I'll admit I didn't do a whole lot of writing in Panama, though I did get the chance to talk shop with a few people. Our second night in Panama City, I met a real estate agent who is passionate about screenwriting and takes some of the Gotham Writers classes toward that goal. He has a pretty ideal setup - traveling four months of the year and writing, while working in the city the other two thirds of the time. I'd sure as hell like that kind of arrangement. Anyway, we chatted a bit about writing, mainly swapping ideas (admittedly not something I really enjoy doing, especially with strangers, so my end of the conversation was a bit quieter than his), and talking a bit about our hopes and goals for our careers.
Not long after that, I moved on to Bocas del Toro, a small Caribbean Panamanian archipelago an hour by plane northwest outside the city (amazing, gorgeous - if you ever get a chance, I highly recommend going). To be quite frank, it was pretty difficult to do much there at all, mentally. Apropos of the weather and overall way of life on the islands, coupled with the ever-present calming lull of the eternal surf, I found it hard to concentrate on much other than sitting on the beach, getting up in time for a swim, and forcing myself to my feet when my empty beer can necessitated movement and replenishment.
However, I did get an interesting email from one of my producers while there. We (or shall I say, they) are still hoping to set the post-Apocalyptic spec up for TV. In fact, that seems to be the main goal now, having overtaken the drive to see it launch as a feature film. Yet, what with Sundance and the fact that television companies are sorting through already existing pilots in an attempt to decide what to set up for mid-season, summer, and fall debuts, this is apparently not a very good time to try and ingratiate one's self into a television production company's sightline.
That, though, wasn't the intriguing part of the email. What was? A mention that we might look to get the spec set up at a network akin to SyFy (as an example). At first, I'll admit, I wasn't too keen on the notion. Then, I spoke with my friend a bit about it, and he helped me see the silver lining. First - my gut reaction was that a TV network might not be able to pull out the big guns necessary for this kind of project. Would I have to dumb it down? Would we lose important or compelling elements? More selfishly, would the pay be the same? Would I want to make my appearance in made-for-tv-movies, rather than Hollywood blockbusters? There's no doubt that the film could be made on a smaller budget. Even I've been tempted to go out and try to shoot it myself should it come down to that. More than anything, this was a question of ego.
My friend made the very astute point that getting my script produced anywhere would be something to be incredibly proud of. Everyone has to break in (everyone who works in the industry has to start somewhere, that is), and if this is my big break, then why not embrace it. If a television original film is the way to go, then why not explore that route? Is it a big film with A-List talent premiering on 3,000 screens? No, but neither are the vast majority of movies that get made (even some with huge stars get very little visibility on the big screen). My producers have both my and the project's best intentions in mind, and I've no doubt that if this is a route they'd like to pursue, it's one they've thought long and hard about the pros and cons of. I'll trust them, and hopefully that trust will earn a sale and a produced film - wherever that might come from.
Despite the fact that no member of The League had any pages to present at this month's meeting, we made it a point to remain on track and gather last Tuesday anyway. (I highly recommend that any group do this; sticking to the schedule - even when there are no physical pages to talk about, is a great way to maintain order and regularity, both as a group and as individual writers.) Surprisingly - or perhaps not so - it was actually one of our more productive meetings.
We went around, BSing for a long time, as is allowed. When we meet, everyone brings some food (mainly appetizer type things) and beer or wine for anyone drinking. We meet at someone's apartment - the same one, not on a rotating basis. It's a good time for friends to gather who might not otherwise see each other too often; it's also a laid back setting, which makes giving and getting notes comfortable and easy.
Once the snacking and catching up is done, it's down to business time. Normally, if there are pages on the docket, we'll start with whoever submitted first and go from there. Someone will say, "ok, you're up, Zach" (if I was the first to send, that is), and then the conversation kicks off. Each person receives however much time is necessary for everyone to get their opinions out. This usually takes about an hour per note-recipient, sometimes more if there is only one project on the table.
This past week, since there weren't pages, we just went around the circle and solicited updates from everyone one-by-one. Some people didn't have too much to say, "I'm working on this or that, but I'm not too far along. Here's a basic idea, but I hope to have an outline out by the next meeting." Others, like Jon and myself, were looking for a bit more in-depth analysis on our projects. I was still a bit stalled on my demon thriller, so I asked the group to help me talk through it a bit.
