24 and Counting

It feels like it was just a couple months ago that I was sitting down and writing about my goals for 23. Here I am now at 24, an age that has nothing going for it except that it's almost 25. We can choose any day of our lives to reflect on progress and set goals, but I like to check in for a life analysis on my birthday. It’s our personal new year’s day. Looking back at the goals I set for myself a year ago, I can’t say that I’m satisfied with the recent past. But I’m very excited for the future, and a good deal of it has to with the fact that I finally want lots of other things to be great in my life aside from my writing.

The first goal I remember setting for myself at 23 was placing in a screenplay competition. The year before, I had done well and made it to the semi-finals in a competition with my thesis script from NYU. This time around I had finished an action/horror spec. It was a ton of fun to write and I still think it’s got some of my best material to date. It’s the only script I entered into a competition and I didn’t advance one round. Some of these competitions sure make you wait a long time for disappointment. I haven’t given up on the competition circuit yet, and don’t expect that I will anytime soon.

The second goal was to have conversations with three people I've never met before who work in a relevant corner of the industry. I did pretty well with this goal, although today I wish I hadn’t phrased it as someone in a “relevant” corner of the industry. At this point any corner of the industry is relevant. The top tier LA set designer I met at a party is going to be able to help me with my pursuit of being a Hollywood screenwriter a lot better than the LA/NY screenwriter I never met. Luckily I did have a chance encounter with a working screenwriter who lives in New York and continues to work with some big names in the industry. I hope to pick his brain further soon. I also had a great conversation with a screenwriter who took a major Hollywood studio to court over claims they stole his material. He eventually won at the end of an ordeal that spanned many years. That encounter was more cautionary than inspiring, but it can never hurt to understand the potential dangers that lurk in the industry.

The last goal was to have six scripts polished to the point where I wouldn’t hesitate showing them to somebody in the industry. I failed miserably here, but I think part of the reason was that some of my previously valued ideas suddenly didn't seem as movie worthy, or I realized they were a really tough sell for a beginning screenwriter. I have to be honest though, the previous year has been plagued by lack of motivation as well as stubbornness. I got notes from an established LA manager on where my action/horror spec needed to go, and I haven’t acted on those notes in any way. I’ve spent a lot of time this past year not being happy and fulfilled by my writing. It's hard to press on when your therapy starts feeling like torture.

I’m a writer and that’s how I want to make a living. Everyone in my life knows that, and when people want to check in on me, especially those I'm not in regular contact with, they ask me how the writing is coming. But these days I want people to ask about more than the writing. Some people say life is long, others say life is short. I haven't decided for myself yet, but I do know we have the capacity to be great at so many different things. I plan on being a better writer by 25, but I'm going to accomplish that by being great at other things. When the writing slump hits, I'm not going to wait it out by watching movies and playing video games. I'm going to practice other skills and take on new hobbies. I'm convinced that if I can be fulfilled through other endeavors, then I can afford to wait for the words to return to me. When the words do return, I'll have the positive energy from other facets of my life propelling me back into my craft. The first two new endeavors that I've taken on are Kendo, which I've been doing for a few months now and studying spencerian penmanship seeing that I never learned cursive. I don't have any goals for 24 directly related to screenwriting, but I know this will be one of my most pivotal years of screenwriting to date.

Good Distractions

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I love my home, but I can’t write there anymore. There are just too many distractions, but that’s almost too negative a word because I’m very fortunate to have everything that’s competing for my attention in that apartment. Let’s start with the beautiful girlfriend, who manages to capture my attention in so many different ways. If I’m lucky she’s batting her eyelashes at me with a grin on her face. How do you write with that going on? I’d close the door to the study, except I don’t have a study. I write in the living room and she’s always about twenty feet away no matter what room she’s in. Anyway, not the worst problem to have, although sometimes those bedroom eyes narrow and get angry, most often for silly things like me not wanting to walk to the food co-op with her, or scheduling a weekend of drinking with buddies over a Saturday engagement that she is “100% positive I told you about you douche bag. Don’t even think about it…you’re fucking going.” Sorry Cake Man and Zombie, I don’t think I can make the DC trip. At least my next favorite distraction never gets angry or talks back. Oh Xbox.

