"Dream Machine" -- a new writing project to challenge myself

[breakinglight11]

After a several-month-long period of not seriously writing much of anything, recently I have been getting back into it with some new projects. It's been interesting because I have been purposefully attempting to push myself out of my typical wheelhouse, trying to write in ways and styles I haven't done much of previously.

I think I'm drawn to this right for a couple reasons. It's partially a way to jumpstart myself, to get myself back into working by trying something new. But it's also an attempt to reengage my creativity with challenge. There are ways of writing I haven't done much of because I've thought they would not come out well, so I've tended to avoid them. But now I'm trying to explore them to expand my capabilities, to see if I can manage to make something good where previously I couldn't.

One example of this is a hour-long comedy pilot (I meant it to be a half hour but it apparently ballooned) called Dream Machine. It kind of came out of nowhere for me, but when I made my humorous "pitch" to do my own version of 30 Rock, the idea wouldn't leave my mind. So I ran with it. I took it pretty far from the original "30 Rock reboot" gag, and had a fairly solid comedic screenplay banged together in less than a week.

I've done comedy before, even sitcom style comedy, so that wasn't the part that was new for me. The challenge of it was that I broke a rule I have for creating characters-- I never do self-inserts, or base any characters too directly on myself. I've always disliked it when people can only write about themselves or people who are just like them; it smacks of a lack of empathy and creativity, as well as a weird level of self-centeredness. But in this case, I took a leaf out of Tina Fey's book in 30 Rock and let the main character be a parody of myself. So I was challenged to make a character based on me that was funny and interesting without being some masturbatory navel-gazing waste of everybody else's time. In this case, it helped that it was NOT a flattering self-depiction; in fact, I tried to skewer myself as keenly as I could for the sake of the comedy.

I actually think it came out pretty good. I didn't really edit it much, and wrote it in a very, very brief stretch of time. Honestly it could use a pass to make the theming stronger, and it relies on a plot conceit that is... only sort of plausible. But it's funny and there's some genuine meaning to it. And I had a blast doing a staged reading of it over Zoom with some of my lovely actor friends. It was a great fun social and creative outlet while we're all stuck at home.

It's up on YouTube, and I think it's worth watching. I've proud of myself for making something that was outside my wheelhouse like this, and pleased that it came out this fun to watch.

Watch on YouTube