It's an interesting thing, isn't it? The desire to make one's living by writing, and writing alone.

Since I've been out of school, which is about four months now, I really haven't done much writing to speak of. In fact, I've done almost as little as possible. Why? It wasn't a conscious effort, at least, not for most of the time. Yes, I did decide to take some time off after finishing school, but mostly to distance myself from the project I was working on at the time. But since then, I just haven't felt "motivated."

What is "motivated"? How should I make myself motivated when I'm not, or should I even bother. I sit down with my notebook or at my computer, and before I can help it, I find myself getting distracted, or doing something else before I'm even fully aware that I've given up writing. I keep telling myself that, "Tomorrow, I'll start writing," or, "I'll start after I sign a lease, or after the weekend" or any other number of things.

But the bottom line is: I'm wasting time. I'm not just procrastinating, which can involve doing other things in the mean time. I'm wasting time. Like it's something I have infinite amounts of. And quite frankly, I'm disgusted with myself for it. I understand that my time is limited. But that's not even the worst part of it. I go on imdb.com or other such entertainment site, and I read about these actors making films at 18, tennis players winning tournaments at 19, that rare writer who sells a play or a script right out of college. And while I'm wasting my time, I'm also telling myself that "I'm going to sell my first script by the time I'm 23." My 22nd birthday was two days ago, and at this rate, there's not a chance I'm selling anything in the next 363 days.

Part of the problem I'm recognizing is that writing does not always feel as immediate to me as I wish it were. I have these visions of my movies and my plays, I see the action from my comic book ideas as though it were happening live in front of me. I know what the characters are saying, and I love to play up the emotional, heart-wrenching scenes. But to write it takes too long it seems. I've found my lack of patience to be disastrous, and confusing, if you consider that I seem to waste time as though I'd wait for anything.

So how do I motivate myself to write? Bottom line is: I don't. If I'm motivated, then great. Don't waste it any longer. Use it. Drop whatever I'm doing right then and there, and get to my computer, a notebook, a chalkboard, toilet paper and a pen if that's closest, and write. But if I'm not motivated, then I just have to sit down and write anyway. 362 days to go. Clock's ticking.

And So It Begins, Part 2

(click to enlarge)

Preview of "And So It Begins: Part 2"

A mysterious swordsman...


...a man with the ability to control the dead...




...and Lokor and Cake Man...

...caught in the middle.



coming soon.

Box Office: Grindhouse, FTL

While I think there was plenty of hype regarding Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez' Grindhouse, which opened last Friday, it only grossed $11.6 mil - as opposed to the $20 million projected by producer Harvey Weinstein.

This should probably not come as much of a surprise seeing as it was Easter weekend. You know, bunnies and hidden eggs and candy and Jesus rising from the dead. You know, a traditionally family-gets-together kind of weekend. I question the choice of release date, as you can tell, but whether or not that was the sole cause of Grindhouse's box office futility is yet to be seen.

I've yet to see the movie, though I'm definitely intrigued. It's a bit difficult to set aside over three hours of your day for a movie, and while I think the days of the double feature are long gone, I really like the idea of putting these two films (Planet Terror and Death Proof, respectively) and these two directors together. Sometimes I suspect that the cultural act of seeing a movie has become something of an afterthought, like it's just something you'd put in with a laundry list of other activities, but this idea of an old fashioned double billing seems to attempt to make the movie itself the experience. The whole shebang. It would, literally, be your entire evening or afternoon. If nothing else, that I can appreciate.

The thing that caught my eye was a few initial quotes from Mr. Weinstein (probably way out of context) that made him come off as a bit arrogant and looking down upon the general movie public. One such quote from a report by Reuters:

"'What Robert and Quentin did was a very noble attempt to re-educate American cinema-goers as to what's good and what was great about seeing those old double bills,' Weinstein said. 'They tried and the story's not written in one week when you do something this bold.'"

Re-educate American cinema-goers? I'll agree wholeheartedly that audiences aren't exactly conditioned to sit in theaters for extended periods of time, seeing vintage-style movies that, while I'm sure they're very well done, probably rely heavily on nostalgia and camp. But then again, there's a reason those kinds of movies aren't actually produced anymore. And I doubt Mr. Weinstein has anyone but the lowliest intern reading those 180-page scripts that come into his office.

Anyway, like he said, the end result is yet to be seen. There has been some speculation that the films will be re-released individually. In which case, I'd expect the ticket sales to soar. But, again, we'll see.

