I know this is a popular and long debated issue amongst screenwriters and I hesitate to mention it again…except….well except that these things are always so much more pertinent when they crop up in your life and give you a resoundingly good slap across the face.
My dilemma is this- I work full time in a demanding job. I am mother of a young child who has an aversion to sleeping and we are all currently living under the roof of my mother-in-law.
Or to put it another way- life is a bit tricky at the moment.
I get almost no time to write other than a stolen 20 minute lunch break and maybe one or two evenings a week. I am currently writing something that I feel quite passionate about, that has some good and new things to say (I hope) and seems to have an interesting enough hook that it sparks interest when I pitch it to people.
So far, so good. Unfortunately it is also bloody hard work. It’s a television series and I’ve never written one before so I’m starting from scratch again. It’s got a number of interweaving story lines so it’s taking a lot of thought time and excessive use of the delete button at the moment.
As mentioned in another blog, I’m also heading to Australia permanently in less than a year. I feel I should be aiming to finish said project before I go.
Here’s the rub. Recently while my child was sick (and was using me as his bed for both days and nights) I watched the two most recent adaptions of Jane Austen’s Persuasion (2007, 1995). I have watched them before but years ago. This time however they annoyed me deeply. So much so that I was driven to read the book again. Then I was even more annoyed and felt the most compulsive urge I’ve ever experienced to sit down and start writing my own adaption. Persuasion is one of my favourite books- I couldn’t believe they had massacred the character of Anne so horribly…twice!
And now I can’t bloody stop!
It’s gushing out of me. It consumes every spare thought and moment and meanwhile my sensible project gets ever more dusty in my drawer. I keep trying to force myself back to it but it’s just so much hard work and Persuasion is just so much fun. It’s the most delightful script I’ve ever written and I am very much in love with it.
But, like dating the rebel with a wandering eye, it’s also assuredly a pointless exercise. Who on earth is going to accept an adaption of Persuasion from an unknown writer. Who’s even going to look at it as an example of my writing? Adapting Jane Austen smacks of unoriginality and/or arrogance. And it is highly likely that there are already modern film adaptions currently in negotiation or filming as I type.
Every way I look at it, there is no point in writing it except for my own gratification and where is that going to get me?
I hate myself for it but can’t stop. I feel like the little girl in the red shoes who knows she needs to cut of her feet but fears the blood that will result.
Ok, maybe slightly overdramatic but then I’m a very tired worman with a Jane Austen (Persuasion) obsession. I need some slack!
(pic credit: Pixiebebe and BBC)
himalayan epiphany 