Had to walk from a project recently.
I’m grieving just a little about that part of my life. I’m a people-pleaser by nature upbringing and when relationships have gone south my default position has been to grin and bear it and eventually resent it.
It certainly started well enough. After some ah, exciting and interesting collaborations in the past, this time around, I made sure I did everything right:
- a collaboration agreement was drafted, agreed, and signed;
- a development plan was negotiated, drafted and agreed – concept -> treatment -> first draft;
- a three-year timeline was negotiated, drafted, and agreed;
– and work commenced with enthusiasm aplenty, creative hearts leavened with the knowledge that a workload shared is a workload halved.
WRITER
Okay. What is The Project about?
COLLABORATOR
It’s a story... about THE WORLD.
WRITER
Yes. Okay. That’s a bit of a big concept for our audience. We need to somehow personalise or personify it somehow.
(thinks)
What if it was a love story?
COLLABORATOR
(nods excitedly)
Yes. Yes! A love story... about THE WORLD –
WRITER
– with automatic weapons.
Growing pains are part of the process of collaboration. As is walking before you run:
WRITER
– and then... with Fluffy the mastiff at his side, our protagonist kills everyone in the room –
COLLABORATOR
– and he doesn’t get a single scratch. YES!
WRITER
Well, there’s the small matter of physics –
COLLABORATOR
Oh, you’ve seen “Wanted” –
WRITER
I hated “Wanted” –
COLLABORATOR
Look – why don’t I just write it up –
WRITER
We don’t know how it ends yet!
COLLABORATOR
It’s part of the JOURNEY, man! I’ll just write it up –
WRITER
No –
COLLABORATOR
– because I’m bored with all this plotting/storylining/conceptualising shit. THIS ISN’T WRITING!
Nutting out the story, push-pulling over the actual writing – these are the joys of collaboration. I’m not kidding. You’re not alone. You’re bouncing ideas. You’re spitballing. You’re chugging down beers or flat whites and you’re riffing on former lives, past black-outs and relationships, dredging unashamedly for material.
It’s when the burden shared is a burden halved thing begins to pale. Emails or calls don’t get returned. Deadlines come and go.
WRITER
Hey, stranger –
COLLABORATOR
Oh man, I’m so sorry I haven’t gotten back to you –
WRITER
No problem.
COLLABORATOR
... What’re you -?
WRITER
‘S okay. I’ll uncuff you when you’ve answered some questions.
I’m cool with people getting busy with family or buried under other work commitments. That’s life.
It’s when I realise, after a number polite emails and gentle but firm phone calls, that I’m doing the pushing. I’m the Bad Cop. I don’t want to be the Bad Cop. I want to be liked. I want to be Good Cop. ‘S why I have a manager so that I always come out looking sweet and innocent. Or something.
And so you have a sit down. Lay the cards on the table. Your collaborator agrees that maybe they haven’t been holding up their end of the bargain – but they need you to push because it keeps them honest, keeps them sharp.
You can strap in for the long haul and wherever that may take you. Or you can move onto another project. It’s not necessarily about the project with the best odds of being made; sometimes it’s about the project you can put your best energies into.
I walked*.
John August said it nicely somewhere on his blog about how time spent on a project that stalls is time you could have spent on another project. Yes, I mourn. Just a little.
But I need to keep moving, keep hustling. Keep writing.
* Notice how I switched between first- and third-person perspectives these last few paragraphs? I can run but I can’t hide.
