Creative Exercises

I know that everyone is familiar with the 10,000 hour rule. If you're not then here's the gist of it; to be good at anything in this life you have to practice to the point that you have completed 10,000 hours of doing it so that it comes easy to you whenever you're called upon to do it.

• You want to be funny at the drop of a pin? Practice telling jokes for 4 hours a day. 
• You want to be a master programmer to develop a million dollar app? Write code for 4 hours a day.
• You want to direct a movie? Go shoot video for 2 hours, edit it for 2 hours. 
• You want to be an ace pitcher? Throw a ball for 4 hours a day. Just remember with any physical activity, you have to train responsibly, otherwise you could overwork your muscles to the point that you're actually damaging your body. 

So writing is no different. Everyone is always looking for that one idea to get started, that moment of inspiration to sit down and start writing. But then that moment comes and you sit down to write and it's not coming through your fingers onto the page or everything you write just doesn't feel right. Why? Because the time between waiting and the light bulb going off, you were sitting on your hands.

Everything I write I would love to see in print or on screen. I would love to make money doing what I love to do, telling stories. But writing gold every single time is not the reality of our situation. You just have to write it all out, develop sentences, work out the dialogue, create characters, practice your style, understand your tone, work with scenes and description.

Doing flash fiction stories (600 words) is a great start to get yourself typing. Go on the internet, look at a picture, then create a story around it. That's one great way to find an idea to practice.

Keep your ears open. Everything you watch, read or listen to, take notes. Kafka's Metamorphosis came from a sentence in Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground. Listening to Harmontown, Bobcat Goldthwait mentioned the mental strain it took to make the documentary Call Me Lucky and how now it was time to make a 'talking duck' movie. I took that idea and made a my own 'talking animal' script Parrot Detective, something that will never get made, but was an exercise in creating characters, situations, conflicts, relationships, dialogue and description to help me moving forward in my writing career.

'But Josh, why should I waste my time?' That's a good question. Go back and look at the first paragraph. It's easy to see how the 10,000 hour rule works for athletes and performers, but not for writers. Anything you want to be good at, you need to practice. That's why.

My script writing exercises also have a second rule to better prepare for future employment in writing. That is time restriction or deadline. Staff writers have two weeks to write a script, so that's how much time I give myself to complete a TV project I'm working on. I don't always hit that deadline, because of work and social engagements, but I don't give up.

Don't give up! is your mantra to completion. And then the best part about writing thousands of pages is that you can now steal from yourself. You can take all your best work and put it into one piece of work that will rise you up to completing something you can be proud to show to the world.

Go out there and create something.