The Writing Week part 14

If I continue writing these weekly updates for a year, which I fully intend to do, then last week marked the quarter-way point. In between then and now, I started a new script. I got more jazzed up about writing it than I have been about a new script for a while. Mind you, I always have a fire lit under me for the first ten or even thirty pages, but this was the hottest I've felt the flames in a long time. Then something happened.

Without getting into the gory details, because I'm attempting to write this project without even discussing it with the League, I'll tell you that the script involves a number of deaths. I wrote a scene that involved a death similar to one a classmate of mine experienced. I wasn't great friends with her, but the school was small, so everyone knew everyone. And I got stopped cold when the scene began. Not only was it difficult to recreate something that someone I knew experienced, even though I personally know very little about what actually happened. But I felt like I didn't have a right to the experience. Who am I to write about this? How dare I write a scene about that?

I felt as if I was somehow violating her honor by doing this. My moral alarm was deafening. I felt dirty and dishonest for what I was writing. That was the first time that has ever happened to me, and though I had an idea of why, I couldn't put my finger on anything specific. Today, I think I figured it out. By writing a scene about a murder, I run the risk of glorifying the murderer. If I did that, if people sympathized with him, I would be guilty of harming her. I can't do that.

The feeling passed, at least enough for me to keep on writing. I'm nearing the end of the first act, and, barring any major roadblocks, brain farts, or walls, I should close it tomorrow. I just hope I'm doing the right thing in writing this. It's a story I felt compelled to tell for some reason, only now that I'm doing so, I feel almost ashamed. Once the League sees it, I hope they'll be able to guide me on whether or not to pursue a second draft and possible production. I have a personal rule of never writing something that I'm not interested in. Though I am interested in this, I don't know that it's something anyone would pursue making, and I certainly didn't expect it to be as emotionally difficult and painful to write.

Sun's out!

As soon as I get writing again, the weather takes a turn for the wonderful. There's nothing quite as distracting as SUNLIGHT.

I've managed to get just over an hour of writing, but looking back I noticed I misspelled "waitress" as "weaters" in three different paragraphs. It just goes to show that my mind is somewhere else.

Silence broken

After a little over two grueling weeks of keeping tight-lipped, my characters have to decided to start speaking again. Tonight has been the first time I've been able to sit down in front of Final Draft and actually feel like I'm getting anywhere. It's not to say that I haven't been writing, but my various side projects just haven't had that exhilarating feeling my main script does.

This is the first major roadblock I've hit with this one, and I guess it was about time. Once I hit pages in the 50s, I just lost the ability to write dialogue that had been coming naturally up to that point. Now I'm walking away from a session and I feel like I may've gotten the ball rolling again. (About time, heh.)

Writing done for the evening, file saved. Time to crack a beer.

Whole New Worlds

Maybe it’s just Spring. April showers, May flowers, and burgeoning… feelings. But I feel as though there are a number of worlds, a number of things, deeper understandings and worlds, opening up to me at the moment.

Ok, I’ll start with the most clichéd. It’s disgustingly sappy, so you’ll have to forgive me. I’m talking about love. I’m not saying I’ve fallen in love. Rather, I think, for the first time really, I’ve begun to understand it. I haven’t really bought into it before; that’s not to say that I don’t believe it exists or is felt every day. I do. Just not by me. But I recently returned home for a weekend and saw a friend of mine—she was always the last one we’d expect to be in a relationship, and even the relationships she was in were defined by her wild independence and seeming reluctance to let anyone in—clinging off of a guy she recently started dating again. I’ve never seen her act the way she did, walking over to a guy in the middle of a party just to give him a peck on the cheek and walk away. I’ve seen other people do similar things, but seeing her do it really jolted me. It got me thinking; if this is what that looks like, if she can do it (and I had always felt a kindred spirit in her because I have acted the same way in past “relationships”), then maybe there’s hope for me yet. World 1.

Next is the world created of starting a new script. Jumping ahead a bit to what would be in the next Writing Week. I began a new script last night, one that I didn’t outline or anything (more thoughts on that later). But I’m so excited about it. I feel like I’m in elementary school again and counting down the hours until school ends so that I can run home and play with my new toy. I just want to dive back into the script as soon as possible. I hope this feeling doesn’t die down (the first act is often the most invigorating for me) any time soon.

Finally, is a world of revelation. I tend to do these things, which I kick myself constantly for. Who doesn’t do things they get pissed about, I know. But I linger on the small things like nothing else, and often let big issues just get swept under the rug. At any rate, I find myself in situations where I say or do something stupid or inadvertently act inappropriately—completely accidentally mind you—and then spend the next week berating myself. Well, that sort of happened again two nights ago. Now, nothing bad really came out of it (that I know of), but I found that once again, I turned inward to the worlds that I create for my scripts. I am safe in those worlds. I am in control of them. My characters might not be, but there, I cannot be harmed. Perhaps that’s why I’ve taken so much to writing; it’s my safe haven. No matter the body count or the number of broken hearts in my scripts and plays, I am unaffected. The world could (and nearly has) come to an end in something I write, yet I manage to always make it out unscathed. More than that, everyone in those pages is my friend, no matter how diabolical. Because they’re all of me, of somewhere inside my mind. It might not be the healthiest of mindsets, in fact, I’m pretty sure it’s not, but it’s something I’ve realized.

