243 | If You've Ever Wanted To Quit Writing, Listen To This.

You are not alone, and keep writing.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Lorien: Hey everyone, it's Lorien. Welcome to the Screenwriting Life. This is a little before the episode message, and I know this is unusual, but there is a reason, and the reason is that I want to give you some context about this episode before you hear it. Don't worry, nothing bad happens. It's nothing traumatic.

But we do get very much into it, and I don't mean into it with each other. I mean, we start off the episode in kind of a not amazing place, because this episode really is about what the hell are we doing? Why are we doing it, and what do we do when this happens? So just to prepare you that it starts out a little bit like that, but then Meg and I really talk through it and figure it out and at the end of it, I know I came to a really good place and I hope she did too.

And I wanted to let you all know that the sort of call to action that I left the episode with, I really held onto it and it really helped me like get back into it. It really helped me choose to continue to do this, and I have been crushing it on this TV show that I'm working on and I'm really inspired and really focused.

So this is a short message. Hopefully it's short to let you know to hang in with the episode and that it really is about all the things we talk about on the podcast. Find your People. Tell the truth. Ask for help.

 Be honest with yourself, and decide to stay in it and come up with a plan. So the point is, this started out very much I don't know what the hell my act two is, and now I have one.

So. Just wanted to set you up a little bit. Hang in there and I'll see you at the end of the episode where I say the thing I always say, but you have to get to the end of the episode to hear it. Okay, thanks. Bye.

Meg: All right everyone. Welcome back to the Screenwriting Life. I'm Meg LeFauve.

Lorien: And I'm Lorien McKenna.

And we don't have a guest today, so we're gonna just chat.

Meg: Topic show. But the funny thing is we're both so overwhelmed in our lives. That we don't actually have a topic other than overwhelm, other than how do you survive doing this job, other than how do you not quit?

Lorien: Yes. How do you not quit?

Meg: So we have a lot of things we can talk about or circling that.

Lorien: So welcome everybody.

We're gonna find the show as we're doing it. So this is literally actually what it's like to have a conversation with another writer when you're like. What the fuck am I supposed to be doing? Where am I supposed to go? How do I get there? And all I wanna do is hide under the covers or something.

Meg: It's so funny though, 'cause normally one of us is there and the other one can help the other one.

And right now I think I'm not exactly there. I'm in overwhelm. I'm in kind of self-doubt and overwhelm and what's my life and what's the purpose of my life, which is because the script doesn't work. So that's where I go right.

Lorien: And I'm in survival mode where everything has reduced down to like basic little things like okay, I have a pitch prep for the pitch, but that means that I can't do this other thing and I have no writing done.

Meg: I totally get survival mode. I'm probably, that's a good way. I think I'm in survival mode as well. Yeah. Because I have so much going on all at the same time.

Lorien: Yeah.

Meg: Really like crazy, gnarly, heavy, figure it out family stuff to, you know, I do this other gig where I do some round tables and super fun. Love it, but a lot of work, a lot of just tasks of don't mix it up.

Who are you talking to? Which, you know, is this a good round table mix? You know, it's a lot of thinking. It's a lot of work that I'm doing instead of writing.

Lorien: I'm finding that too. I was just going through my, I thought today a good way to solve my overwhelm would be to look at my calendar and then create new calendars.

So I have a family calendar and a writing calendar and a consulting calendar. Like all the podcasts. My God. Colors. Colors, right? It's all in colors now, and what I noticed looking at it is I have so little actual writing time and it's not because I'm, I did the thing where I was like, okay, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, writing days full block, and then Thursdays and Fridays are like family things, therapy, meetings, all that stuff, but it encroaches.

'cause I have so many things and now next week I have one day of writing and literally all the things I can't move. And I'm like, how am I supposed to finish all the things I'm working on, get all the things done as a writer, which I'm, which is supposed to be my job, but somehow all the other stuff is taking up all the space.

Meg: Oh, I know. But do you, I mean, I think that's true for me too, and it's part of why I'm stressed out because suddenly this, I also, we try to block out Monday through Thursday is writing, and then Friday just throw it all in there. But it is, it's encroaching all over the place. Right.

Lorien: And because of other people's schedules or a pitch landed on Tuesday or a lunch, I really need to have landed on Monday.

It just...

Meg: it happens and I think it's more like, and then so there's that, there's the overwhelm of that, and then there's this like little fire cooking inside of me because it's a very complex thing we're writing and it has multiple storylines and multiple, you know, how do you parse out the information?

And by the way, it also has to be fun and it also has to be great characters, and it also has to be set pieces and why do we care, blah blah. So many things are that I have this little fire cooking inside of me of oh my God, this is so fucking hard. What if we can't do it? Oh my God, maybe this doesn't work at all.

Like it's this little panic growing. So I kind of would rather go deal with the emails and the round table and the blah, which are all pressing, but it's easier to deal with that than face the little fire cooking about shit, does this even work? It's so hard to face that, that it's so much easier to go over.

Yeah. And I was talking to my therapist today about stress and the, how you get this little fire cooking in me and it almost feels like I'm gonna die.

Lorien: Yeah.

Meg: Oh my God, I really can't even look at that because it's so terrifying. Like literally months of work, does this even work? And then of course I start hearing the notes in my head of what other people are gonna say about this and why it doesn't work.

