Things to Do Instead of Meeting Your Deadlines

As a writer, one of my favorite things to do is procrastinate. Despite its actual meaning, procrastinating is one of the most productive things I do during the day.

I can get SO many other things done when I have a piece/essay/article/light bill due. My refrigerator is never cleaner than 3 hours before a deadline, my closet more organized, my records more autobiographically categorized.

Turns out though, editors (and the bank) do not care if your fridge is clean or if you can locate your Hollies album by remembering you bought it during the biblical breakup of 2012.

So write you must.

Ah, but what if, like me, you PHYSICALLY CANNOT SIT DOWN TO WRITE? The words won't come. The lighting in the room is wrong. The fan's too loud. The FRIDGE MUST BE CLEANED before you unleash holy genius onto an unsuspecting Word doc. WHAT THEN??

Don't worry, loves. I have figured it out.

You can simultaneously procrastinate AND meet your deadlines by watching movies about writing. Now wait - hear me out. I get that the physical act of writing is probably one of the most boring things ever to watch someone do. It's so solitary and singular in nature that even writers get bored writing. BUT. Writers are also fiercely competitive, with themselves or others and there's SOMETHING about seeing people writing on screen that drives you to your own work.

At least if you're me anyway.

So -- after extensive research backed by proven results (this girl has never missed her deadlines), I've curated this list of my favorite motivating movies about writers and writing.

Capote

Well, this list is off to a rollicking start. Not only is it phenomenally acted (cuz Phillip Seymour Hoffman, duh), it's also engaging and harrowing. You get to see writing as a process, how a story comes to exist in the cracks and crevices of people's everyday lives. And how that story is only as good as your connection with your subject. You also get to see what some people consider the birth of the nonfiction novel in In Cold Blood -- how real people's experiences can be as satisfying as any concocted tale. Also, you get to bear witness to some really phenomenal eyewear.

Secret Window

I don't know what it is about this movie that I love so much. Most people hated it. But to me, it's just everything a movie about writing should be. Tormented, askew, set in a place that's rainy and grey. It also stars Johnny Depp as Mort Rainey, a writer who's been accused by looney tune John Shooter of stealing his story. Wackiness ensues when Rainey assures Shooter that this just cannot possibly be. It's based on a short story by Stephen King and accurately portrays the real day to day that writing can sometimes be. You write something and determine that it's awful, eat some Doritos, talk to your dog, nap, lounge around in an awesome, tattered robe that you've worn for 5 days straight and then try and write some more. It's just eerie and unsettling and demonstrative of a really great story. And again, some spectacular spectacles.

The Help

God, ya'll. This is about so much more than writing, obviously. It's about social injustice, small town politics, classism, racism, sexism, courage in the face of adversity, inner strength. So many things. But at its heart, it's about how altering, liberating and beautifully subversive writing can be. How the power of story can change the course of history, how it saves people. All you have to do is be brave enough to put it on the page.

Almost Famous

This isn't usually included on these types of lists because it's so clearly about music. But I have such a vivid image of seeing Patrick Fugit, with his tape recorder and yellow legal pad, pounding away on his typewriter, and realizing with perfect clarity that that is me. I am William. I never wanted to write novels or poetry for a living, but the idea of telling real people's stories, asking questions, connecting to people and their lives, that has always, always, always appealed to me. And it's thanks in large part to this movie. Cameron Crowe is amazing, the lines are iconic, it's touching and it was one of the first things that illuminated to me what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing.

The Paperboy

Chances are, you've never seen this movie. Chances are, when you do, you'll ask yourself, what in the hell am I looking at. But it's good. It's pulpy and good and Matthew McConaughey plays a journalist and Nicole Kidman has a Southern accent and Zac Efron is in tighty whities. Also, John Cusak is gross in this movie. Just, gross. I wrote about the insanity awhile ago on the blog, but seriously, just go watch it. Then take a shower.

Dead Poet's Society

Aw, poor little rich boys. No, but listen. Robin Williams is the English teacher we all wish we'd had in school. The one that understands how necessary language is, how critical it is to our development as people. The one who teaches it in a way that alters forever how we see the world. Dead Poet's Society makes you realize that some of the things least critical for our survival (words, literature, poetry) are the things that make us the most human in the end.

Sex and the City

Image via HuffPo

I'm sorry, I know it's not a movie (Oy, not a good one anyway). But guys. I could not make this list without mentioning this show. Carrie Bradshaw epitomized what I wanted to do and be when I was 21. And there's nothing more motivating than seeing her at her window, writing out her column on Notepad (which is still, to this day, what I do my work on) on her Mac laptop circa 1998. It showed me what ambition could look like, and unapologetic living. That maybe there was this giant world outside my teeny town where you could combine thrift store threads with a little Diane Von Furstenburg, throw in a pink cocktail or 6, and become the voice of a city writing a column for a newspaper. A real one. That that kind of a life was an option for me, no matter how far away from it I was. It's just. Ugh. It's just the best.

There are others. There are so many others (The Shining, Wonder Boys, Finding Forrester, Adaptation, Misery, His Girl Friday, All the President's Men). But these are the ones that, for whatever reason, really make me want to play with words. And at the end of the day, that's what counts. I don't care if it's movies, or baking, or hula hooping, or chanting or whatever, if it's what gets you to the page, it's what you should do.