Wuzza? Two blog posts in one day? Say it ain’t so, Wendig! It’s so, bitches. Suck it!

Ahem.

Okay.

Let’s just be up front. It’s ten o’clock in the morning. I’ve had a glass of blackberry brandy. Hey, what? You shut up. It’s basically fruit. Don’t you judge me.

This isn’t normal, the me-being-slightly-inebriated-before-noon gig. So, don’t go scheduling any interventions.

No, the thing is, I just finished a script. Y’know that thing that got us into the Sundance Screenwriter’s Lab? Right? The one whose logline reads:

“When a mysterious sleep virus begins to affect the adults in a small rural town, those under 18 find themselves cut off from civilization and fighting for their lives. As weeks turn into months, they must struggle against the infected adults, one another, and their own worst instincts.”

That one? Yeah.

Sixth draft. Total rewrite. A big fat 112 pages. In the bag. Boom.

And holy fuck! I think it reads pretty good. And no, that’s not just the brandy whispering in my ear, dangit.

…

Sorry, I just had to take a moment and be thankful for the life I lead. I’ve been really lucky, you know? I get that. Great wife. Great dogs. Great writing partnership. Novel repped by a great agent. Movie. TV show. Things are pretty dang fine. (This, by the way, is where I leave my house to go get the mail and a tanker truck drives into me because the driver is all goosed-up on meth and we explode and perish and this post become a deep, dark irony — a memorial for all to see and cluck their tongues over. Tsk tsk tsk.)

Where was I?

Right. I want to talk to you about process.

Mostly just a weird rumination, but something that might inform how you approach different projects, forms, or styles.

I write novels completely different from how I write screenplays.

Big-time. I’m not talking about the planning, the outlining, any of that. I’m talking about the in-the-trenches nose-in-the-mud writing moments.

Here’s how I write a novel:

I close off the world. I open the Word processor. I consult my notes, my mind maps, my outlines, and then I put them away.

Then I write. I write like a mad fucker. Piston fingers on clicky keys. I avoid the Twitters. I avoid the Facebooks. Blinders on. Fingers move. Type, fucker, type. I hit three thousand words, I feel lucky. If I can keep going, I keep going. Head down. Write, you shithead. Write. I feel like a machine. I feel like I can’t breathe until it’s done. I don’t look back, either. Forge ahead, ahead, ahead. Full steam. Fuck periscope depth. Dive, dive, dive!

Script-writing? Whole different bag of animals.

I open the script file in Final Draft. I eat some oatmeal. I drink some coffee. I go back and read what I wrote the day before — wait, what? I do that? Really? Yes. Yes, I do. I go back over it, and I correct errors, I adjust dialogue, I clip out extraneous bullshit. (I’m very OCD with scripts. I like them to end at the back of the line, not the front — with a script, every dang line and page matters, too, so it only fuels my compulsions.) Then I press ahead, but I don’t bolt for the finish line. I write… shit, I’d almost call it leisurely. Okay, today was a little different because we’re talking climax-of-the-script, where shit is happening and people are dying and oh-my-god-so-much-mucus (seriously!), so the pace is more clipped, more furious. But in general, that’s not the case.

I write a line. I measure it against other lines. I think about it. I correct. I move on. Line by line, I hold it up, I take a good long look. I adjust. I juggle. I move this there, and that here. I take time out just to consider things. I don’t do that when I write novels. Not saying that’s good or bad — it just is.

I don’t know what I’m to learn from this. I don’t know if one method is better than the other, and if I should attempt to merge them. I’m inclined to say, mmmm, fuck it. What works, works. Each has its own face, and I dare not look away. The process is the process. I do wonder, though — as time goes on, will I write novels more slowly? More methodically? I dunno. It doesn’t feel right. Not yet, anyway.

Time changes a dude, though.

Anyway. Just thought I’d hack that up and hawk ptoo it onto your screens. What is your process? Do you find that you have compartmentalized processes? Separate for separate projects? Styles? Types of project? Talk to me. Whatchoo got, Internets?

More brandy? Really?

Don’t mind if I do!