Writing rules! Some folks love and need ’em! Other folks hate and ignore ’em! What to do? What to do?
by Rachel Simon
As of last night, I am just over halfway into the second draft of my still-untitled screenplay. I’ve been working on the script, a dark comedy about a college freshman’s return to her hometown over Thanksgiving break, for about three months now. The first draft, a 93-page, incoherent mess of “writing,” took a little over a month; I wrote a few pages each night, and by November, I had a full-length, albeit horrible, script in my hands. I began editing a few weeks later, and although it still needs a ton of work before I can call it done, it’s edging closer to becoming a final product.
Everyone, from bestselling authors to students in A.P. Lit, knows that writing isn’t easy. There’s the creativity, and the motivation, and the hours of work, and, perhaps most importantly, actually finding the time to get it done. As someone who’s known she’s wanted to be a writer since first grade, I’ve long come to terms with the fact that writing takes work. Still, after so many years of practice, I thought I’d mastered it pretty well. I rarely had trouble putting pen to paper, save for a few essays here or there, and when I did encounter writer’s block, it typically lasted a matter of minutes. All in all, I figured I was one of the lucky ones; writing just seemed to come easy to me.
