Operation Achieve Anything: Day One-Hundred-Eighty-Five, Dateline 7-4-2018
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“Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don’t let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.”
Good morning crickets. Welcome to day number one-hundred-eighty-five of Operation Achieve Anything. It’s the fourth of July, and I am very excited to take the entire day off. Well, at least from my day job. I still have a few things to do for this blog, but as soon as I’m done, I’m going to be bedridden for the rest of the day. Though I do have the option to work and earn a few bucks, the fact that it took me about six hours to complete a six-hour day, from having to take many breaks to cope with my back pain, has me feeling like a break is justified.
Mainly, I just want to rest up in hopes that I’ll finally heal up enough to eliminate the uncertainty as to whether or not I’ll be able to sit long enough to get everything done in a reasonable amount of time as opposed to double the time from the many breaks mentioned above. Speaking of uncertainty, once again that is the theme that the Achieve Anything… book is still hung up on, with the primary focus still being that uncertainty isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
This may be the worst of the themed sections of the book because usually, themed sections like this at least explore the featured topic from multiple angles with maybe one or two lesson that feels like recycle filler. Not here though, nope, for the last several days I’ve heard nothing but examples of how uncertainty is nothing to fear.
That said, I’ll still play along and share yet another example of how I agree with this concept. When I first started writing, I never felt the need to create outlines for my projects because I preferred to just jump right in, set the stage, and see where the characters led me. Though letting the characters lead the way wasn’t the logic at the time, that was still my writing process. Then, I went to film school where they taught that pre-planning was an essential part in becoming a professional writer, so, I figured I’d give it a shot.
I spent the next two years after graduating, battling with writer’s block. I did write a couple of scripts during this time but, to this day, I feel like the pre-plotted content turned out to be the worst in my catalog of work, and I think the lack of uncertainty is to blame. I believe this is because I write as a way to keep myself entertained as much, if not more than I write for a potential audience.
It’s not that I don’t want people to read my work, but I’m not a huge fan of writing for a target audience because that approach feels like it kills any sense of freedom since you then have to follow genre rules to give the target audience what they expect. I also like how this preplanning is always based on the three-act structure while following the hero's journey, which are both great tools to keep in mind while you write but stick to them too strictly the story becomes too easy to predict, and predictability doesn’t equal fun as either a writer, reader, or finished product viewer.
I feel like the lack of uncertainty in exchange for guaranteed profit is why there are no longer any high-quality films, at least when it comes to the actual story. This actually ties in to today’s assignment where I am supposed to list my ten favorite films and break down while I like them while keeping uncertainty in mind. As always, you’ll have to wait for tomorrow’s update to this top ten list. Until then, it’s now time to sign off by saying, good day and good luck to you and all of your project and I hope you enjoy this 4th of July.
Talk to you soon.
Sincerely,
The Wicker Breaker
P.S. Below are links to my novel, which I plan to promote as part of Operation Achieve Anything, as well as a link to where you can buy the book that is providing the structure to this project in case you would like to purchase it in order to play along.
