Category Archives: Writing

How Witnessing a Man Poop in Public Made Me Want to Blog/Write Online Again

Written on August 23, 2010 by Bianca in Everyday Stories, Inspiration, Life, Writing
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This morning, I witnessed a man do the #2 in public. I even had to tweet about it:

So how does something so gross have an effect in my writing? It woke me up.

For the past few months, I’ve been juggling different things left, right and center. I’ve neglected some projects that I was really excited about (keeping up this blog for example). I procrastinated. I put things off. I got caught up on the little things – things that weren’t really necessary or important right now – and this made it harder for me to accomplish the small goals I had set for myself a while back. The worst part is knowing that I could’ve checked off those goals on my list if I had just kept working on them. But instead, I’m still somewhat standing on the same spot from where I started.

Long story short: I saw the man a couple of metres ahead of me squatting near a huge pillar, automatically thought the worst (he’s doing #2! Must. Get. Out.) and walked quickly away from the area as fast as I could. When I got to the office, my story definitely got the poop jokes started for the rest of the day. And because everyone got a kick out of this story (friends on Facebook expressed their amusement on my wall) I started thinking: how many ways can I use this for a script? What story ideas can this do for me? And that’s when my mind woke up and started doing the brainstorm dance (ideas just kept rolling in my head). The original ideas led to a whole new group of action steps I haven’t thought of before. Not only was I coming up with several premises, but I was actually getting my motivation back! I suddenly want to get back on the projects I’ve put aside and I came up with other creative projects I’d be interested in pursuing. I even got ideas on some changes I could make on my current projects.

With all of this commotion in my head, I need to write them down. So why not blog about it? I have to admit that I’ve been a bad blogger – I don’t have a consistent schedule to post my writing online, so I just end up not writing much at all. But I might be able to solve this.

For the past few months, I’ve been writing my Morning Pages (from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way) and I’ve surprisingly kept it up since I started since June 20th. Every morning, I write 3 pages. The content isn’t what matters, it’s the process. And I can successfully say that Morning Pages is now part of my daily routine and it’s a habit that I just…do. So, if I can do this everyday, I should be able to write  on a scheduled basis for this blog, too, right?

The Action Plan

I need to get back to the main reason I created this blog: to be a storyteller – offline and online. So besides the web series I’m currently working on with my talented friends, I’ve decided to start something on this blog I’ll be calling Everyday Stories. Inspired by what I witnessed earlier today, I’ll be writing posts where I take something from everyday life (it could be mine or someone else’s) and I’ll list the story ideas I come up with for it. Maybe I’ll even write a scene and post this script online. Maybe I’ll encourage people to take these scripts and put it on film. Maybe I can get a collaborative storytelling community started. Or not. Who knows what will come out of this, but I’ll try it out anyways.

Oh, and I definitely want to write additional posts on my experience of producing a web series DIY-style. I did start this back in April and a lot has happened since then (re-shoots, re-writes, and lessons learned). It started with us (4 actors/writers) who wanted to create a web series and, now that a few months have passed by, we’ve learned so much about the other things, like production and editing (and we still continue to learn something new).

Inspiration is Everywhere

Yes, I was disgusted with what I saw this morning. But now that I think about it, that event actually snapped me out of this rut that I’ve been in. And you know how people usually have a story or two to tell everyone? Well this could be mine, I guess. It’s bizarre, yet amusing. And everyone loves to hear stories – it’s what connects us all to one another.

Joan Didot got it right: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.“

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{Quote} Paul Haggis

Written on April 21, 2010 by Bianca in Quotes, Writing
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“Guilt drives me. I know I have to write every day. During the story period, it’s so much harder, it’s much more fluid… When I start to write, I give myself a goal of five pages a day. I don’t stop until I get that done, whether it’s taken me two hours or twelve. Sometimes if I get rolling I can write more, I can write ten pages… It makes you push. Because otherwise, you’d come to the tough part two pages in and you’d go, I’m gonna give up. You have to push through. Because with every scene you come to, you know that the last scene was easy to write, but this scene is impossible. And you get through that, and you see the next scene, and you say, that last one was easy to write, but this one’s impossible. Every single scene is usually like that. Always, impossible. And then the characters start talking to you.”

(via Go Into The Story)

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Writing comedy for television

Written on April 11, 2010 by Bianca in Quotes, Writing
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Television is all about character. Films are typically more about story. For a TV show to work, you have to have a reason to come back every week.

The quote above is from Canadian writer/director, Martin Gero, who was interviewed in this article on the Globe and Mail (along with two other Canadian writers). I thought it was a great read for those interested in tv comedy writing. Here are some quotes from the article that I’ll be taking with me as I write for my upcoming projects:

“My rule for running the writers’ room on How I Met Your Mother is simple. It’s all about character. And the thematic discussions that come from the essence of that character. Is it time for Barney to have a real relationship? Is Ted due for a career change? After three or four days of spinning ideas, a writer goes away with a fairly detailed outline. Each episode takes roughly three weeks.” — Chuck Tatham

“The trick to coming up with stories is to steal from your life and other people’s lives. One episode of The Simpsons was about a school closing due to a blizzard. The kids were so excited, but woke up the next morning to no snow. Off they went to school, only to get trapped there when the blizzard finally hit. That happened to me in Exeter. Only we didn’t put the principal in a volleyball sack.” — Tim Long

“My advice to those getting into TV comedy is, first, order two lunches. Because when 4 o’clock arrives, and you’re famished, you’re a staggering, 230-pound mess. Second, always make sure your characters need each other. If you do that, you can have the craziest, most disparate characters together, and it works.” — Chuck Tatham

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Day (25)

Written on February 2, 2010 by Bianca in 25 Days of Scriptwriting, Writing
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Ok, I’m not gonna lie…

I didn’t end up with a feature film script. BUT… I do have something that can be a short film. Or a number of episdoes for a web series.