And so now it's just compounding. Compounding. And where I got to was, okay, there is a little fire going, but I'm also making fires everywhere else. Yeah. So that I can go deal with them instead of the real true thing that's causing me the stress and the panic. So I literally was like, okay, I'm really good.

I just, one thing I wanna share is I've been through therapy for years. I think it's very helpful. You know, it's like a car mechanic. They know, you do a tuneup. But what's helping me is I'm allowing myself in therapy if she asks me a question or I'm talking, if an image just comes flying into my brain, I just tell her what it is, even if it makes no sense.

'cause I feel like the dreamer imagination part of me is also participating, and it's so much easier for my brain to do it in metaphor than go to all the intellectual stuff and like we are writers, we are imagination beings. And that it can help you with all of this kind of stuff too.

Like in your imagination. And in my imagination, it was almost like my higher self through the image of, well, there's a fireman and here comes the firemen and you know, instead of. The younger part of me that's in a panic dealing with this fire, that's not a good person to deal with the fire. No. That small little person who got rejected when she was 10 or whatever, right?

She should not be dealing with this fire because there is a much older, more experienced adult fireman who can assess the situation, think about it, not run into the fire, understands fire. Understands. You know what? This is a fire. You're gonna let it burn out. There's not much you can do or understands what you need to deal with.

Like I can't explain as a metaphor. It just all started to calm me down.

Lorien: Are you the fireman?

Meg: Yes. The fire-.

Lorien: Oh, you are the fire- you are the fire woman. Fire.

Meg: Well, listen. My fireman inside of me who's older and wiser and my adult self. Right. Who really knows. It's just a script, people, right? It's not, you're not going to die.

It is just a script. That part of you that kind of knows that is the fireman that's coming to assess it. It that fireman might say, this is a big fire. We need some other engines and go need support. You need to call your manager, you need to call... but I can't even get there because the part of me that's dealing with the panic is so young.

Lorien: I have the same thing happening with emotional dysregulation. So I have a 13-year-old daughter and she is fully embracing it all. And we got into one of those dumb mother daughter things and I realized, oh, it was this, it was nighttime. And my husband just shells from the other room, "I'm going to bed."

And I thought, oh. We're acting like two 13 year olds fighting. And I was like, oh, I am in that 13-year-old Headspace. I'm supposed to be the one who's teaching her, showing her emotional regulation, and I don't have it. So I'm trying to find it. And I was talking to my therapist yesterday. I love that we're on the same track, same time, so that we show up here on Friday. Oh my God, messy lunatics.

She was like, breathe. Not like yoga, but just take a breath, Lorien. And I was like, I don't know what that means. Like she literally had to talk me through, you breathe in, hold it, breathe out. And I'm like, and what's the goal? Like how do I win? What's the goal of the breathing? And so it was really hard for me to understand that.

And that is what is bleeding through in my approach to my work. That emotional dysregulation of panic, ignore, panic, ignore, so that everything feels mine isn't fire. Mine is an ocean. I'm gonna drown. Right? Like I'm dangling...

Meg: But your brain is, throw that. I think it's really important for us. Yes. When those metaphors and those visions come up in your head as creative beings, it is your highest self trying to show you.

You feel like you're drowning. You feel like you're suffocating. You feel like this is way too hot, and just allow it so that higher part of you, for me, it's a fireman. For you, it might be, I don't know. A beautiful lifeguard in a yacht. I don't know who it is, who's coming to…

Lorien: Well, that sounds great.

Meg: Who's coming the ocean? Just to kind of, so that you can get some space. Yeah. You know, and the truth is we, I am in a terrible crunch time right now. It just is. And. My fireman is telling me it just is. This is a crazy week. Part of the reason is because the person who normally coordinates our round table is on vacation.

So I'm doing her job and my job and we have this whole other thing going on in our family outside that I'm also doing that job and my, you know, so that is, this is just a crazy week and I have to let the fireman's telling me, you gotta let yourself off the hook. First of all. Like it was a crazy week.

You didn't get a lot done. But now let's go look at that little fire that's burning and really. The firemans is telling me you're just going to have to, I tell all of you, let it suck. Right.

I keep projecting forward to the Netflix executive reading it and being disappointed and being like, wow, this is what she turned in, or this is what they turned in, or I it and I gotta stop. That is not, yeah.

That is cooling the fire. Instead of where's the fun, where's the... It's really tricky though, right? 'cause I can hear, boy 'cause here comes my other part going. But you need to make it work. You need to make it have the levers being pulled. It needs to work. It needs to work. It needs to work.

Lorien: Just remember that whatever notes you think are gonna happen will be different than the notes you're gonna get. So you really can't anticipate it. I mean, some of them, yes, 'cause you're smart and you know what you're doing, but some of them not. I just as you were talking, I realized what my fireman version is, which is the parent who offers the choice, right?

Where, you know, good parenting is, or "good parenting". I'm learning how to do this, which is you don't like those overalls. You have two choices. Take 'em back or keep them right. I'm not gonna get into the whole why they're terrible or arguing with you, why you're okay. Perhaps this is based on a real life experience, but like you can keep 'em or return them.

