I like change. Perhaps too much. Sometimes I wonder if my family thinks I’m an uncomfortable person to be around.
Take for example, my furniture. I can’t help but rearrange it. Often. As much as I try to resist the urge, the urge to rearrange always wins.
And then there are new ideas and theories that cross my path. It doesn’t matter if the subject is science, politics, religion, history, physics, or whatever, before I know what’s happening, I’m deep in a rabbit hole, researching every angle.
I won’t even mention my inability to follow recipes. I always change those.
So, yeah, I not only like change, I crave it.
Yet as a full-time writer, the only way I’ll ever get anything done is to follow a routine. And to make sure I get work done, my routine looks the same every day. Every day I write, or rewrite, or edit, or proofread. Then I do it all again.
If I’m not careful, the routine could morph into boredom. Which would be disastrous, because no one wants to read what a bored writer writes.
So to mix things up, I set challenges for myself. Early on, the challenge was to shift back and forth between screenwriting and novel writing.
Recently, I set a timed challenge for myself. I wrote a screenplay (True Story of the Perfect 36) and adapted it into a novel, all in the space of a single year. I’m kinda proud of being able to do that. It certainly wasn’t easy, and I feel both the screenplay and novel turned out well.
Then last summer I challenged myself to write a Christmas thriller screenplay, which is how I came to write Minerva Claus.
The screenplay I wrote before that, Paranormal Rescue, was also the result of a challenge. I wanted to know if I could write a horror. I turned into a horror/comedy, but hey, a horror/comedy is still a horror.
My most recent challenge was to adapt six screenplays into novels. I even went so far as to rewrite one of them, Stone Woman, to the point it’s nearly ready to be published.
Which left me ready for a new challenge.
Then it hit me.
I’d write two separate screenplays, concurrently. To beat the challenge I’d have to write them in such a way that I honestly would not be able to say which screenplay is finished first.
It’s turning out to be much harder than expected. Just like any good challenge.
I suffered through two weeks of not being able to write anything. Then, yesterday, I had a breakthrough. The spigot of creativity turned back on and ideas once again began to flow.
Whew! That was close. For a moment I thought this challenge was going to be too much for me.