The Creative Act: A Way of Being

Professional writer with ADHD here. From my perspective, you have at least 4 distinct opportunities for growth and improvement. Fear of writing something bad Lack of skill differentiating "creation" and "revision" phases of writing/inability to pick which phase you're in Outline / "Pre-writing" process isn't working for you in terms of creating a roadmap for writing scenes Lack of understanding / skill connecting plot to character In other words, better organization and a better outlining process will probably be helpful to you, but truly solving your problem will probably require more than just this element. Fear of writing something bad Obviously I don't know you. Everything I know about you is what you've shared in this post. But, based on my own journey as a writer, and my experience mentoring other writers, I am willing to venture a guess that, on some level, you are probably experiencing some fear/anxiety about your work. This is incredibly common among emerging writers. This is a great video to watch. In it, Ira Glass talks about "the gap" you are probably in: you got into this because you really love this stuff. Your taste is great, and your taste is good enough that you know what you're currently doing isn't as good as you want it to be. At the same time, a lot of us believe that much of success writing is inborn or innate, and that we should be able to write at or near the professional level in our first 5-10 scripts. This gets worse when, like you, we receive some external praise for our early work. We hear those complements and feel good. Then our brains learn something really dangerous: when I write good, I AM good. That feels great in the short term, but quickly our stupid brains deduce that the opposite is also true: if I write bad, I am bad. This has different ways of manifesting, depending on the person. A lot of people just stop writing altogether, or procrastinate by playing video games or going to the gym. I'm willing to guess that, to some extent at least, you are experiencing this sort of fear, and the way you are processing it is to write 1 or 5 or 25 pages, then re-read what you have written, determine that it sucks, feel a deep well of existential dread in your stomach, and promptly start re-tooling or rewriting or whatever. In part, I'm willing to guess that because I identify with you; and also because you write "my current script has been through 15+ revisions by page 25," which is excessive and suggests that something non-rational and therefore emotionally driven is taking place. This is not something to be ashamed of, it is an opportunity for growth. One key exercise I'd reccomend for you is Twyla Tharp's journal exercise about fears. She wrote about this in her excellent book, The Creative Habit: Get a sheet of paper or open a new document and write: "I'm afraid of..." and then start free-writing on your fears. "I'm afraid that I'll write something lame and I'll be embarrassed. I'm afraid that I'm not as smart as people think I am and if this sucks they'll know. I'm afraid I don't have any talent." After you write a fear, start thinking about it and making friends with it. Think about the worst case scenario, and see if it would really be that bad. You'll write something lame and people will judge you... and would that really be so bad? Would writing something lame truly be so embarrassing? Isn't it somewhat lame of others to judge you for writing something lame, if you did? Etc etc. Tim Ferris also has some good prompts for this in the Q&A: QUESTIONS AND ACTIONS section of this popular post: Fear-Setting: The Most Valuable Exercise I Do Every Month Making friends with your unconscious fears really helps you take the power away from them. As Carl Jung once said, until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life, and you will call it fate. Another book that is really helpful for unlocking these kinds of fears is Rick Rubin's book The Creative Act: A Way of Being. One of his key philosophies expressed in that book is that any work of art is an experiment, one for which we don't know the outcome. No matter how the work turns out, we gain valuable information for our next experiment. I think this is a really helpful idea, because it emphasizes the point that we need to be less attached to making each project perfect, and instead cultivate the mentality that we are artists who are going to get better over time while allowing ourselves to take big swings. This is why, in part, I often advise emerging writers: do not try and make your next script perfect, or even good. Set a new goal of becoming a much better writer over the next year, and an even better writer in the year after that. This is a much better way to, as you said, not "see your talents wasted." I'd implore you to decide that you are not trying to avoid wasting your talents in the next 8 hours; you are trying to avoid wasting your talents over the next few years, and over the course of your life as an artist.