You can eat that or not eat it, but I don't, I'm not making you anything else, right? There is a choice. Maybe that last eating one isn't the right thing. So what I realized is mine as a parent, me as a parent offering a choice, I have to stop being reactive and I have to make a choice. And I think that's what's so scary is that I have to like pick what I'm focusing on and I'm so scattered and so what is the thing that is gonna pay my bills and keep my health insurance and do... it's the Scrabble, like desperate where I have to be like, okay, I need to figure out what the options are, and then.

Meg: Well, 'cause it's hard, right? 'cause in order to get something done, we have to pick it and really put our majority of our attention on it.

Or it's just not gonna get done. Right. That's the truth of it. And I don't mean you can't have another job or something, but in terms of your time off, what are you picking? That this is the thing and it's so scary, 'cause what if we pick that. Then it doesn't work. Yeah. If the thing that gets you health insurance and blah, blah, blah.

But that unfortunately is the gig we're in because I'm finding that I'm trying to do everything, multiple things and I'm doing them all okay. And I think part of my little panic, fire is to do something well, you need time. Yes. And you need to be able to do multiple drafts and you need to be able to have long-term focus, not this fractured focus.

And my poor writing partner is literally telling me this every day and I just don't know how to get up ahead of it. Other than I think I'm gonna a, have to start saying more nos. I'm gonna have to start letting more people do things, even if I'm worried about how it'll turn out or whatever. And just start picking.

I'm just gonna have to dive into the lava of this project that I'm finding so challenging. And just, we're just gonna have to pick a project. We're just gonna have to pick a pony. Yeah. And we're, we're gonna have to commit. To doing it so that we give it the space and time it needs to change to morph, to go backwards, to go forwards, for us to hate it, for us to suddenly love it again.

I mean, it is such a love affair, isn't it? Yeah. Where what you expected this love to be is not, but look, it's so much better. And then, oh my God, but he does fart. Or whatever. Right? Like where you're like, oh, it's so complex what we're doing.

Lorien: Right. I think that's, I think that we just solved our problem, right?

Which is that in order to be in the Act two. Like I I've been, I use, I'm always trying to figure out where I am in a script. Am I at the bottom of act two? I better not be, or am I stuck in trying to activate into Act three, or am I even, am I still in the backstory? And I haven't even...

Sometimes I have "this better be the end of act two", right? Because if it's the midpoint, we are screwed. And right now I've been feeling like I'm in the backstory. I'm in the character development stage. Like I don't even know what the...

Meg: What it is in your life, like as a metaphor?

Lorien: As a metaphor, like I'm in the backstory still.

I feel very much okay, what is it I want? What is the inciting incident? Obviously I have to create, 'cause you know, I have to want something before the thing can come. Right? And so I'm trying to figure out how to be active.

Meg: What do you want?

Lorien: I don't know. That is the problem. And I've been talking to so many writers and you have to figure out what you want.

And then every decision you make along that path and say no and all this stuff. And I'm, and then I, and I have to admit, I don't know what I want. Like I was very clear before, which was showrunner. I was gonna be a showrunner and, I still want that. I still wanna get back in the room and develop my own show, but it feels more complex now because a little bit, I feel like I'm running outta time.

Right? A little bit. I feel, you know, my family is getting more and more complicated. Just that, you know, apparently I'm a teenager, raising a teenager, you know, emotional, personal development and growth, which is gross. And just, commit. Yeah, I don't know. It's getting, oh, and it's this really critical thing.

I realized that who I am is not attached to what I'm doing, and so I'm having a harder time grabbing a hold of that I am a Writer, capital w as my only and most important identity. And so letting that go a little bit that not that I'm not that, but that, there are other things that matter as much, if not more in, in some ways and making it more of a job, as much as a calling, but less of a that is all I am.

That was a lot of words to say something that other people had already figured out when I was halfway through talking it through. Verbal processor. So that is a piece too, where I'm trying to make all these new kind of. Pieces fit together and this is why therapy is gross. Because you have to like sort of put it all together for yourself with guidance like a script.

Yes. So me, I am trying to figure out what my plot goal is right now so that I can focus on...

Meg: you think, I mean, just to go to want, because I think that's very interesting because if I think about my little flame of fire, of panic the truth is. And I say this in a very large way, but meaning broad way.

Do I want the story enough to do the move through the fire? And I think that's what I haven't kind of committed to. I haven't committed to "I want this story enough to go through it." To go through.

Lorien: What are you willing to do? Willing to do.

Meg: If you want something bad enough, you will fall down and you'll get up.

You will allow people to say, it sucks. You will, because you want it so badly, right, that you push through all of that.

Sometimes, I know, honestly, to be fair to all of us, we want it so badly that, and we're so afraid of not getting it that it's paralyzed, not try. Yes. To let it be something in the future that I'll do, because then I don't ever have to lose it. But there does come a kind of moment where you have to kind of confront.

If you want it, you have to start acting on that want. You have to start committing to it. The muses need to know, which is also something I'm really talking to myself here.

Because I'm finding it so fractured that because the muses don't even have time to get into the river. So I have to, maybe I 'cause focus a little bit on wanting it, you know, wanting it a little bit more.

And what do I want, you know, what do I love about this? What do I love? Lorien, are you feeling like you still want to be a showrunner again?

Lorien: Yes. Yes. I mean, when I was in the room, when I was in the writer's room. It was, I felt aha, this is what it's all been leading to, right? It's like when I stepped foot in Rome, I was like, aha, here's where I'm supposed to be.