Why, you ask, am I revealing this here? It’s been on my mind and, well, maybe it doesn’t matter outside of the type on the page, at least for as long as it takes me to write this.

The Writing Week part 13

Another week, more... progress? Change, for sure.

I feel like I'm echoing LoKor's recent post about departures. I was out of the City over the weekend to attend a going away party for a friend, whom I won't see for 27 months. Then, I came back to the city, only to attend another going-away party tonight. Change seems to be in the air.

I also feel it in my bones. I'm not sure whether I'm deluding myself or not, but I feel like something should and very well might happen soon. I have a number of projects to work on, all in varying degree of completion. I have another that I really feel compelled to start working on soon. I'm not sure whether it's a play or a screenplay, to be honest. It feels like a play, but there's a moment at the end, the moment that the entire project revolves around, that screams film. I don't know how it would be done and truly felt if it was done on stage. It would lose what I feel to be the most important, most meaningful moment of the entire piece.

So, I think I'll try it as a script. Just for a change, though, I won't show it to or discuss it with the rest of The League until it's done. I'm not sure that's wisest, but even I don't really know what it is now, so how can I ask them to? I need to figure it out. I can't be told. But I am intimidate by it. Like many of my ideas, this one is about a character's inner struggle and personality changes. I tend not to me the most successful with drawn out reveals and character arcs. Yet, that's often what I write. Maybe I've been doing big action scripts recently, because I can hide in the explosions. If the character work isn't happening, I can just blow something up. But not in this project. Not at all. I'm scared, but if it works, I'll have reached another peak in my climb to the peak of my writing ability.

As far as the re-write is coming along, well... it is. Things really aren't changing that much. Well, let me rephrase that: they are and they aren't. The changes themselves seem small to me, but their impact rings much louder. It's amazing how a little tweak here and a little thing there can really add meaning - or change it completely. Perhaps the differences really aren't as big as I'm imagining. I'll have to re-read the script to see. But at the moment, I feel as though I can make the much needed corrections and improvements without seriously altering the structure of the script at all. I could be wrong, but if I'm not, I'll have produced a much stronger second draft with nearly 90% of the first draft intact.

Maybe that's impossible.

If I'm wrong, I'll just have to change it again.

Back From Paradise

I've actually been back from my visit to the Bahamas for a while, but this would be my first post since soaking up some rays. I was a little concerned for a moment that all the great food and chill island vibes would melt away the crusty shell of New York determination that I've been building over the past few months. I was wrong. Still writing, and with tan lines to boot. I expect to finish the script for my first ever feel good sports movie this week. One small step forward in my quest to delve into every genre. I don't write off of an outline often, but so far I'm finding that it's probably worthwhile with this script. The sports movie genre always strikes me as one of the simplest, formulaic genres out there, but it's actually been kind of difficult to nail. I'd much rather be writing about ninjas in the Iga province of 14th century Japan, but there's something refreshing about having a fun script that could be made for 100k at it's cheapest. I just threw that number out there. I'm not sure what industry professionals would suggest, but I could probably make the movie for $1000 and a 20 lb bag of rice. Who needs lighting? The techs just make things complicated with all their funny terms. Sound? I just need a kick ass rock soundtrack over all the game action. Actors? I'll just find people who like rice. I got a good feeling about this one.

The Writing Week part 12

Another week bites the dust. It's amazing how quickly time seems to be passing. I remember "just" thinking to myself how February was on the horizon and would most likely fly by. Now, we're almost at April. With nearly a quarter of the year gone already, I feel it's time I evaluate my progress in my resolution to make something happen with my writing this year.

To barely skim the surface, I first look at this past week. After coming off a nearly ten day stretch where I did very little actual writing, I have to take some solace in the fact that I have started re-writing my latest script again. It feels good to sit before a challenge each night. Not that I know the pages I'm re-reading are perfect -- obviously, they're not; I'm re-writing them. But it is always a little difficult for me to make large-scale changes during a rewrite. No matter how flawed a first (or second or third or etc.) draft might be, the fact that it is a full draft intimidates me. By changing any part of a draft, I'm inevitably risking causing the rest of it to crumble. Though I know what reinforcements have to be made to make the structure stronger, there's always that voice reminding me that I could screw up something that, while not perfect, is at least whole.

But I am happy with the changes I've made thus far. Some are larger than others. Some are riskier. Some are more noticeable. But they feel good, and smart.

As far as the year goes, that is a little less easy to judge. Yes, along with the majority of the rest of the League, I have screenplays in two competitions at the moment. The waiting game is actually not as bad as it could be, considering we have over four whole months before we hear a single peep out of either competition. Beyond those two, though, I feel like there's not much I'm doing. The dreams, the notion that something might be creeping up over the horizon are starting to reach me, but when I try to process that logically, I am inevitably forced to ask myself the obvious: where would they be coming from?

One opportunity we as a group had sort of fizzled out, though through no fault of our own. In truth, that was not to be our break. We have accepted that and moved on from it. But I cannot just wait for a break. I must seek it out. I must rope it in and drag it to me. More than anything, I know I will have to fight my way into this industry if I truly want to make my mark in it -- and I do. I have to roll up my sleeves and barge into melees fists up. Query letters, calls to contacts, a whole new slew of competition entries; these must be my weapons. I have to build my arsenal of material, finish drafts, attack the rewrites, and be ready at a moment's notice to charge.

I can no longer be Mister Nice Guy. Not if I want this to work.