I picked up a novel on a recent trip (love me a good airport bookstore!!), and as I was digging into the story I found myself intimated by the very idea of ever writing one of my one (a definite creative goal of mine.)

And that had me comparing the lessons of screenwriting - something I've done, and can wrap my head around - with novel writing - something that terrifies me and seems completely foreign to me.

As I've just started a writing course to develop a new TV series, I could compare the ways in which the two are actually quite similar. 

A project never begins with a blank page. It always starts in conversations with your characters: writing about their most embarrassing Middle School memory, their most brutal college heartbreak, the last fight they had with their mom.

The blank page only feels blank when there's been no fleshing out of the world that will never even exist on that page.

Scaffolding is everything.

You have to invest in a ton of prep work - and know some good tools - before you get to the first line of the first page, the first stroke of paint across canvas, the opening chords of your next song.
 

If you're struggling with making time or space for your creative practice, I hear you. I'd love to connect. Come find me on Instagram @SamGarlandNYC.

(photo credit: Janae Jones Photography) 

Come check out the Hot Mess series on TikTok, and watch as I lose my mind - and find it again - writing, producing, and acting in a show!

#CreatingIsHealing🦋