I think Xbox 360 was made by God as a test to see just how determined some people really are in their pursuits. I’ve shot that terrorist through his red beret so many god damn times, but I can’t stop going back to shoot him again. It doesn’t matter if I’ve finished the game. I can still play it through on expert. Funny thing was last weekend my girlfriend was in New Orleans, so I actually managed to get two hours of decent writing done one day. I decided to reward myself, and for some reason the best way I could think to do so was to fire up the Xbox to defend virtual United States for six hours straight. I watched the sun go down, but didn’t want to get up to turn on my living room light. I’m just glad I got the girlfriend before I got the Xbox. I hear girls don’t dig guys sitting in their boxers, wearing headsets, and talking to their buddies across the city with videogame controllers in their hands.

“Are you talking to them or playing with them?”

“Both! What don’t you understand!?”

Have you ever been writing and making progress on a scene, and then suddenly the next moment you’re looking at porn and you don’t even remember how you got there? Cake Man says he disconnects the internet when he writes. I’m just going to assume the scenario that makes me giggle the most. You should do the same.

Anyway, to get back on track I’ll just say there are a lot of things at my apartment that I like, but they aren’t helping my writing much these days. So I’ve decided to return to a practice I abandoned several months ago and start writing at work again after work hours. In most cases once the clock strikes five I’m still in work mode and have a get shit done type of mentality. Some people have told me they don’t have the discipline for an after work routine at the office, but I think it takes more discipline to keep motivated for writing once you arrive back home at your sanctuary. This is the practice that led to some of the best writing I’ve experienced. Since I’ve gone back to working at the office I can say for certain that I’ve moved past my recent slump. It’s a beautiful thing to see that you’ve written four new pages in a day when it took you all of last month to reach that number. If anybody out there has been having trouble with turning out pages and you have a work environment that would allow you to stay on for an hour or two to write, I’d strongly recommend you give it a try. If you hate your job, knowing that your workplace has been a creative temple for your craft could give you a new appreciation for your space. No matter how much I might dislike arriving at my desk early in the morning, I’ll always know that this is the space where I wrote one of my strongest scripts, and that means something to me.

Torn

Lately I’ve been trudging through one of my worst writing slumps yet. It’s the kind of slump that forces you to sit in front of the computer for hours on end without banging out a meaningful sentence. Stretch that over a period of 3-4 weeks and you know what I’m going through. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the last bad slump I had was around this time last year, which happens to be one of the busiest stretches for me at work. It’s tough enough to get the pages flowing when you’re mentally exhausted by the time you sit at your computer, but it’s another thing when you’re mentally exhausted and you don’t know which of your ideas you should be working on.

I don’t have a manager just yet to tell me “That idea is great and it’s got current appeal. You should work on that now, I know just the person who would be looking for it.” It’s up to me to reach in and grab one of my ideas, which seem to be constantly shifting their order of potential and priority. Right now I’m torn between writing what I want to write and writing what I need to write. In one hand I have several ideas that are more high concept and big budget in nature. These are the kinds of scripts that I enjoy writing most, especially if I’ve got one that’s historical in nature. They’re my “want to” scripts. In the other hand I have a series of script ideas that are more low budget and contemporary. These are the scripts that I feel like I need to write, largely because they balance out my body of work. Of my scripts that are most industry ready, they are definitely expensive, hard sells. Another reason why I feel like I need to write some of these smaller scripts is that the stories are more personal in nature. There’s more opportunity for me to put first hand emotional experience into the characters in these stories than in the bigger, high concept pieces.