So, aha. Maybe that's it. Maybe I need to go write and run a show that takes place in Rome. There. I figured it out the end. No. But I felt so much like all the pieces of my life had fit together, like the playwriting and the. Time at Pixar and my time as a professor, and all of it was even my time as a technical writer and a producer.

It was all sort of coming into that, and I felt so alive and powerful. What happened? What's that? Not in the powerful way, like I have all the power, but more like I've activated all of my superpowers.

Meg: What happened?

Lorien: I don't know. I think.

Meg: Does part of you fear that because of the industry and the state of the industry...?

Lorien: Yes, it was, the pandemic was hard. I lost a project in the pandemic and, you know, I, and I the strike was rough and obviously on everybody in so many ways. And then the industry, you know, I keep hearing TV production is 40%, down 40% and who's buying? And oh, they're buying this, but not that. And keep hearing from a lot of people: no one's working.

And it feels and it's not the, I need to figure out what the market wants. It's I don't know. That's the thing. I don't know. I don't know. I'm just, I lost, I'm gonna...

Meg: I do think, I think everybody, given the current state of the business is feeling that in terms of, you know, it's hard not to write to the market when the market is so slim.

Like when so many people are buying so little that when you find out such and such is buying Christmas movies, your brain goes, let's make a Christmas movie. That is just, I mean, we are few salesmen at some point, and I mean, we are like contract employees. We've gotta get the next gig.

Yeah. So, I get that and I think that's not I don't think there's anything wrong with thinking about that. I think you happened to have an idea and you heard that you could make a Christmas movie, why wouldn't you do that? I'm using that as an example.

So I think that I sometimes I do think that kind of productorial, you're a brand, you're a widget is helpful to think about where you fit in the industry and who is the people that are actually buying that. And then there's the other part, which is the heart stuff, which is what you wanna be doing.

That for me, nobody's buying.

Lorien: Right.

And I I, you know, I've been, I have opportunities to pitch and people who believe in me, and then I go a certain far, I go to a certain place, I go far. And then for whatever reason I. I think I'm afraid of something, right? I mean, I, this is all like therapy stuff. I'm trying to figure it out, but I don't know. I go so far and then...

Meg: meaning...

Lorien: I go so far and then I think my ideas are stupid. Self-doubt. Yeah. Self-doubt. And I'm letting other people's, eh, or I don't know, or maybe, tell me yeah. Abandon it.

Meg: Yeah, no, that's hard not to do that. I totally get that. I have that too.

Lorien: I have this fear around the show that I say a lot of things, and that I might be talking badly about myself in a way that's not always accurate.

Meg: So funny. 'cause it's also what the show is, right? This is, I know.

I think every writer, I've never met a writer who was an A sociopath, who didn't have self doubt, who didn't think, well, God, maybe this idea fucking sucks because everybody's kind of confused by it and doesn't get it. Or worse yet, the whole script you wrote, they don't get it. Or they're like, it's too complicated, or I got lost, or...

I mean that, I mean, that's just the price of admission to doing this job. And I guess we're just describing today, you can get kind of turned around in it. Yeah. You can kind of lose the path of, what am I doing? Why are, how do I want it? Again, this we were talking, my husband and I were writing partners and we're gonna try to direct, we were talking to a producer and she goes, "directing, why? Why do you wanna ruin your life?" And we were like, Jesus. We had a great answer. Right? But you know, any of the.

Lorien: Because my life is already ruined, was that your answer?

Meg: No, because now no.

But you know, it, the question is, in any creative endeavor, there, there are these edges, right?

Where you can get turned around and wonder is this the life, like what is the purpose of this? And is this the story? So I don't think it's just you and I hear you about the worry about it, but I think it's just...

Lorien: But then next week I'm pitching a show that I love and has to get made, and I'm excited to pitch it again.

You know, and it's a hard market. It's that 10 plus animation play. Oh, I'm the one that you always tell people. Yes. It's such a good pitch. I'm so proud of it, and I get to pitch it again to three new potential buyers and I'm like. I really wanna make this show. Yes, this is, I've been working on this show since 2022.

Right. I will happen. I am convinced. And then I'm working on another show that I love the Sports Show, and I am like, I'm almost done with the pitch and I'm so excited. And then I have this feature that I'm writing and it's just, when I get to pick one and really sink into it and spend like all the days on it, I love it. But then I don't feel like I'm having enough time to love it and be excited and commit to get to the point where you were, where I'm like, I don't know. I love it. It doesn't work. I don't like, I'm still in the, I just need more time.

Meg: Lemme ask you this, are you in the beginning stages of three different projects?

Lorien: No I'm pitching one, so it's, the pitch is I'm trying to sell it. One is I'm almost done with the TV pitch of a show. And then I'm halfway into a feature, so I'm like in the, and I mean that, like I've written the outline and then I'm halfway in now, like I'm around page 45 of documenting the outline. It's a mess.

For somebody

Meg: says they don't have time to write. You're sure doing a lot, I have to say.

Lorien: And there's another pilot I just finished yesterday.

Meg: Oh my God.

You've gotta get outta here. What the hell? Oh my God. I don't have enough time to write. I'm just 5,000 pages and I just don't have enough time.

