(Note: This article comes from February 2002. I’m including it as part of my summer reruns, and crossing my fingers it doesn’t become timely.)
Finding inspiration and motivation to write is hard enough on an average day, but ever since the September 11th attacks and the chaos which has followed, I feel especially useless. As I am not a professional writer, there are no demands or deadlines forcing me to stretch those muscles with any regularity. The state of the world we live in makes me sad, angry, and afraid. While those emotions may drive others to create an expression of their feelings, I simply say to myself, "Why should I bother? Movies don’t really matter." How have you been dealing with the recent events and if you don’t mind, should I bother? Thank you for taking the time.
–Russ
Screenwriting is a pretty trivial profession even on the most sun-dappled days. In the context of human tragedy and international strife, it’s even harder to justify the ninth revision of your hockey-playing chimpanzee comedy. (For the record, there is already a hockey-playing chimpanzee comedy.) Much like every single person in North America, I went through the same stages of bewilderment, frustration, grief and fear after the September attacks. But after about a week, I got back on the saddle and started writing again.
Why? I think the answer is that I had to do something, and I’m better at writing than anything else I’ve found. I’m a pretty good cook, and know my way around a Macintosh in terms of graphic design, but pretty much the only hope I have of keeping a roof over my head is to continue to write. I don’t always enjoy it, and sometimes it makes me miserable. But in the sense that anyone truly has a calling, this is probably mine.
Now, since I’m a screenwriter and not a psychologist or counsellor, I’m completely unqualified to judge whether the sadness, anger and fear you’re feeling five months after the attacks is healthy. Obviously, it’s unproductive in the most literal sense, since you wish to be writing but find you can’t. So my advice to you would be my advice to any friend in your situation: find somebody who can help you out.
For what it’s worth, my friends and family who’ve sought help invariably say they wasted months making up their minds to see someone. Once they finally did, things improved much faster than they expected, and the world seemed much less onerous.
As far as should you bother writing, I’d argue it’s absolutely worth the trouble. Because while it’s true that some things did change on September 11th, 99.9% of things are exactly the same as they were on September 10th. What did change is your perception of them, and that’s a much easier problem to address.