The rest of the weekend shaped up like this:

1. Blades of Glory - $22.5 million
2. Meet the Robinsons - $16.7 million
3. Are We Done Yet - $14.2 million
4. Grindhouse - $11.6 million
5. The Reaping - $10 million

6-10, respectively: 300, Wild Hogs, Shooter, TMNT, and Firehouse Dog

Write on...

The Lost Art Of Pitching...Not Baseball

Pitch is actually quite impressive for such a little word. Look it up in on online dictionary (only kind of dictionary I’ve used for the last eight years) and you’ll get about twenty definitions. If you count urban slang then you’ll get about ten more, half of them probably British.

For the sake of clarity, I’m talking about pitching creative ideas. As aspiring screenwriters this is something that we will all have to do, and do well if we hope to sell our material. Old timers who have had experience in the industry tell me it’s a “lost art”. I always felt that term made it sound so mysterious, as if pitching as it was originally understood is buried somewhere next to Atlantis.

Pitching must be a lost art, because I’m not too good at it, and most screenwriters I know aren’t too good either. Sure, we can all convey our ideas, but it’s not the same as what those old timers talk about. They talk about going into a room and having a riveting conversation that turns strangers into family. By the ninetieth minute they’re on the edge of their seats and you’re on top of the table as you walk them through the same amazing experience the audience will have. Can people still do that? I know I can’t...not yet at least.

There was no doubt that my pitching muscle needed strengthening after what I would call my first official pitch session. All in all it went fairly well, but as the two men studied me for flaws I couldn’t escape that feeling that I wasn’t in control. It’s my pitch, my idea. I should be in total control, but their eyes, their gestures, and their comments began altering my idea and even how I felt about it. It’s a warm smothering feeling. I imagine it would be similar to making out with the facehugger from Alien.

I felt creatively stronger after the session, but I also realized that I still have a long way to go. In our world, pitching is an ability worthy enough to be a superpower. I hope writers aren’t passing up the opportunity to study this lost art.

Motherly Love

While I assure you that the conversation that influenced the comic was not nearly this...um, annoying, while recently speaking to my mother, the questions regarding my life's current course inevitably came up. It's becoming a tradition as tried and true as the change of the seasons. The simple act of nature showing some kind of progress, albeit cyclical, is a reminder to those with something invested in my future to ask just what, exactly, my progress has been. I suppose blogging, drawing crappy comics, and writing movies is not quite the answer they're looking for, but then I could probably be rescuing babies from alligators in China and some naysayer would still find trouble with the fact that there was no ultimate point. It seems even the most heroic, even superheroes, are bound to this criticism.

So where then does that leave the indebted yet artistic twenty-somethings?

I shudder at the thought.

FYI: The 2nd part of "And So It Begins" will be posted this week. I'm not too sure there are people out there squirming with baited breath, but it never hurts to inflate one's importance.


Write On...

A Tribute to Lost Drafts, the Drafts of Drafts, and Other Such Variants

Last night I received a large helping of feedback on the first half of my current screenplay. I actually enjoy receiving feedback from a large number of people at once (eleven in this case) because it helps you determine what's working particularly well, and what, specifically, must be addressed. While I value individual criticism, it becomes much more valuable when two or three people share a common gripe. If red lights aren't going off by then, well, my stubbornness will be my downfall.

Unfortunately some of those common gripes regarded my protagonist. I knew when I sat down and started the actual script that I had failed to make some critical choices about his backstory, hoping that those things would become more clear as I progressed (things that would then be better addressed in a second draft); however, I hadn't as clear an idea that those vague impressions would lead to a lack of clarity regarding his objectives and stakes. Ouch.

Any screenwriter (...actually, any writer in general) would know that fixing that problem isn't terribly difficult. It simply requires me to make some concrete decisions, most of which I've already decided. The aforementioned "Ouch" comes into play, however, because the clarity that those decisions provides will ultimately change almost everything that I've already written.

Well, duh. Writing is a long process, one involving multiple rewrites - not polishes - and I am well aware of this. It's just that the pages I still have to write probably won't be the same either, and it's as though they're gone before I've even set them down.

I find something sad about the fate of drafts. In melodramatic fashion, I mourn the loss of scenes and moments that will never make it into important hands. I think fondly of the drafts of drafts - the pages and pages written before the actual pages became clear. Maybe it's laziness manifested in nostalgia, but how wonderful would it be if the ambition and excitement poured into that rough draft wasn't somehow dulled by the labor of subsequent revisions?

It's completely silly, I'll admit, but it's an odd feeling knowing that the pages I have yet to write have already lost a bit of their importance, even if it's due to the revelation of changes that will make the entire project that much better.

Write on...