It’s interesting how people can go on considering something a “character flaw” or a “weakness” for years, and that something as simple as a single sentence can turn that all on it’s head.

Perhaps it’s more to do with double standards - that something I struggle with myself; something I would label or consider a flaw, would be the same thing I would describe as “that’s just how you work” to another person.

But for the last several years, I’ve struggled with the issue of setting aside a piece of the film’s script if it seemed unfinished or “off”. I have always tried, and 90% of the time, unsuccessfully, to admit that I am stuck on a specific page, and let myself move on to another scene that might come out more naturally.

I can (and have) spent days, weeks even, on one paragraph, one moment in the film. Playing it over and over in my head, reading it out-loud countless times till I can perfectly see or feel all the pieces in place. It can be a terribly slow process.

And because it can be slow, because I can look back on two weeks worth of hard work and find that I’ve only two more pages to show for it, I’ve always considered it a severe weakness… a severe character flaw. And maybe what I read this morning doesn’t change that.

But as I was eating breakfast today, I was skimming over an interview between Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers, who together wrote the screenplay for Where the Wild Things Are. Here’s an except:

Eggers: Spike’s method of working is the definition of organic. It had to be very real. I always would prefer to write alone, and send stuff online, and write marks on a piece of paper, and send it back. That’s how I do things. But he really wanted it to be like, “Let’s talk this through. Let’s act this through, figure it out. What would he say here?”

Jonze: I think sometimes that was really frustrating for Dave because he just wanted to be productive. I definitely work a lot slower than Dave. He’s very experienced as a writer, very disciplined, always moving forward. If he gets stuck, he just puts something in a placeholder and keeps moving. But, if it doesn’t feel right I’ll stay in that place until I find what feels real or right or true. I don’t want to let go, I don’t want to leave it.

The bold-emphasis being mine - that one thought, from a director I look up to in so many different ways, seemed to put into question everything I often worried would stand in my way of finishing Pedal.

It’s the first time I’ve allowed myself to think “that’s just how I work”. I do have flaws, I have many self-imposed hurdles that might or might-not ever go away. And realizing this today, doesn’t leave me thinking that it’s necessarily ok for the sake of just being ok, but that it’s not going to change, and that it will be ok if I find a way to work with it and not against it.