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This
week's answer:
Finishphobiacs
It's nice that the money is willing
to wait for you, Andrea. So, you not only have
nice money, but also patient money. And, I assume,
this patient and nice money will be yours when you
finish the script, and instead of spending your time and
effort in doing just that, instead, you've been
spending your time and effort dragging heels. I'm
curious: How do you go about dragging heel?
So far, all I can figure out is that, since you said your
heels, the heels must belong to you. So, you've
either been dragging the heels of your feet or heels of
some shoes you own. Now, I'm not saying there's
anything inherently wrong with dragging heels (although
dragging bare heels can't feel all that good), but
I'm not sure how efficacious it is. (I used
"efficacious" instead of "effective"
to appear more knowledgeable and so my readers wouldn't
think that, when it came to looking up other words for
"effective," I wouldn't appear as if I was
dragging my heels.)
Human nature can be very strange at
times, and often very illogical. Logic tells you
that it makes sense to finish a project and gain the
reward. So what do we often do? We
don't. Do what is logical. Instead, we often
do everything but what would benefit us the
most. Another way of looking at this problem is
the well-known (well, if you don't know it, then it
wouldn't be well-known by you) 80 percent/20 percent
concept: It takes 80% of your effort to finish the
last 20% of the project. So, what do we deduce
from these facts? I don't mean to alarm you, but
the truth is that, generally...
WE
DON'T LIKE TO FINISH PROJECTS
That can't
be, you say. I like to finish my projects, say
you. We like to THINK we like to finish projects, but
there is a psychological element at play here. An
emotional one, actually. We don't want to finish
because there's a part of us that is uncomfortable about no
longer having that project to do. There's a fear of
the unknown, so to speak. We easily become comfortable
and can get into a type of rut once we settle into a project
-- even if we're not thrilled about the project. It
becomes familiar very soon, and we have a tendency to ATTACH
to it. There's a part of us that knows that, when we
finish the screenplay, we will have to DETACH from it.
Let it go. Then what's next? As we approach the
finish line, we often see or, at least sense, a gaping abyss
that is waiting to swallow us up. And we forget
about the money (or patiently waiting agent or patiently
waiting producer -- or impatiently waiting) and focus
only on the patiently waiting abyss.
Writers
know this abyss. That's why writers, composers,
painters, artists of all kinds have more than one
project. Or they have a bunch of projects waiting for
them when they finish their current one.
Patiently.
DcH
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