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This week's Answer: "Unburning
Out"
Yes, Amy, I do have some
advice. You might want to get an eye exam and find
out if you need glasses, and then see if you can see your
script. If you can't, then I recommend a second eye
doctor. See?
Actually, I believe you're referring
to a phenomenon that many screenwriters, including myself,
experience. There seems to be a type of threshold
one can reach after one has been working on a screenplay
assiduously and continuously for a long period of time
(and that threshold is the one at your front door that you
cross over after working on a screenplay for hours and go
running into the street, yelling "I'm mad as hell and
I'm not going to write anymore!")
The words that you've painstakingly
strung together like those icicle lights that hang from
people's houses all year long suddenly don't seem to make
sense; they stop registering in that part of your brain
where the little screenwriters live and work
overtime. Some screenwriters (not the little ones)
call this "burnout." I think a better way
of looking at is as a need for fresh eyes (which I hear
you can buy at any local farmer's market). Sometimes
the mind needs to have its palate cleansed. (Please excuse
the mixed body parts -- unless you happen to be writing a
horror.) Amy, and all you readers who relate
to Amy's predicament, my guess is that you haven't taken
enough breaks between your writing sessions and have
overloaded your "screenwriting senses."
When that happens, the tendency is to, not only see it
unclearly, but to also see it through hypercritical
eyes. The fact is that anything you look at too long
is going to lose its initial attraction and compelling
nature to you. (Case in point: You in the
mirror.) So what's the answer? Simple:
Write as long as you want. Just be sure to take
plenty of breaks.
And go string up some icicle lights.
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