Lorien: Yes, I can generate, I can generate pages, but are they good? Like I have like maybe 15. Christmas movie ideas that I feel like are half baked. Like I feel like I, I want to bake them all the way and I need to pick one and like on Great British Baking show where they sit by the oven and watch the bread cook or they want, I wanna be like that.

I like wanna be engaged with the process, you know? Anyway.

Meg: Okay, so one is pitching. So it's baking, it's done. Yes. It's, you're gonna go to the next level, right?

Lorien: Yes.

Meg: And then you have two, one you're finishing and one that you're halfway through.

Lorien: Yes.

Meg: So maybe. I do think this is true, and I do this too. As soon as something gets hard in my script, I have another great idea, right?

Lorien: Why do you think I have so many great ideas?

Meg: I should just go do that instead. Then you get all these little fractured little stories everywhere, all over the place. At some point, maybe I'm just throwing this out there for the next week, other than the pitch, 'cause the pitch is the pitch for that time.

You do have to write. Yeah. Which you put first. I say that to myself as well. Pick one of those things so you can sink into it just for the week.

Lorien: Yeah. I'm gonna do the TV sports show and TV for a week, every hour. Yes. That show and nothing else.

Meg: Yes. And can you do that?

Lorien: Yes. And what I realized while I was, while you were talking, 'cause you know, I think about 18 things and listen at the same time.

Yeah. Or don't listen, whatever. No. Is that I talk about my ideas when they're still young and then sometimes when I'm talking to people, I listen to their, I get excited about their excitement about it, but what I realize is that's not my version of the thing I wanna write. And then I have too many versions of it pinging around in my head.

So I have to like no. What's my version? And I've done this before. Right? This is getting too many.

Meg: I know. I was gonna say this is a pattern you do.

Lorien: This is self doubt.

Yeah. And this is, hey is, hey, what about this? And getting, it's the negative side of needing validation.

It's the needing reassurance or you're excited about it, but then I get confused then about, no, what is it I want to do? And that's, so I have to lean back into that, like imagining myself in the writer's room again and where all of my superpowers are activated in that I know. And I realized that what I did for that show was I came up with that central image that meant everything, that described everything about the show, the look, the feel, the tone, everything.

I think that's what I need to do for this project in order to ground myself back into this is what the show is.

Meg: There you go. All right. Problem solved. See how that works? Your image brain, your dreamer threw up an image to try to help you. Yeah. Yes. That you need your Another image. Yeah. Especially when it's a show.

Lorien: So I need that image. I have to find that image. But okay, so for you, you are going to stay in the fire but not let it get too big?

Meg: Well, I feel like I do have to let it get, I have a fireman with me at any point I can get out, I can say I'm done. I don't want to, you know, for safety, psychological safety obviously.

But I think I'm just going to have to, here's what I need to do, and I just have to convince my writing partner of this too. We just have to do the bad version.

I think what we keep doing is we keep hitting blocks and then we're like, well, that's kind of boring, or We've seen that in a million movies, and then we just stop.

Lorien: Yeah.

Meg: No. I mean, what the great thing is, I'm gonna say the good things. We have a third act that I love, which usually I don't have. Usually I have the first act and a lot of the second, and then the third act, I'm like, I don't know, like on the Inside Out 2, the third act I was like, I don't know. For so long. For so long.

So I'm very happy that now we have a third act. It's just all the tentacles. All the tentacles of that third act that I have to earn. That kind of distribution of information, story information, and when you're telling the audience what and making sure they're following. Yeah. It's a, it's a puzzle and I think once we get time, we need time to really keep changing the puzzle, turn it around, change the puzzle, turn it around.

I think what I need is to be very disciplined about the time now.

Lorien: I remember you also talking a lot about working with John Morgan and going down the cul-de-sac.

Meg: Yes.

Lorien: What's down there. Maybe instead of the bad version reframing it for yourself in that you're not fixing it and it's not tentacles.

It's well, what's down here in this cul-de-sac? Right. May, maybe there's just a different way to reframe it. 'cause bad version stops us. Bad version is like, well, why would I do the... yes, let's do the bad version. But it still feels...

Meg: it's so funny because my brain literally was like, no.

Lorien: What do you mean?

No? What do you mean?

Meg: He was like, absolutely not. I'm not gonna go down a cul-de-sac. I don't have time to go down a cul-de-sac this freaking.

Lorien: But you said working with John and him telling you that changed your writing life and you...

Meg: I know, but that's good. We didn't have it. That was just a spec man. I can go down a million cul-de-sacs for a spec.

Lorien: But this is literally the advice you give to every writer that we talk to in the story workshops.

Meg: It's liberating to me because it's like, you know what?

It's bad. Okay. Let's just keep going. Okay. Again, it's all gonna depend on your brain and to anybody who's listening. You have to find your own kind of terminology, right? I think that's what's important. I find it liberating that it's the bad version because I just gotta start chunking this out.

I just, 'cause we can't know what two A is 'cause we don't know what the end of this part of two B is. So I don't even know what to set up or, you know, I just, we just have to say. Let it be the ugly baby and let it just be what it is so that we can find it. But it's funny 'cause cul-de-sac to me is, I feel like we've been spending like three months in cul-de-sacs right now.

Maybe that's what it is.

Lorien: You see a cul-de-sac as a traffic circle that you can never get outta right.

Meg: I'm trapped in the cul-de-sac.

