Dispatch from The Quest: Brandon Cohen
Last week as we did here on GITS, the Quest writers focused on the third week of Prep. Today’s dispatch: Brandon Cohen on embracing the solitary life of a writer:
I just moved, and I now live by myself for the first time in my entire life. A lot of my friends questioned my decision to get my own place, claiming that the solitude would be lonely and depressing. My family took bets on when to expect my Shining-esque mental breakdown, but the loneliness factor never even really occurred to me. My chief concern was (and still is) ghosts, but as of this writing I have yet to see one. Ha, and people called me crazy when I asked the landlord to see the building’s Indian burial ground report!
I write full time, so I was already alone a lot, and now that I live by myself I’ve really doubled down on the me time. I’ve only been here for a month, but in that month I’ve learned a lot about my writing habits and myself. For one thing, I’ve realized that being alone makes my productivity skyrocket. When I lived with my last roommate it was so easy to get lured into watching a horrible reality show that I had no interest even watching in the first place, or going out for a meal when I really should’ve been doing work. Also, when you live with people who aren’t in the industry and have no idea what you’re trying to do, I always felt like (at least for me) there’s this weird urge to prove to everyone that you’re actually doing work and not just watching porn all day.
Pretty much all of my friends and family know nothing about screenwriting. They know that I wanna “work in the moving pictures business,” but I don’t think they actually know what goes into trying to make my dreams a reality. Whenever I’ve tried to explain it, I’m met with a lot of blank stares and people telling me how jealous they are that I probably just watch TV all day. Thanks for belittling all my efforts! I feel like I’m busier now than I have been since I graduated college, but unlike a lawyer who is at the office until 11pm, I’m sitting in my apartment, so people just assume I’m eating pizza while simultaneously drinking beer, playing video games, taking a nap and watching Simpsons reruns.
So, when I first quit my job to focus on writing full time, I was very self-conscious about my friends’ and family’s perception of my work habits. I was constantly trying to justify what I did all day, and that lead to me trying to seem busy. I actually was very busy, but I felt the need to prove that to those around me. Now that I live by myself, I don’t really feel like I need to put on a show for anyone. If I think I’ll get the most amount of work done by lying in my bed until 4:00pm with my laptop on my stomach and the shades drawn then I’m gonna do it! All I care about now is maximizing my output.
As great as it’s been to not concern myself with the distractions that come along with living with others, living alone has also made me realize that sometimes I’m at my most creative after going out. There’s so much inspiration that comes from experience- talking to friends, going to a movie, seeing a comedy show, going to a playground and sketching children from afar until their parents report you to the cops, I feel like emerging from my fortress of solitude does wonders for jogging my creativity. It’s also good to just get out and talk to others about your project. I’ve been warned against “writing in a bubble,” and I think for good reason. I get so caught up in my own world I begin to not be able to judge my decisions objectively. It’s great to be able to have some people to bounce ideas off of over a couple beers so you have someone to snap you out of it when for some reason you thought a big comedic set piece revolving around an escaped monkey wearing a trench coat was a good idea.
Anyway, I’m loving my new lifestyle. I think that to want to be a writer, there’s a part of you that enjoys being alone and getting lost in your own mind, so I think this suits me quite nicely. I’m just really hoping that I don’t end up going nuts and hacking up everyone in my building because there are a lot of units and the elevator is painstakingly slow.
I can relate to Brandon. Recently my wife and youngest son went away for the weekend, leaving me at home alone. Party time, right? Uh, no. I holed up in my study with the blinds drawn and wrote. When I finally made my way downstairs to eat — what a concept! — I realized I was completely in the dark. Literally. Not a light on in the house except for my study where I had been for as it turns out 10 hours straight.
I don’t know if that’s inspirational… or pathetic. But what I do know is what Brandon describes: Writers need to embrace the solitary life in order to ply their craft. We have to understand if not enjoy the experience of being alone for long expanses of time.
Of course, we are not alone, we have all our story’s characters to keep us company.
But nobody else needs to know that.
Tomorrow: Another dispatch from The Quest.
About Brandon: NYC native, fan of all things comedy. I cry every time I watch Big Fish, Forrest Gump and Marley & Me. Don’t judge me. Twitter: @brandandco.
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