It is my opinion that no great work of art was ever created simply by the hand of any one person. True, many great artists have painted a many picture and poets many sonnets. However, before the first brush stroke to the canvass or pen to paper these same artists or poets pulled from things around them for inspiration. Some may even call it a muse.
Inspiration is what drives you to complete your project no matter how big or small. Trees were a big inspiration during the time of William Blake and Robert Frost as seen through some of their most famous works. They used the things around them to produce some of the greatest poetry of our time.
All of Edgar Allen Poe’s works were based on a lost love or the longing for a loved one. He used those real relationships and turned them into art. Now people find comfort within his prose and some maybe even healing or closure.
Today’s post is not meant to be a historical lesson of any sort. Instead my point is to show that we are able to produce great things when we lean on others for insight or inspiration.
As I type, I am about 70% done with a spec script that I started writing in January along with a writing team. We've all played a vital role in the success of the script thus far. Over the course of a few months we've been able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of our partners and play off of those in order to make the script the best that it can be.
I’m not sure I would have been as successful writing my first complete script on my own. I've written a first ACT, however, I've never sat down to really worked through each character to give them life and a personality. We spent countless hours working on scene cards; adding, deleting and rearranging scenes to fit the overall theme of the play.
We have been each other’s muse. We've pushed each other unconsciously to go the distance. I can hardly wait to see our finished product at the end of May.
Writing with others has been a huge learning opportunity for me. Will I always write with a team? Maybe, maybe not. I will definitely use things, people, and places around me to inspire me to write the next great screenplay or novel.
Happy Writing!