So what’s a girl to do? Keep writing. And writing. And writing. The lesson I’ve learned is that I will have those days where I can’t for the life of me write pages and pages of stories. But I know that there will be days where my hand will try its best to keep up with my head on writing everything down. I’ve decided not to force it. I’ll see where this takes me …

So what now? I’ll still give myself a deadline for this one story I really really really want to start filming asap! I’ve got my actors and all I need now is this script (then I can go worry about production afterwards haha). I’m giving myself a month to finish this. I’ll reward myself something nice if I can finish it before Feb 28th!

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To Do: Stop Making Excuses & Develop a Practice

Written on December 27, 2009 by Bianca in Writing
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yoga sideways
Creative Commons License photo credit: Diego Cupolo

Lately, I’ve gotten back on the yoga bandwagon after a very long break. Now that I’m back together with yoga, I can’t believe I stopped going to classes! I’ve been feeling much better physically and mentally! One of the things I plan to do for 2010 is maintain a regular yoga practice. Even if I can’t do this daily, I want to practice at least once or twice a week. No excuses this time. I repeat: no more excuses. I’ve thrown away a lot of time the past few years by using these. If I had cut down my excuses quota in the previous years, I’m pretty sure I would have gotten a lot more done!

Any so by developing a yoga practice, I also realized that I really need to develop a writing practice as well. I used just as many excuses and procrastination techniques with my writing as I did with yoga (and other things). But now that I’ve been collecting a bunch of stories that I want to put on paper, I know that they’ll just sit as little scribbles on post-it notes until I actually start writing.

Mary from Ruts and Grooves wrote a blog post on some advice for new writers that really got to me, reinforcing my idea of developing a writing practice for myself. I, too, had this fantasy of just writing when inspiration strikes. But the reality is that the first thing you write will be far from perfect and that you’ll be spending a lot of time with the re-write. And to get to the re-writing stage, I need to have some writing to begin with. I need to be writing more than I should be right now because nothing much will ever come from having myself just writing here and there. I’m really looking forward to what comes out of this writing practice. I know that there’ll be times of frustration where I’ll make up some excuse to go and write some other day … but I’m putting my foot down this time. I have a lot to gain by sticking with it.

In the words of Ashtanga Yoga founder Sri K. Pattabhi Jois: “Practice, and all is coming.”

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{Quote} Anne Rice

Written on December 24, 2009 by Bianca in Quotes, Writing
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“ADVICE TO A NEW WRITER: There are no rules in this profession. Do what is good for you. Read books and watch films that stimulate your writing. In your writing, go where the pain is; go where the pleasure is; go where the excitement is. Believe in your own original approach, voice, characters, story. Ignore critics. HAVE NERVE. BE STUBBORN.”

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Improv & Writing

Written on December 1, 2009 by Bianca in Improv, Writing
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This past Saturday, I had my first improv class at Impatient Theatre. It’s been just over a year since I took my first ever improv class at Second City Toronto, so I was really excited to get back into it!

One of the exercises we had to do was a name game where each of us received a cool nickname. You can’t choose your own name though – the rest of the class does this for you. You’re also given an action to do while you say your nickname. I was Bionic Bianca! As for the rest of the class:

Richard Ratatouille! Mariachi Meghan! Alana the Slamma! Sea-Farin Aaron! Doug Douglington! Cosmic Chris! Shawna Seashells! Vivacious Vincent! Jump-five Jamal! Allan Island!

We spent a good amount of time saying all of these names and doing all the actions associated with them. We were all crazy/energetic and we were really getting into the exercise. Fun is definitely the word to describe it.

The exercise after this was called Panel of Experts. We were in groups of 4 and we sat in chairs in front of the class. If you were in that group of 4, you were there for us to watch and interview about something you’d be an expert in. (Our class had experts on Mealworms, How To Manage a Restaurant, and Heroes). This exercise was great for team-building exercise. The things people came up with were not only creative, but funny too!

So where am I going with this?

After this class, I immediately had the urge to go and write. The energy in that room was intense and it really gets your creative juices flowing. When we all got in a circle to talk about how the first class went, there were a couple of us who mentioned that we were in the mood to write all of  a sudden. Writer’s block? What’s that?

Here’s a few things I got from the first class:

  • You’re in a supportive environment. If you’re really shy or self-conscious (which I still kinda am sometimes), don’t be afraid: we’re all in this together.
  • Being “in the moment”. You have no idea what’s gonna happen next and pre-planning everything never really works. It’s a scary, nervous feeling – but once you’re up there, you’ll notice that it’s also a great one (thank you, adrenaline rush!).
  • There are no bad ideas, bad choices, or a bad scene. You’re thinking on your feet and that’s what makes it entertaining! I’ve learned not to edit myself and to not be so self-conscious about my ideas and what I’m contributing to the scene.

The last point can especially be applied to writing. I often find myself having writer’s block, but that’s because I was either getting too caught up in little details, being a perfectionist, or doubting myself. This class reminded me that the writing process can be fun and that I need to just keep writing no matter how bad or silly an idea of mine is. My main goal should be to just keep spitting out my ideas and to take care of editing later.

So to all my fellow writers out there, I strongly encourage you to join an improv class if you can. Besides have a blast playing all the different exercises, you’ll really get to flex your creative muscles.

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