I have completed school and have started working, and I have tried to go back to my writing and I seem to have writer’s block.
Has anyone else experienced this?
I am trying to write a screenplay about Nunuku Whenua . . . who was a Polynesian man who wore many hats. He was a bas-relief artist, a boat captain, a high-ranking tribal chief, an explorer, and a naked-eye astronomer. He was also a cannibal and a headhunter who stood between two warring factions, and said “Enough! From this moment forward, no more war, no cannibalism, and no murder. This is the law, and your bowels will rot the day you disobey.”
He worked very hard, and successfully changed his society from cannibals and headhunters into pacifists who valued all of human life just for its own sake, and he did this hundreds of years before this part of Polynesia was exposed to Europeans.
I think this could be made into an interesting historical movie if it was written well.
Write. Even if you think what you’re writing is shitty. Don’t think about it. Just start typing a stream of consciousness about your subject. Just write.
I used to go to bed, lie on my back and vidualise the problem…whether character action,arch whatever, just that stopping point. Hey presto while asleep my brain worked on the problem and dragged me awake at 2 am or so…it is important you get up, go to your writing area and type it …dont have a pad by the bed or you solution will often look like “chata ter” moves to evfrekt " hgedv. Midcg dgburiffer! Snalgob bi tressesd…
Trust me i was a screen writer, dialogue specialist for many years.
In fact, before writing anything creative I will type stream of consciousness stuff for a couple of minutes as a rule and then flow into the “serious” writing.
Sometimes the stream of consciousness material is all that comes out in that session, or for a few sessions. The whole point is to keep the writing related neurons firing whether they like it or not. Do this enough and the release of the block will happen. Probably.
(The product of this, for me, usually ends up looking like the worst dreck Samuel Beckett ever wrote. Maybe yours will too and you can do what he did and publish it and have people call you visionary… )
Another method, although disliked by me, but it works: Walk away for a few days. Then come back and you are kind of fresh.
Also, writing anything. Even if the crappiest crap you can write. May never use the crap, but one never knows. Writing on something diametric (if possible) can also help.
When I hit bad writer’s block, I will walk away for about a week. Do completely different things other than writing. Then when I come back and look over, I can begin writing again for a good bit until the next writer’s block.
I am kind of concerned that my past few years of school may have used up/burned out my creative impulses . . . or maybe because I’m older and I now have to struggle with my creativity.
I have found myself fascinated by the story of Nunuku Whenua, as I think that the transition of a cannibal-headhunter into a peace activist–who was successful in changing his entire society of cannibals and headhunters into pacifists who made nonviolence their core philosophy–against the backdrop of the magnificent South Pacific . . . would make a great historical movie if it was done well.
The best stories are character-driven, and a great story explores how a character(s) develop over time.
The story of Nunuku Whenua seems–at least to me–to be ready-made for this kind of movie. The character grows from cannibal and headhunter into a pacifist who changes his whole society by challenging them to abandon violence.
And yet the irony is that these peoples’ enlightenment almost led to their extinction several hundred years later when the white Europeans fucked everything up by reintroducing them to their Maori cousins who (unfortunately for Nunuku’s people) had retained their cannibalistic habits, and the pacifists were enslaved and eaten. Also, the Europeans brought many diseases (such as measles) that wiped out even more, so there were only about a hundred of them left by 1830 or so.
P.S. I’m thinking that the title of the screenplay will be The Enlightenment of Nunuku. How does this sound?
It has been done…26 years ago…Nunuku-whenua it was docudrama and a great viewing…but that doesnt mean that this story of a visionary should not be done again and again every generation two or three times…
Nunuku’s message and influence over a proud and warlike people was amazing, something we can all learn from, and should echo down the generations.
Disney? Pixar where the fuck are you guys.
Write your screenplay Kevin, pitch it, present it, alter it for TV, a series, the big screen, animation, Anime…every genre you can think of…update to the present…anything…
Such a plotline is apt to have some considerable resonance with modern fundamentalism. Imagine a fundamentalist on a journey to become a peace activist, lol. I’d pay to watch it.
It does sound like a compelling story. It gives hope that people really can change and I’m fond of historical fiction in general.
Try not to be discouraged. It sounds like writing is a skill you haven’t used for a while and you’re just a little rusty. Even if you haven’t got the whole story figured out maybe you can think of one scene or dialog and write it as practice. No one says you have to sit down and write the whole thing :).
Please keep us updated.
As an idea why not ask the Tech heads on these pages what format they would need to tell this story animated by LLm(AI) whatever…that is a consideration as casting this epic would pose some problems…apart from Jason Momoa…
)