HOLDING MYSELF ACCOUNTABLE

Confession: I am terrible at maintaining a consistent writing schedule. It’s something I’ve struggled with for years to the point where I’ve gone long stretches barely writing more than a few lines. While my struggle with perfectionism coupled with moderate fear definitely plays into it, overall, my struggle with having a consistent schedule has been a long-standing issue I’m finally ready to tackle.

A little bit about how I write now. Currently, the time I generally end up writing or doing any type of script-related work is usually between the hours of 1 am and 3 am. This would be fine and dandy if I was getting the proper amount of sleep regularly to balance out the lateness, but I'm a morning person who still wakes up at 7/7:30 every morning (minus weekends). While I have been way more consistent since the pandemic started, it still hasn't been as frequent as I'd like. I still have those weekend marathon writing days where I try to cram everything in and even that doesn't help because the lack of sleep still trickles into that time. Lack of sleep means when it came time to write, my exhaustion hindered both my focus and creativity. It was hard for me to do the work when my body is constantly telling me it needs rest. After waking up with my laptop next to me with barely anything on the page a little too frequently, a change just needed to happen.

This month, I’m finally making an effort to break my inconsistent late-night habit. For a while, I've mentioned to friends my desire to transition into becoming a morning writer. Also, a desire to free up my weekends by only writing on a Monday to Friday schedule. Without having to try to play catch-up via a weekend writing spring, that time can be spent working on new music or I don't know, maybe even doing something called "relaxing." That said, I needed to start a new habit but me being me, I sometimes need to be held accountable to build that habit. There is no way I'm waking up early to do work before work on my own. In comes Black Film Space.

Last month, I saw a post on their Instagram with a new accountability group initiative. Talk about perfect timing. The format of the group was the follows:

• 12 writers meet 5 days a week (M-F) on zoom from September 7th until November 27th during your chosen time period. I chose 7-9 am before working hours

• Participants must put in a $150 deposit to guarantee their spot in the group

• If you miss or are over 10 minutes late to more than 2 sessions, you lose your $50 deposit for that month

• You must have your camera on for the full two-hour block and audio off (obviously they want to see you're actually there and working)

• Near the end of the program, there will be a virtual reading to workshop one of the scripts worked on. I'll be presenting my November 12th.

Another thing to confess about me: the moment I throw ANY money down for anything, it’s serious. You better believe I want that $50 deposit back at the end of every month.

Today marked day one of the accountability group. I jumped on a little before 7 am ready to work and successfully got through quite a bit in terms of reworking an outline. Because we have to set bi-weekly goals, mine is to get through the cold open, act 1, and maybe start of act 2 of my pilot by the end of next week with this week dedicated to final outline changes before jumping right in.

I’m excited about what the next three months will hold and how much writing I actually get done. More than anything though, I’m looking forward to doing the work to create a better writing schedule for myself. By writing Monday to Friday, I can finally reclaim my weekends and spend them the way I've always wanted to.

I may regularly post about my progress and how I'm feeling as the weeks progress. For now, I’ll say that day one felt like a success. Let me get back to being this little girl who clearly did not know how important writing would continue to be to her as an adult.