I have to say, what I got was really valuable. I was looking for feedback on some of the bigger and more important rules of the world and the characters' motivations. By going around the circle after I explained briefly what I was looking for, the group was really able to weigh in and help me come up with some great solutions. I think I'm at a much better place now than I was before the meeting, which is a great feeling. If you're ever stuck, or if no one in your group has any pages, I genuinely advocate getting a meeting together anyway. Sometimes spitballing is the best remedy for writers block.
For now, though, I'm gearing up to head up to the Bocas del Toro region of Panama for some (hopefully) quality beach - and brainstorming - time.
Adios, amigos.
Personal life can at times get in the way of one's writing life. Granted, it might make sense to presume that the two are too dramatically interwoven to be considered separate. After all, don't many writers write semi-veiled or completely obviously autobiographical pieces? Isn't the commonly held belief that whether we write kitchen-sink dramas or end of the world pictures, we're still writing what (and who) we know?
Quite probably. However, the operative word in both of those assumptions is "write." Without actually putting words down, no level of autobiographical material can considered to have been written. (Sure, one can plan and develop, but I'm talking more literally than now.) This past week has been an example of one of those distracted periods in my attempts at productivity, in which a troika of personal factors have drawn my concentration far, far away from my writing.
Not to get into it too much, but 2012 has already proven itself full of both ups and downs. I'm heading out on yet another trip next week, so part of my mental capacity has been taken up with the planning. It should be fun, and though I travel relatively frequently, I'm still typically filled with nerves and pauses in the weeks leading up to the departure. Focusing on anything (even trip planning) can be difficult. not an excuse, I know, but still... Panama - here I come!
I've also been applying for new jobs, and have a possibly promising lead on one, with an interview later this week. Remember how I was talking about trying to shake things up a bit as a means to spark creativity? Well, this new career path opportunity is one such example of how I'm hoping to do that. Coupled with meeting some new people recently, the professional and social changes have had a deleterious effect on the writing.
Primarily, now, though, I've been consumed with some rather devastating family news. Loss is something one can never fully brace for, even when given time, and it seems as though many of my thoughts this year will be toward steeling myself against an inevitability I dread facing. Ideally, this means I will be able to spend countless hours with my ill loved one, but the immediate result has been an impressive lack of attention (on pretty much everything) and no desire at all to write.
Life is unpredictable and can come at us quite quickly when least expected. Mine seems busier now than usual (in many instances, in a good way). Though I'm not producing pages now, hopefully I can store these experiences and emotions in my artistic bank and draw on them later, when the mood strikes.
Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful end to 2011 and a great start to 2012.
My goal for the Christmas through New Years week was to write. A lot.
I failed. A lot.
But that's ok. I'm feeling re-energized and recharged, which sometimes is just as - if not more - important as actually being productive. I spent an afternoon working on my demon thriller, reassessing the notes I got from the League. More of them aligned than I had previously thought, which leads me to think two things. One: three sets of in depth notes responded unfavorably to a key sin involved in the story, so that clearly has to change. Two: two of the three notes directly touched on my use of guns in the story, and were adamantly against them. Though removing them might make for a bit more of a challenging script, I have to admit that it's a battle I'm feeling up for, and one that I think could really streamline the idea.
The second tiny bit of productivity was that I spent another afternoon working on a new historical graphic novel idea. I know, I know; you're thinking, "Dude, stick to one idea and see it through, damn it." I'm thinking the same thing, which is why I flat out told the League that I'm not going to abandon the demon idea until I get at least a draft done of it (and by abandon, I mean set aside for a little while). The graphic novel is an aside - unless, for whatever reason, my manager thinks it can go directly to the screen without comic book source material first (a long shot, with this idea), in which case I might sally forth with it. But it's been fun to work on and clogging my mind, so I had to get it down on the page, at least in an introductory way.
So that's that. My writing - or lack thereof - over the holiday. I hope you fared better. Yet let's not forget, 2012 is just beginning. Time to break out those laptops, pads, pens, or typewriters. Happy writing. May 2012 bring us all sales, maybe some productions, and proof that the Mayas were wrong.
It still seems hard to believe, but 2011 is coming to a close very quickly. Even more surprising to me, is that the close of this year marks my fourth full year of Writing Week entries. Absolutely incredible; that means that I've been seriously pursuing the wring for about five years since I left NYU (I began the Writing Weeks a year after graduating). In those years, I've managed to achieve many things, some small, some a little more monumental. My final Writing Week of 2011 seems a great opportunity to look back on this year and see where 2011 brought me that 2010 hadn't.
