logo

View Author:
Neil Patel
(MUMBAI, INDIA)

EMAIL:
NPATELBOLLYWOOD AT GMAIL DOT COM

The Writing Process

The writing process is very special thing. Every writer has his own method. Some do it in front of the TV, some in their office. Some go to Poona, some lay flat under a table in their underwear. I dont know what you do, but if YOU are a writer you know what I am talking about.

To tell you the truth I hated writing. I do not know if this is still true or not. I mean I wrote a script, a couple of blogs. You tell me if i still hate writing. Back in school, i rarely wrote my own papers. I copied them off the internet and rearranged the words and used the thesaurus to death. Anything to avoid writing the paper myself! Later when there were systems to detect if your papers were downloaded from the net, I upgraded my methodology. I speak Spanish, so i googled the topics in Spanish and then translated them to English myself (this method doesn’t work with online translators; I laugh when people tried this method and turned stuff in). Oh, and when told to write a ULTRA LONG 5 page paper double spaced, I would write 2 pages, use a “nicer” font (which means bigger), not double space, but opt for 2.25, squeeze the margins in, write my name in big letters on the first page, give my paper a title on another line, hmmmm write the date, the class name…. just to take up at least a bit of the first page. So I would end up with 4 full pages and a line or two on the 5th, so that makes 5 pages! Combine this with the “Spanish translator cheat” and you’ve wrote a 5 page paper in 30 mins top. That’s why most of my papers were done the night before they were due.

Why bother? Why bother using my brain and thoughts on something I didn’t really care to do?

Now to the crux of the matter. The writing process. Back in July of ‘06 i had to write a simple little skit to enact “bargaining” in one of my business classes. The skit was short and funny. I wrote a note on my laptop about it. That was the end of that.

Cut to: December same year. I randomly remembered a funny joke i read 5 years ago. Funny how my brain jumps around. I wrote it down on my laptop. I remembered the skit i had. I thought, these would be cool in a Bollywood flick. That was the end of that. I reached step 0.1 in the writing process. An idea! End of that. (The skit is now scene 75 in my script, and the joke developed into scene 45). I have 20 words written down. Hey, these would be cool scenes in a Bollywood flick!

Every day from December 06 thru mid Jan 07: Hey, these would be cool scenes in a Bollywood flick!

Cut to: Mid Jan 07. Oh that joke i heard the other day was funny, let me write it down. I wrote it down. HEY! Maybe i should see other cool jokes and scenes i can think of. So i just randomly wrote 10-15 independent ideas. Which are now probably scenes 1, 7, 13, 45, 57, 75. Totally non linear. Oh crap, what is that weird feeling i am getting. Maybe i can think of “events” to connect my random scenes. Shit that weird feeling is getting stronger. Ahh i work some, and now i have 28 odd scenes or ideas that could be a nice story. Ahhh i did it, i reached step 0.9999, I have an idea!

Next one week: That weird feeling is still there. I do nothing.

Continuing after that week till mid march: I write a page, and another and another and another. Cool, i got a like 4 pages. Then that weird feeling I’ve been getting gets the best of me. It explodes within me… the passion(i wanted to write “urge” or some other similar word, but for some reason i wrote PASSION, I wonder why?). Ahh, step 1 of the writing process. I just sit for hours every day and write. Sometimes i write a line, sometimes 5 pages. Sometimes i want to hit my head against the wall, sometimes I’d rather watch TV. But that feeling of passion draws me back to my laptop. Hands type. Brain fries. I keep writing. I hate writing. I keep writing.

Cut to: Mid march. THE END. script, done, head light, fried brain damaged, no type me can, write crazy. Followed by extreme euphoria! I wrote a damn script. For just the hell of writing something i thought was cool. Hell i couldn’t write my paper in college but i wrote 100+ pages for fun.

More about my writing process. Yeah, i wrote my script inside-out, i started with random ideas and wrote in the middle parts. No start to finish idea first. I read no books about writing, no theories, no nothing. I just wrote. I judged what i liked, where there should be a joke, some drama, watched the script in my head and wrote in a joke where i needed a pickup moment.

Ahh, the whole writing process. 1 Step. Passion. Get there and you will hit the ground running. I wrote and rewrote, 8 Drafts!

Do I hate writing?