Protect Yourself, So You Don’t Wreck Yourself

When it comes to writing climate stories for TV and film – especially if you’re a writer with lived experience of climate impacts – you may find your nervous system on an emotional journey that has more twists and turns than a runaway tire on Lombard Street. Wobbles of anxiety will collide with potholes of despair, bounce off the curb of rage, spin out on clouds of hope, then keep on rolling. It’s a process that can leave you feeling totally depleted.

Besides side-eyeing that terrible tire metaphor, you’re probably thinking, I didn’t mean to sign up for this! I became a writer to escape the world, not dive headfirst into the most difficult aspects of it. Sorry, friend, them’s the breaks when you have a caring heart. The risk of burnout comes with the climate screenwriting territory, so we must help ourselves – and each other – maintain and replenish our energy stores.

Draw a Line or Two

Got burnout? Check your boundaries. Take it from this perpetually recovering people pleaser, having weak and porous boundaries puts you on the fast track to energy breakdown. Lucky for you, screenwriting is one of the most constrained creative mediums one can engage with, so you’re already a boundaries expert of sorts– at least in terms of formatting and structure. Setting boundaries on and off the page ensures there’s enough left for your own needs and desires (ie. uninterrupted, dedicated writing time). Be like a screenplay and keep those boundaries strong!

Buddy Up

Writing is a solitary act… or is it? Perhaps it’s time to think beyond the trope of a lone writer clacking away on their masterpiece, and vision something more expansive for our stories. Healing from unsustainable, extractive systems requires being in community. Consider what it would look like to share all the ups and downs of climate screenwriting with other people. Maybe it’s cowriting, or joining an accountability group, or organizing a climate storytelling cocktail/mocktail club. Being in conscious communing with like-minded, like-hearted people does wonders for boosting your energy.

Rage on the Page

It can be hard to regulate emotions when working on a climate script. One minute, you’re furious about being hoodwinked by fossil fuel cronies, the next you’re gutted that a whole population is displaced by yet another (insert latest extreme weather catastrophe here). Take the emotions you’re experiencing and channel them into your characters. Let them rage, sob, act out, heal. Not only will that help you process what you’re feeling, it will create more authenticity on the page.

Create Levity

Climate screenplays need to entertain even – or especially – as they grapple with difficult issues. A spoonful of levity helps the medicine go down, so to speak. Sidekicks and buddy characters with quick wits and snappy retorts are tried and true tension relievers. Use them, and other story devices, to create humor and lightheartedness so writing stays a joy and not a slog.

Don’t Keep It In

Unless (or, maybe, even if) your background is in climate science, you’re sure to come across new, daunting information when doing story research. The complexity and scale of the climate crisis is too much for one heart and mind to hold. Talk about what you’re learning with loved ones or a therapist so the part of you that is overwhelmed has a witness. Because being seen and listened to is crucial to energy management. It dissolves that lump in your throat and pit in your stomach.

Build the World You Want

Screenwriting is nothing if not world-building, so why not create the world as you’d like to experience it? Reverse engineer your climate worries and concerns to show us what’s possible when those issues have been handled. This isn’t only radical visioning for the planet, it’s also a way of regulating our nervous system. To write is to be immersed, so why not soak in the solutions?

Self-care is Community Care

To quote one of my all-time fave bands The Beautiful South, we are each other. Corny and obvious as it may sound, you’re undoubtedly part of a human family that’s inextricably bound to the earth’s ecosystem. Our wellness contributes to the wellness of the whole – and vice versa. When you’re struggling to manage your energy, consider your well-being in relation to your people, whether that’s a partner, family unit, culture, or humanity at large. Allow the knowledge of your interconnectedness to bolster you. Use your networks to give and receive support, when needed. The only way through is together.

Remember, keeping one’s energy in balance is a lifelong practice. Sometimes you’ll be great at it, sometimes you won’t. The important thing is to keep inching back to the center. Strive to be that healthy, whole climate screenwriter who manages her energy the way an oil and gas exec tracks their stock portfolio – with abiding ferocity. 

How will you rebalance yourself? Let me know by tagging #ClimateScreenwriting and #ScriptMag on socials.

Read all The Climate Screenwriter columns here. And don’t forget to share them with your writer friends!

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