Lorien: See? And I don't like a cul-de-sac either. 'cause you go in, you come back out and you're on the same road. I like the I'm just gonna go into the woods. But we're just going in the woods.

I don't know what's in there.

Meg: The opposite I'm so the, for me, so what is the path?

Lorien: That's, but that for me is, oh, look at the woods. Anything can be in there. Any, anyone, anything from the earth and of sides and up let's go in the woods. But it's scary and dark and there could also be a monster in there, but that is exciting for me.

I need to look at how much I need to think about how much resistance I have to that. Like I, and I think it's because I feel so much pressure that this is due because it's a job. Like it's, I have to turn it in, right? So. I don't I just my, my career job brain is like tick tock, man, tick tock.

Meg: I understand and I give the advice that sometimes you just have to go, okay, for the next day, I'm not gonna worry about the tick tock and I'm just gonna have fun and mess around and go into the woods and see what's there.

Lorien: Ah, I. I figured it out.

Meg: But here comes the problem. I messed around and I just messed up the entire track and you know, then my brain just starts to fry. So I just have to figure that out.

Lorien: So my resistance to the cul-de-sac is what I said, right? You go in the cul-de-sac, you turn around, you get back on the road you were on, which is what I need to do. So there's the main road, the cul-de-sac and the woods behind the cul-de-sac, right? So. I have to be able to go into the woods and come back to get back on the main road, 'cause I'll just take off in the woods and never come back.

Meg: Yeah. I have to say Lorien, you do need to go back to the same road. Yes. I need a little more Woods Explorer.

Lorien: You need to go the woods.

Meg: I stay on the road too long and I demand everything. Get on the road. And my characters are not getting on the road. And I get really mad at them because we have a due date.

Lorien: And I just went into another dimension, in another realm in 14 different ways with, and my characters turned into nine different people. But it's I have to get back, wait, what was the road I'm on? What was the genre I picked? And what was the story?

That's exactly right.

Meg: And the truth is you the work of a writer is to do both. Yes. And you can get unbalanced together. We're a great writer together. Well, the truth is my writing partner is that he loves to go exploring and splunking and saying wait, I don't understand. Let's start that over.

And I'm literally like, what? We're gonna, but I've learned to just speak quiet and go, huh. Picture, so it's over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go. I also wonder, Lorien, my job at Pixar, of course, was to come up with ideas. You just have to come up with so many ideas. You just keep throwing. In addition to your idea, your job is, there's literally a building full of people who are throwing ideas. You better find the track. You better find the track and you better find the structure and you better find the arcs. And because everybody else is just woo, right? It could be good. They go here and your job as a writer is to go, okay, everybody, we gotta start picking what is the track?

You're all lost in the woods. What is Joy's goal? What is joy arcing? What does she want? What does she, you know, so that I wonder if, it's so deeply grooved in my brain. Right. As a survival instinct. Yes. Take the chaos of this, of beauty, but here's what we're gonna put it in. So I think for everybody listening, you just have to know that A, you're not alone, that this happens.

You can get out of balance on either side. I'm usually out of balance on the structure side and have to be pulled into the more just free flowing story stuff. Lorien can get lost in the, I'm gonna go through that door, and then that door, and then that door, and then this door, and then--.

Lorien: There's no doors. Meg, there's no, I have doors in the woods. There's no way back either. That's the problem. And I realized in having this conversation that I, that instead of sharing my ideas, I need that like producing partner energy. That's okay, next week you're gonna focus on this.

Meg: Yes, exactly.

Lorien: Right? That I need that sort of right.

And I'm like, great, I have my assignment and I'm gonna do that thing. I, because managing myself sometimes feels not that I don't know what I'm, what I'm doing.

Meg: Go get a producing partner. It does help you focus, man, because when you've gotta turn it in, you gotta. Which is what's happening, and I've just gotta put this other stuff to the side and we gotta just go for it.

And that's due dates are great. I think if you're doing it for a friend, if a friend's doing it. I'm speaking to you, Jonathan. Who we are expecting update day date. This to Jonathan's gave, we gave Jonathan a due date, which I believe is Sunday. Jonathan is with us today. Think it's gonna have to be, I think there if I don't turn in a script for a job, there is a consequence, right?

What I think, Jonathan, our friend. What is the consequence if you don't turn it in on Sunday?

So, Jonathan is our producer today. He's on with us.

Jonathan: I just have the impulse to turn my camera off.

Jonathan is... Jonathan, Jonathan has exited the chat. He's no longer in the building or the cul-de-sac or the woods.

Lorien: He had to move across the country to get away from us.

Meg: Actually, exactly, to be fair to Jonathan, he just moved across the country, but you gave yourself the deadline. So I do think having deadlines helps because at some point you have to sit down and just do it and do versions and commit and go again.

So, Jonathan, what's the consequence if you don't turn it in, if you don't tell us, or you know, do what you needed to do.

Jonathan: Well, I will say the primary motivation for working on it, which by the way, I have been, which is huge. Is because of the deadline. I am so grateful. Like I'm prepared to send y'all something on Sunday, which is huge because I've not been able to stick to anything. I just, I chalk it up to whatever, insert any excuse here.

I don't, I love that. Yeah. Yeah.

Meg: Can, we could on our workshop site have deadlines if people wanna sign up?

