Page by Page, Final Product

Earlier this week I had a dream I could fly. It was pretty awesome because it was so authentic - I had very little control over it, and would fly up and down way too quickly, all accompanied by my fear of heights. The "controls," if you will, reminded me of the Peter Pan level in Kingdom Hearts, but still....it was one of the best dreams ever.

My girlfriend has proposed that it could be some sort of sign and that I should go running down the street and jumping to see if I can, in fact, fly, but I've yet to do so. If anything superhuman develops, I'll be sure to let you know.

Needless to say, the rest of that day was completely shot - I spent most of the day thinking about the dream and, ultimately, wishing that it was a little (or a lot) more than just that.

I tend to get this way when an ideal situation, or one at least more interesting than a current set of circumstances, comes into light. This affects me in practical and impractical ways, but in regards to my writing, I've noticed that I'm looking forward to a day down the line when rough draft becomes fourth draft becomes the next project because...I don't know what.

I've heard people use a phrase that drives me insane: that they hate writing but love having written. To me, that's the dumbest thing in the world. If you hate writing, then why the hell are you doing it? I bring it up because I want to emphasize that I'm not in that group. I actually really enjoy the physical act of writing. It can be frustrating if what you're producing isn't any good, but in general, it's something I enjoy doing. Hence, that's why I actually, you know, do it.

However, there must be a relationship that purists and sell-outs alike acknowledge but don't ever talk about: that being the relationship between the work and the product. I imagine you don't hear much about it because it's something that has more layers than an onion. I've always found writing to be refreshing because it's always something you can be doing, as opposed to say, acting, where if you're not actively involved in a project well...then you can do some monologues...by yourself...in your room. Anyway.

Being something that takes so much time and, ultimately, so much effort, it seems ridiculous to write anything that you're either not planning on sharing with others, or not trying to sell. I feel like the moment that thought goes through my head, the joy of writing itself diminishes a bit, and yet, I'm not naive enough to think that the finished product...*sigh*...a.k.a. having written, isn't a gigantic part of the process that I am so dearly fond of.

Spinning around in circles, getting way too far ahead of myself, I ultimately come back to the task at hand - that act of writing and all the collaboration involved in rewriting (what else would you call sifting through all those notes but collaboration? Oh, hell? That too.) Progress is slow but steady, and unless they uncover some evidence to the contrary, Rome (to sound far too much like my father) wasn't built in a day.

But I bet if the Romans could fly...I bet they might have gotten close.

My Own Version of the Same Story

*While there is so little to be said about the tragic events at Virginia Tech, my heartfelt prayers and wishes go out to the families and friends of the victims, and the entire VT community.*

(And since there's no way to not awkwardly transition...)


Hey Cake Man, nice title on your last post. Really...gripping.

I would like to give my own take on some of the themes that Cake Man brought up in his last post, namely motivation and discipline. Having been out of school for almost a year and a half more than him, I think I can offer a slightly different perspective and a bit of (probably meaningless) advice.

I double majored at NYU. I came in as a theater (acting, specifically) major, and after the first two years of the program, I suspected that I needed some kind of change seeing as I a). hit the largest wall in the history of man, b). was really, really sick of actors, and c). was really, really sick of acting. I'd taken a playwriting class with Daniel Goldfarb the spring of my second year, and, go figure, I really enjoyed it. I'd never written before that, but I found that I had moderate talent, and when I did the math, it didn't make a whole lot of sense to be paying as much money as I was for a degree with only one major. I took a shot and applied to double major, and I got it. Wee!

Deciding that graduating on time was a high priority, I loaded up in the summers and completed the dramatic writing program in two years. I waver in deciding if this was the best choice. I only skimmed the surface of what the department had to offer (Cake Man, for example, and everyone else in The League at the moment, did the program in the ideal four years), and the truth is that all that work in such a short amount of time left me horribly, horribly burnt out.

While Cake Man mentions that he hasn't written for months, it took me over a year to start writing again following graduation. I was half-heartedly pursuing acting during that time, but I wasn't even remotely motivated to write a thing. Was it just burn out? Did I seriously just need a break? Did I need time to forget everything the department taught me? Had I lost all my confidence?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Because of all of these factors and an overwhelming desire to just experience life for a while instead of trying to create it, I had no stories to tell. This can't be emphasized enough: laziness never came into play. There was just never a moment when I cared to write. It wasn't writer's block because there was nothing to be blocked. The well was dry. The jar was empty. The metaphors were used up.

But by late May of last year, a friend of mine sent me the first bit of a story he wanted to take turns writing, and so I wrote the next few paragraphs...then the next few, then the next few. Before it was all over, he wrote one more tiny paragraph of a story that ended up being almost sixty-five pages long. The story itself was simply awful, but it sparked the creative urge that led me to start writing again.

I don't suspect there was any rhyme or reason to it. The first bit he sent me did play to a lot of themes that were present in all my previous endeavors , so I found it easy to get lost in, but I think that writers have an innate inner clock that will eventually release an urge that can't be ignored.

If one believes this, however, then it's hard to call that motivation. Is it motivation when you're being forced to do something, even if only by some mystical force? Motivation itself is something incredibly personal. The reasons people write, create, make art, tell stories, shoot films are all different and vary from the tangible (money) to the mysterious (an odd mix of love and obligation). I'm no scholar of philosophy or anything, but it would seem that motivation, especially in the context of creating works of art, is closely connected to the ever-changing circumstances in one's life. Sitting on the couch playing video games will probably not beget motivation; however, my Saturday afternoons are not the issue here. On the other hand, my self-mockery seems to have illustrated my point fittingly.

If we piggy-back off the action-begets-motivation corollary, then stimulating those mystic urges to write would, in theory, be closely linked to actually writing. In other words, it demands a sense of discipline. A teacher of mine once said that if you do nothing else, write a page a day. If you do that (assuming you stay on one project), you can finish three screenplays, three plays, or a novel. In a year. It's a trap, too, because there are going to be days when you write more than one page. There will be days when you write 20. The key is forcing yourself to do it, and the key to that is to set the time aside.

In order to snap out of my current state of brain-fog, I've found that setting aside a specific 30 minutes every day to write - no matter how awful the pages turn out - has helped tremendously. It's hard working on computers because they're all connected to the internet and there is SO MUCH GARBAGE out there that seems so interesting, but once the web browser is closed and you actually begin writing, knowing that there is nothing you have to do for that half-hour, suddenly you're turning out half-decent pages that don't make you want to vomit, and suddenly 30 minutes turns to 45, turns into an hour.

And like magic, motivation just happens. As I've lamented, I've become very frustrated with my current script, but after setting aside this time for a week, I've found my motivation. I actually want to write.

The bottom line is that it's all deeply personal. If you feel like you need the time off, then you have to take it. But if you want to avoid it, but can't seem to find yourself to be motivated, set the time aside, and make yourself work. Remove your distractions. If the internet is too appealing, use pen and paper. If people are driving you nuts, go outside and be alone. Once the discipline begets the motivation, the distractions will go away on their own because, frankly, you won't care about anything else.

(So, with a great deal of sincerity...)

Write on...

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.