When 2010 ended, I had an agent at UTA, a lawyer, a manager, and a team of two producers working together as independents shopping around my post-Apocalyptic script. Since then, the spec market has done little in terms of rebounding from a slump - at least, that is, in terms of any immediate benefit to me. I still have the representation team and the duo of active producers, but the script remains unsold. We're still pursuing the feature film route, but the team has decided to add another option and have begun exploring setting the project up for television, as well. So far, no one has jumped on it yet, but we're hoping that some of the showrunners and talent freed up by end of the year cancellations will come on board sometime next month.
By mid year, I was getting a little nervous about my lack of new material. My agent was told I could produce a couple scripts a year - an ambitious promise no matter how long a writer's been in the industry, I think - and I had (have) yet to make good on that. I devoted a good few months to a Medieval revenge spec, but after two drafts - only one of which my manager saw - my manager decided that was not the right direction to go at the moment. Period pieces can be a tough sale, and this one just wasn't quite clicking yet. Rather than devote more time to it, I decided to shelve it for the moment and approach another.
Back to the drawing board I went. I tossed a couple ideas out to the writers group, but none really got me too excited. Jon and I then came up with one we wanted to collaborate on, and though we got some good excitement about it from my manager, the amount of work we were going to have to do to get it to a place where it would be viable exceeded our ability to also work on other projects independently. More importantly, though, we were going to have to compromise on a couple key points about it, which we both liked, and we were not prepared to do that yet.
Finally, I came up with a new idea that I liked, the group liked, and which the manager also liked; this is my demon thriller. I did a barebones two page synopsis of it, which raised a lot of questions about the script (for both me and my manager). At present, I haven't done much more work on it, which - you don't have to say it - is no bueno. That's the chore for this break, but I've yet to really dig into it. Don't ask me why.
Other than that, I'm putting more ideas down on paper for potential graphic novels, a field that my manager might help me break into. Again, like the above demon idea, that's about all they are. An idea. So, I have to get cracking on those, too.
My writing year might not have been the most eventful, but the year itself was pretty good, for the most part, which leads to my growth as a writer. I was - and still am - getting restless at work. I told my boss, and after much deliberation, she let me take the summer to work remotely. I did some domestic traveling and took an international trip (not on company time), which was a great recharger. I'm still unsure how much longer I will be in New York. It might be a few months; it might be a year and a few months. If I do decide to stay, I'll set out to make my (quite possibly) final year in the city a big one - big, New York year as one would imagine life in New York is displayed in movies and on tv.
Who knows where I'll wind up at the end of 2012, but I'm determined to go as far as I can in my writing during the year. I hope you'll continue to join me for the ride.
Logline Central is an irregular segment that takes a deeper look at loglines of scripts or projects that have just been purchased, as listed on DoneDealPro.
The Mayas aren't the only ones who seem to predict that the world is coming to an end. A glance at the following five loglines indicates that Hollywood (and novelists) seems to think it's about to be over soon, too. (Full disclosure - I sincerely wish my post-Apocalyptic spec was among these and can only hope that these acquisitions represent a new trend toward end-of-the-world scripts, which will boost chances for the sale of mine.)
Title: Eden
Logline: Set in a post-apocalyptic world where humanity is on the brink of extinction and the robots that were created to serve humans have turned against them, a teenage girl struggles to fight the Fallen and help her friends find safety. She must choose between a boy she has always trusted and one who holds the secrets to her past. Writer: Keary Taylor (author)Genre: Science Fiction Action Thriller More: Novel. Mark Morgan, Kami Garcia, Brett Hudson and Michael
Title: Wither
Logline: Set in a future, the world is in a state of panic due to a failed effort to create a perfect race that's left women with a lifespan of 20 years while men die at 25. A kidnapped girl attempts to escape from a forced polygamous marriage designed to keep the population from dying out. Writer: Lauren DeStefano (author)
Genre: Science Fiction Fantasy
More: Novel, which is the first of three in a series. Prospect Park's Jeff Kwatinetz & Rob Carliner and Violet's Aly & AJ Michalka will produce.
Title: Rosa
Logline: Set in a post-apocalyptic world where all natural life has disappeared, Rosa, a cyborg deployed from the Kernel project, mankind’s last attempt to restore the earth’s ecosystem, learns that she is not the only entity that has awakened and must fight for her survival.
Genre: Science Fiction Action
More: To be based on the short film by Jesus Orellana. Genre's Simon Kinberg will produce and I AM's Scott Glassgold & Raymond Brothers will produce. Orellana will direct. No writer is attached as yet.