Lorien: I do it. Sometimes I'll post things. I can do it. The hard part is like I'll set a deadline, but you know, I need, I don't wanna be micromanaged, but I need to be able to show my work. Hey, I made, I did... and then I need a producer.

Meg: You do.

Lorien: I need a producer. That's what I need. But I could post things on the on the site. Sorry, I lost all my words.

Meg: You start giving people deadlines. If this is ringing true for anybody, that you also get caught in this kind of world where you're like, what am I doing?

What am I doing? I'm, we gotta, I gotta write, I gotta just push through this now.

Lorien: Yeah. I think it's figuring out what's worked for you in the past. And sort of how or what motivates you? I do those accountability groups sometimes. Then I just finished one and I was like, okay everybody's gonna give themself a tiny, very easily accomplishable task no matter what it is.

And then when you report next week that you've done it, like it's something so easy, you're gonna have a reward from everybody. And so everybody wanted something different. One person wanted us to just do a quiet thumbs up on the video. Someone else was like, please send me an email after that I did a great job.

One guy was like, I brought this cookie and I get to eat the cookie when I... and we were like, how did you keep that cookie on your desk the whole time without eating it? And how'd you only eat one? But so everyone has a very different. Thing that motivates them. Some people don't like rewards. Some people do better. I need a producing partner.

Like I've known that. I keep forgetting that I have to find somebody who understands me and gets me and will say, okay, what are you focusing on next week? Let's talk about it. You know, who's as invested in my project as I am.

Meg: And they're gonna, they want it too. They're gonna rise too.

Yes. They're gonna sell a show too. They have to have some skin in the game. Yes. 'cause then it's real who's checking in and it can just kind of float away.

Lorien: I have to have it be actual real career stakes. We are doing this project together. I'm gonna finish it, we're gonna pitch it.

Meg: What if on the workshop site we had a deadline, IE the grand deadline is submitting to AFF. Because that's not until like September, October, right?

Lorien: Well, the early deadline is coming up I think this month. Right?

Meg: It is?

Lorien: Yeah. Or may, there's a couple different deadlines.

Meg: We could, a different thing or it's submitting to Cinestory or... right. You know, we could find a, something that's kind of, you know, a good timeout.

And then we could back out from there. Okay. So you're gonna do that your fifth, how much time do you have? Your fourth draft has gotta be here and your third draft's gotta be here. And your outline, you know, depending on where you are in your, I dunno, it might be fun to help people have some accountability that they're gonna come.

Lorien: Yeah. On the workshops, I could probably, I could, I just almost volunteered to do that, to manage it, to run like, okay, everybody has to look at how much time you have. And I'm not doing it. I'm not volunteering for anything else.

Meg: We just created another job for ourselves.

Lorien: I know.

Meg: Jonathan, Jonathan saying that the early deadline is early bird is 3 25.

Okay. Regular deadlines April, so AFF won't work 'cause it's too soon. Yeah. We've gotta find something like next year's Cinestory or something. So we'll work on that. On the workshop site. Yeah. Those of you who are on our workshop site and see if we can, we may not, I mean, we'll pop in. We're not gonna like be a producer because we don't have time.

Lorien: Yeah. And we would be, but I think it, all of this, like even just like me showing up today to the record was like, oh my God, I don't know what I want. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm lost. And then now I feel I. Better. 'cause I see myself reflected by you all the good and the bad, right? Oh yeah, you do have that like man wandering around in the woods, you know, not having anything to eat.

Meg: It's just your inclination.

Lorien: Yes, and, but I also am. Using all the time. I have to generate a lot of pages and I'm doing the work. So, and then the I what reminding me what I do need. And so sometimes it helps to just tell the truth about what's going on and connect with somebody who knows you and can listen and…

Meg: And listen to your inner self. Listen to the dream. The dreamer’s there to help you. What images are coming up, you know? And you can participate. It's like lucid dreaming. If you have the image of drowning, where's the boat? If you have the image of fire, here's the fireman. Like just your higher self does know how to help you.

Lorien: Oh. So mine is, I know I have to learn how to breathe underwater, 'cause the ocean is not going away, right? I need to learn how to breathe underwater. That's mine.

Meg: You could become a mermaid if you need to.

Lorien: I will become a mermaid. My higher self, someone hiding in the ocean.

Meg: We have oceans, we have fire, we have cul-de-sacs, we have woods.

Lorien: Oh my god. We do love visual imagery. Right.

I would like one of the listeners to. Draw this episode for us. Please make a map of this episode.

Meg: If you want to avoid your writing, you know how.

Lorien: When you read a fantasy book, the like map of the land is there? So I want like the map of this episode, like where the woods are, the cul-de-sac, like the mermaid ocean.

The fires I like, I want it all. Yeah, the deadlines. What the deadlines look like. See, I just came up with a whole other project, didn't I? Yes. Nevermind. Because then I think the Phantom Tollbooth, I got really excited just there.

Meg: There you go. See how your brain did that? Just walked right in the woods.

Right here in front of all of us. Right into the woods.

Lorien: Nope. Sports. Sports show.

Meg: I have no idea.

Lorien: Sports show. Sports show. I'm back in, I'm back in. Love my sports show. Gotta go do some research again probably.

Meg: Jonathan, since I dragged you in, are there any other questions that you have or you would like us to talk about before we.