I suppose it could always be worse. I could not even have an idea to choose from. Instead, I have several ideas that I feel are all above average. I just keep going back and forth, struggling through a few pages of one script before having a mini revelation and deciding that the other project is what I should be struggling through. How do you gain momentum when you keep switching creative vehicles? I feel like ultimately I’ll have to abandon one idea and focus my limited energies on the other until things improve and the slump lifts, but there’s still the question as to which one. I’m curious as to what some of you might think of a situation like this.

If you’ve got a distinctly character driven story and a distinctly concept driven story, is there ever one of the two that’s the safest bet? I know that can depend on so many things, but let’s enter the realm of fantasy and say you’ve got the best concept driven story ever and the best character driven story ever, but you can only do one. Which would you choose?

Honey and Whip

While the Writing Block is a true and real, sometimes the enemy is just your own laziness, aka, the Slump.

I’ve never had too much problem with the Writing Block. When I do, I contribute it to the work of the Devil, and tell myself “My Lord and Savior will help me overcome Goddamn it!!” And usually within a few hours I do. The Slump on the other hand, not so much. It’s hard to pray to God for help in defeating your own self. Mainly because it sounds like it’ll hurt, a lot (I’ve yet to decide which of the Old Testament deaths is the worst way to go). And, honestly, being lazy feels So. Damn. Good. So in these cases, I usually turn to the only logical help to get me to write again: rewards and punishments.

Over lunch last week, Zombie told me that he would place Twin Peaks on his desk, forcing himself to write for two hours before he can watch one hour. It reminded me of my one-time diet back in high school, where I’d slap a candy bar and giant jug of water on my desk every night. However, those interested in psychology would notice that Zombie works with rewards (as most parenting books suggest), while I’m a sucker for punishments. Hey, whatever works for you right? Zombie’s almost done with his script, and I lost 15 pounds.

My punishments for writing tend to be very primal: you can’t have dinner until you hit page 45. No sleeping until you finishes this scene. No bathroom break until the end of the page. While they work, I tend to have very bad health when I write.

I’ve tried more humane punishments with myself: No watching Law and Order until you’ve written this scene. If you can’t write go do the dishes. They don’t work. While guilt can keep me from actually eating, these humane punishments just piss me off and I end up saying fuck this to my script and watch SVU while the dishes pile up.

If you have any good ways to get out of the Slump, please share. My body can only take so much and I’ve got a script to write.

"When I see a pretty girl walking down the street, I think two things." Finish the quote

I must begin by saying that Forbidden Kingdom’s success depresses me. Especially because when I first heard of the movie, there was a part of me that wanted to go see it.

A friend is moving to Prince Edward Island Canada, where there are two lobsters and two oysters seasons a year. I agreed to booksit while she leaves the good ol’ New York City to go on a year of cold, writing, home-wrecking spree. Among the books she's leaving behind, she specifically pointed one out to me, saying I would enjoy it.

The book’s name is Midnight Blue. It’s thick, especially for a paperback. However, neither the New Yorker nor my next next library book arrived yet, and if I don’t have something to read on the bus in the morning, I go stir crazy. So, you know, whatever, let’s see what this book is about.

It’s about vampires. Light on the plot. Heavy on the violence. And oh God is the violence wonderful. It’s brutal, gritty, vicious, ugly, and it doesn’t skimp on the details. I can’t even bring myself to think about the rom. com. anymore, and there’s a part of me that wonders why on earth did I want to write something funny and romantic and, most of all, happy in the first place?

When I’m writing something that’s...not very nice, I always think how nice would it be to write a script like 50 First Dates, or, I don’t know, Finding Nemo. Then I actually try to write a story in which no one dies and I start watching Law and Order: SVU like it’s crack on screen. (Actually, that’s basically what Law and Order is.)

The truth is, under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t even like Midnight Blue so much. But I deprived myself of gore almost the entire time of writing the rom. com., and finally I lost it. I know I’ll get through this phase, but right now all I want to do is write about people bleeding. I can’t even come up with plot to go with that.