Title: Break My Heart 1000 Times
Logline: Set nine years after an apocalyptic event that killed millions and left the world inhabited by ghosts, a teen girl attempts to navigate through ordinary life as she’s haunted by the ghosts of her dead father and a teen boy she never met but who might hold the key to changing everything.
Writer: Jason Fuchs
Genre: Teen Supernatural Thriller More: Assignment. To be adapted from the Daniel Waters novel that will be published by Hyperion Books. Gold Circle's Paul Brooks will produce.
Title: The Last First Time
Logline: A college student learns the world will end and sets out on a quest to lose his virginity before it does.
Writer: Jason Fuchs
Genre: Comedy
More: Option. David Brooks and Dan Clifton will produce. Jason Fuchs will also star.
So, what's your take? A lot sound pretty similar, no? I'll admit, I think I like the two attributed to Jason Fuchs the most. (Is that a type on Done Deal's part? Beats me.)
Eden sounds pretty hackneyed at this point. Robots and humans at war. Yadda yadda yadda. Might be a great execution, but based on those few sentences alone, I don't see anything special or new. Sure, it's a book. Fine. Maybe a great one even. But I haven't read it, and so far, I'm unimpressed.
Wither - yay! Teenage girls as protagonists! Eh, for whatever reason, this one just doesn't grab me. They die young, but they're beautiful or perfect, etc. Didn't Justin Timberlake just do something like this? And the girl is trying to escape a marriage, which would save mankind? Take one for the team, sister.
Rosa; shouldn't this one really be called Eden or Wither? Both titles seem more appropriate, given the subject matter. I'll admit I glossed over this one, too, until I reread the part about reviving the ecosystem. That's kind of cool. But I refer you back to the Eden analysis: robots (or cyborgs, whatever) and humans. Pass.
Break My Heart 1000 Times is probably my favorite of the group. For one, it's a post-Apocalyptic world, but it's as fully inhabited as one before the world comes to an end. Everyone who died (presumably) is still lingering as a ghost. So, theoretically, we won't get the typical post-Apocalyptic stereotypes - the roving bands, the loner men and women on a mission, the heroic parents trying to keep it all together. Talk of "holding the key" or "changing things forever" always makes me a little wary, but my interest is definitely piqued by this one.
The Last First Time - bet that one seems like a surprise favorite to you. What I like about it is that it takes a tried and true story (the virginal young man trying to do away with his V-card) and places it in a new setting (Armageddon). Something about it generates a sense of promise in the premise for me. It might suck. I certainly don't need to see a dude hump a pie as an asteroid races toward Earth. And I hope they don't skimp out and make it a "close call" situation in the end where the planet isn't destroyed. But I just like the idea. "The world is ending. I need to get laid before I die." Who can't relate. Amiright?
Though this week did not see a lot of writing from me - I'm still working on the paintings I reference last week, which have been a great artistic outpouring, but not so productive in terms of writing - I was able to achieve two primary things in it. Both of them relate to my manager.
For one, I was able to speak with him about my demon thriller project. All in all, he liked the idea, but he had some big questions about it. Unfortunately, those are some of the very same questions I still have on it, which I know I have yet to answer. When I submitted the synopsis to him, it was still pretty loosely detailed, even at two pages long. That said, I should have been able to answer more of his questions about the rules of the world when we spoke than I did. All I had planned out was on the page. That was my (rookie) mistake. Even though the outline was barebones, I should have been able to discuss the project in greater detail with him when we talked a couple weeks later.
Many of his questions were on the rudimentary rules regulating the characters' interactions and abilities, especially since there's an obvious paranormal element involved. The nature of the outline and action also raised some questions as to what the overall tone of the piece would be. At one point, t gets very sci-fi, and I can see where his concern that it might be a divergence from the rest of the piece would be. Suffice it to say, I have my work cut out for me over the holiday week ahead.
The main question I have for my manager, though, and point that I was quite happy to address, was what - if anything - I had missed out on by not being in LA. Recently, I've been beginning to doubt my decision to remain in New York, especially when my script is (slowly) circulating. When we spoke, I flat out asked my manager if I had missed potentially major opportunities and meetings by being on the east coast when my post-Apocalyptic spec first made the rounds in Hollywood. He emphatically said, "no. You missed the chance to shake a couple hands, but we can get you all of those meetings next time you're out here. And there aren't really any (writing) jobs to be had at the moment (for younger writers), so you didn't miss out on any work, either."
Whether that statement is true or not - and whether you agree with it or not - the effect was one of pure relief. In short, he told me that I didn't have to come to LA until it was time; that time had not yet passed, and neither did my opportunity to break in. 2012 can still be my year.
