Before Consistency, There's This!
- Daniel Beals
- 1 hour ago
- 5 min read
You've heard it a thousand times: the key to crafting a career as a writer is to be consistent. It's not bad advice. But I found something even more important.
I talk a lot in these blogs and on my socials about my process, and you get to see glimpses of what I'm working on, how I'm working on it, and all the struggles, and, yes, joy that go into that process. I didn't develop this process overnight.
I spent years figuring out my voice. Throughout those years — when we're going through that transformative period as writers — we're seeking guidance from our peers and people ahead of us, people who have succeeded for any tip, trick, or tool that can help us get better at what we're doing. The one piece of advice that always gets suggested is to be CONSISTENT, which I totally get. It took me a long time to develop consistency. When you're consistent, it doesn't matter if you hate or love what you're writing, if it's good or bad. It doesn't matter if you don't think you'll ever finish. Feelings are irrelevant when you're consistent. You'll always reach the end. Feelings are replaced with logic.
As I've developed my process, I've discovered that another skill is more important and helpful to me than consistency. And that is... to COMMIT.
You can't do anything until you've actively had a conversation with yourself and made the choice to do it. I'm always telling people to do the thing — this is what that means. You have to commit. Whether it's a feature, a pilot, or even an errand or task you always put off. Anything.
What's truly gratifying about the concept of commitment is that once you do it, you very quickly realize that the things you were worried about — like reaching the end, finding your way along the story, or just being any good — go away. You're going to reach the end because the number one thing that commitment teaches you is that nothing takes as long as you think it does. That's a rule I live by. That and more work now is less work later — but we'll save that for a blog about the importance of outlining. And household chores.
Nothing takes as long as you think it does.
When you commit.
Here's the part nobody warns you about. To commit on the level I'm talking about, you have to be delusional and more than a bit audacious (but never narcissistic). You have to find your inner child, drag them out, hug them, and keep them with you at every stage of your life. That wide-eyed, fearless part of you that hasn't yet been told what's realistic. That's who gets the work done.
So if you're looking for a place to start, no matter the task, that's what I would say. (Keep reading. 👇🏼 Got something else for ya. )
Commit, Be consistent. Do the thing.
APPLYING ALL THE RIGHT LESSONS
Talking about commitment is one thing. Living it is another. And part of my new path on this commitment train is to extract more stories from my head and set them loose in the world. Today I'm pulling back the curtain to tease one I'm incredibly excited about.
Now, y'all know I love movies, film, and screenwriting, but, upon evaluation, I can't see any real way to exorcise all the ideas in my head. It's become abundantly clear that the majority of the stories I want to tell just won't or can't be movies. They might become screenplays, but nobody would ever see those. So what do I do? How do I get some of these out into the world on my own terms? The answer was obvious:
I have a few gestating in different stages of production, but one is further along than the others. So let me introduce what I intend to launch sometime this year — my new crime drama:
ALL THE WRONG LESSONS
What happens when the heroes save the world, but keep forgetting to save the people?
It's set in a world full of superheroes like Superman and Batman — legends who can stop a meteor, topple a dictatorship on another planet, and be back in time for the morning news. But while they're out there saving the universe, nobody's watching the store down here. The politicians are buying votes. The CEOs are rigging systems. The pundits are selling outrage. All perfectly legal. All completely untouchable.
Until now.
The star of this story is an everyman — nobody special, no powers, no connections — who gets tired of watching the wrong people win. So he decides to do something about it. He becomes THE CORRECTION, and his mission is simple: find the corrupt, the greedy, and the comfortable, and give them a choice. Do the right thing. Step aside. Or face the consequences.
He's not a hero. He's a reckoning.
I want to give a shout-out to my friend and artist Crisanto Moreno, who designed The Correction's homemade look. I love this design so much, I'm not going to change a thing.
There's more ALL THE WRONG LESSONS on the way. Follow along for future —
Check out my previous comic stories HERE.
BACK TO MY REGULARLY SCHEDULED W.I.P.
While ALL THE WRONG LESSONS is heating up, the commitment doesn't stop there.
The new comedy feature I'm writing is proceeding along incredibly. I just wrapped the second act, and I'm on track to finish the entire first draft within the next week or so.
When I outlined, I broke the script into eight sequences. After creating an exhaustively thorough treatment, the script writing has been whizzing by. I'll say it again: figure out your story ahead of time, and you won't have to work as hard when it comes to writing it. It's just like making a movie or anything else in life —
Do the prep, then the rest is just playing.
I'm excited to get through this first draft and set it down for a month while I'm traveling abroad. But I'm even more excited to get back from that trip, dive into that next draft, and start really playing with the clay. I can't wait to reveal more and tell you what I'm working on. It's going to be exciting... and very hilarious.
Don't miss the reveal.
LET'S GET YOU STARTED
Now then, what about you? You've either THOUGHT about writing before, or you're giving it a try now. Hell, maybe you're seasoned, and you're here because you want a little body-doubling-style encouragement. So, I made something specifically for you.
I write and speak a lot about my process, the things I'm creating, how I create them, and the challenges I've gone through. And for a long time, people have asked me to put it somewhere they can reference it. So I did. I've taken over two decades of working in film and TV — projects in prestigious festivals, screenplays on the award lists at AFF, Page, and Coverfly — and distilled it into my new, free e-book titled HARNESS YOUR FIRE: For The Beginning Screenwriter.
This guide is everything I've figured out the hard way, broken down into steps you can actually use, so you don't have to figure it out alone. Make no mistake: this is me explaining MY PROCESS, hoping it might help you as you start your own journey.
If anything I talk about here moves you — if you're inspired to put your own ideas down on paper or a laptop — this is your first step.
Honestly, writing this blog is part of my commitment, too. Putting the work out there, talking through the process, letting you see what's being built in real time — that's me holding myself accountable just as much as it's me hoping to help you. So thank you for reading, thank you for following along, and I hope that whatever you're working on, you find your version of this. It's worth it.
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