Jonathan: I've had many thoughts listening to this. The first is just how, and I know, I guarantee people listening to this episode will feel the same – just how relatable and real this all feels. I think it can feel scary – and I might be projecting this onto both of you – but, you know, in your position, to always come off as the experts, the people who know everything. And it feels nice just to let, just to be in on the, you know, reality of what's going on in your brains, and the vulnerability. I think there's something, you know, and we've been texting about it – my other friends have been sending me Tiktoks and there's something in the air. People are feeling this general sense of overwhelm and this impulse to escape.

I was telling you both my TikTok feed is filled with people who are moving. All over the world just to sort of escape.

Meg: Yeah. Like literally it's, move into the mountains. Yes, there is a general feeling of yeah, this destabilization. And I think it does that, that also takes up part of our brain space that we could be writing or focusing because every morning there's a new destabilizing thing happening.

So, and again, whatever, I don't wanna get into politics 'cause whatever it's. Side of that you're on, you're, it can feel destabilizing both sides. So, yeah, I think that is a part of it. I really do think that is a part of the fizzing or yeah, it could even be a part of the little panic fire that's going on inside of me. So.

Lorien: It is definitely that. I have this animation show. Is that important in this landscape? Should I be fighting for it as hard as I am given?

Meg: Yes, you should be.

Lorien: And then I always, I'm, yes, I should be because it's subversive and it matters. I mean, it's not that subversive. Everyone still wants to buy it, but you know, it's me.

Meg: Well, it has something to say about that age and about being a human being. Yes. And you know, and about connection, which is what in this destabilizing time we need is to connect back to ourselves and our humanity and each other, right? Instead of pointing fingers or whatever the hell.

Lorien: Do you wanna come to my pitch with me and say all that?

Meg: Because I need to write my script.

Lorien: Sorry. Go ahead, Jonathan. What else were you?

Jonathan: No, I was just gonna, sometimes when I'm listening to you all. And for new listeners the three of us met at Pixar 13, 14 years ago. We were working on “The Good Dinosaur” and I think y'all know me well enough to know I am type A and I love a good organized inbox.

There's nothing more delicious to me, and sometimes when I'm listening to you I sort of flash back to Pixar moments and so I was able to find this in 30 seconds while y'all were talking. I have notes from a “Good Dinosaur” story meeting.

Lorien: No.

Jonathan: It literally says attendees: “Meg, Lorien.” I have it. And I wrote, and I was, I don't know why I, what like really led me to...

Lorien: Right now, Meg has her hands over her face.

I'm leaning back from the camera no. Oh my God. What's happening?

Jonathan: It was an emotional thing! I, something that you were saying just sort of, I don't know. I found these notes and I wrote, “This is a story about a boy struggling with unconditional love.” And I think about, I was getting emotional thinking about that because it, I feel that way now about myself, like I am that boy and writing sort of brings that, that up for me and I'm so unbelievably hard on myself and I just wonder what it would feel like if we all just showed ourselves a little bit more grace.

Meg: And had unconditional love for ourselves.

Jonathan: For ourselves. Yeah. I know it sounds so earnest and sweet, but that's sort of what I was thinking about while...

Meg: Funny though, because I think unconditional love for yourself, which I don't know if that's even a possible, I don't know, maybe there's somebody out there, but it's a good goal. I think it's make us very powerful. I more than earnest, I think it would make us, it's incredible power to do that. And, and it's funny 'cause I think in a weird way, that's what my fireman is showing up for, right? The fire is being stoked by that little kid. Right?

The boy in The Good Dinosaur. The dinosaur in The Good Dinosaur, right? Who's so afraid of just failing. Right. And that boy comes out of the woods to teach him about unconditional love, right? And and to go off the path.

Well, how should we wrap up the show people?

Jonathan: Do you want me to ask you the three questions? Although this in a sense, this whole episode was sort of answering, what pisses you off? What brings you joy?

Meg: I think I have to remember the joy of it, right? Because right now I'm stuck. I hate about it in terms of feeling lost and overwhelmed and scared of it. And it's funny 'cause my writing partner is not there at all.

He's just so happy and loves it and, you know, would, thank God one of us. And I do need to remember the joy of it a little bit better, which is the advice I'd give to myself to remember the joy of it. And I've gotta go find it, which is why I need the time to go find it, the joy of it.

Lorien: So my answers to all three of the questions are, I find the most joy in finishing something.

What pisses me off is when I can't finish something or I don't finish something, and if I had advice for myself when I was younger, I would say, fucking finish it. So mine is the same across the board. It's finished something, right? It's the result of all the hard work and dedication and the, the wanting something enough to make it happen for myself.

Like it's, and there are different parts in it that I find joy and I get pissed off about and everything, but it really is, which, you know, Meg, is what you said to me years ago. Finish something and I was like, oh shit, I guess I do. Right. That always. And it's that, what is that Mortal Kombat "finish him."

That's what it is.

Meg: Right? Well, now you have a goal and I have a goal. I'm gonna go find more joy in the, I'm gonna finish. You're gonna finish something because you're gonna only do the sports show.

Lorien: That's right. I love it so much.

Meg: On our workshop site, we're gonna try to find a way to give you a deadline if anybody wants to join.

And, I think that's it, you guys.

Lorien: Yeah, that's it. And remember, you are not alone and keep writing.