sounds like you’re just doing laundry all day. But recently I’ve had trouble finishing things. Okay, let’s be real, I’ve had trouble even starting things. I don’t want to call it writers’ block because I hate that phrase, but it’s eerily similar to that. I used to just write for myself and that was so easy because my deadlines were self-imposed but now there are people who are waiting to get things from me. They need the thing, and they need it on this day, and stuff is piling up and panic is creeping up on me. So I decided to try something else: having a routine. Not only a routine, really, but an incredibly specific, strict and rigid agenda for my whole day. DOESN’T THAT SOUND FUN?! WOOOHOOO.

Okay, here’s the list I made:

7:30am – Wake up, splash some water on my face
7:45am – Go for a walk, get an iced coffee, THINK
8:15am – Eat 2 eggs
8:30am – Write for 45 minutes straight
9:15am – Take a shower
9:35am – Check email. Respond but don’t go crazy.
10:00am – Go outside. Walk in a different direction than before. Going outside is good. You won’t want to go, but do it anyway. You are not a recluse. YOU ARE NOT A RECLUSE.
10:20am – Write for 45 minutes straight.

Jerry Seinfeld writes every single day. He marks off days on a big wall calendar and says his only job becomes “not breaking the chain”

11:05am – Check social media, you heathen. For the love of Groucho, you really
shouldn’t be checking it before now. You’re a writer, not a socialite.
11:30am – Do some KML stuff (Killing My Lobster, the sketch comedy company I am co-creative director of) but don’t fall down the rabbit hole of shit you COULD do.
12:00pm – Eat lunch. NOT A FUCKING BAGEL. Extra points if there are vegetables and you make it yourself.
12:45pm – Write for 45 minutes straight.
1:30pm – Put on some music. Clean something. Anything.
2:00pm – Check email.

Balzac drank 50 cups of coffee a day while writing. I don’t want to know what his bathroom situation was like.

2:20pm – This is generally when you start not being able to write. You know that. It’s okay, you already wrote for two hours and fifteen minutes…BUT YOU’RE GOING TO DO SOME MORE ANYWAY. Write for 20 minutes. It’s okay if you hate it (you will)
2:40pm – Reward yourself with something. You did fine. Have a snack or take a nap. Watch TV or listen to a podcast.
3:00pm – Pay attention to your poor boyfriend for a while.
4:00pm – Read something that isn’t on the internet.
5:00pm – Dinner. Extra points if you make it yourself.
6:00pm – Print and read over everything you wrote today. It helps to have a physicalization of your work.
8:00pm – Watch The Bachelorette finale (YEAH, I KNOW)
11:00pm – Go to sleep. You did fine. You’re not a monster. Not today, anyway.

Agatha Christie had no desk and just propped her typewriter up on any stable surface she could find.

So how did it go, you’re wondering?

Sadly, IT WAS AMAZING. I got so much done. I had been sitting on about 9 pages of a one act commission since April and couldn’t seem to work on it. It’s now 30 pages long, and finished. That feels good. The guilt of not doing something when you know you should be doing it is crippling. So that’s out of the way, and the bonus is that I’m really happy with it! I actually wrote more than I had even planned (about three hours), cleaned my bathroom, made a salad, picked up my new glasses, swept the floor, and generally was a total badass all day, in the most boring sense. Most importantly, though, I felt really good all day. I woke up the next day still feeling awesome. I think scheduling, for me, is a good method. It may not work for everyone, but I felt strangely more free than usual. And forcing myself to go for a walk? That was amazing. If I don’t have a reason to leave, I could easily sit on my butt all day.

If you want to give this a whirl, please do let me know how it works for you in the comments!

Also I totally had a breakfast sandwich from down the street instead of eating two eggs. No woman is an island.

Allison Page is a writer/actor/person with an awful lot of deadlines at the moment.

Working Title: Seasonal Bird(man): Or the Unexpected Virtue of Complex Entertainment

This week Will Leschber gets meta.

Winter is upon us and the end of the year almost proves a curious time. Dense with transition, this final month of the year somehow seamlessly fuses welcomed endings, the promise of new beginnings, outward reflection, routine introspection, feelings of seasonal loneliness, the joy of drawing close to one’s family, cold winter winds, warm gifts of friendship, thoughts of all that has come and gone, and all that lies ahead. The past and the future seem alight with the kinetic energy of being so close to one another. Everyone individually knows the contrasting tones and their own personal ingredients that fall into and color the holidays. It runs the spectrum. Depending on who you ask holiday feelings can run from celebratory to brooding. While a simple, straightforward, feel-good Christmas film or seasonal play can be satisfying for this time of year (Love, Actually always hits the spot for me around Christmas), I also appreciate something a bit more varied with complexity and frayed edges. Maybe some seasonal Birdman is on the menu.

“And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?”

“I did.”

“And what did you want?”

“To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloverd on the earth”

~Raymond Carver

(This opens the film, misspellings and all)

If you are looking for a sweet-spot of entertainment that melds the space between film and theatre, Birdman is it. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s film Birdman: Or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance wistfully unfolds a tale of a washed up former blockbuster star, played by Michael Keaton, and the days leading up to his Broadway debut. Keaton’s character, who blazed across the marquee two decades ago in three mega-hit Birdman films, now find his star faded and wants to do some creative work of significance. Sounds familiar… Batman 1989, anyone? Yeah, it’s meta. The films throws around ideas inherent to creative professions: permanence vs transitory, popularity vs prestige, creativity vs madness, family vs individual, Broadway vs Hollywood, film vs theatre, success vs validation, true art vs zeitgeist, old vs new, importance vs the creative human condition. Everything is at odds, bumping up against one another, pushing for priority. The filmmakers sprinkle on magical realism blurring the lines between what is real and what is imagined.

Furthermore the remarkable cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki presents the film, even though it takes place over a few days, as a seemingly unbroken shot. There are no obvious cuts. This fluidity of visual presentation supplants the idea of division, and instills a unity throughout the film. This technique implies to the audience that everything is connected and fluidly runs together as one. It’s a beautiful way to juxtapose the contrast between the idea of difference and unity that the film is interested in. The space between the boards of Broadway and the film stock of Hollywood is not as vast as we would think. Birdman suggest they are part of the same tangential life that we experience as human creators. It’s a trip. It’s also entertaining as hell.

This is all heady, conceptual bullcrap that I’m spouting, but regardless of if you are looking to muse over the meanings or just be entertained by the ride of great filmmakers and excellent actors, then treat yourself. Yes, this may not feel like holiday fare film. It isn’t a Christmas classic, but Birdman might have more in common with It’s a Wonderful Life than you think. See it. And get your spectrum mashup of experiences with a little levitation and gun play to top it off. It’s always a good season for that.