Thursday, August 23, 2007

Frenzied Scripting: Progress Update

This is a bit out of date since it was lost somewhere in the ethers but on getting back from California, I thought I'd give a brief update on my script's progress. During my sojourn out west, I took my old, creaking, “of interest to technological anthropologists” laptop along. Not to, you know, blog, since my laptop predates new-fangled concepts like wi-fi and ethernet cards – the power of my internet connection with the thing is best expressed in terms of tin cans with strings attached to them. But I figured I could work on my script and some other writings while I was in the passenger seat. Determined, I was, to get the thing done on the way there so I could wander around Hollywood with an honest to goodness struggling writer with an unsolicited script. It's been a dream.


I was, to put it mildly, overoptimistic. I'm, to also put it mildly, weird about writing. I find it really hard to do with someone else in the room and that apparently encompasses sitting in a speeding car with my brother at my shoulder. Go figure.


Just unable to get much done. Everything I wrote was off, was forced, and is better off forgotten. Instead, I worked on more outlines and summaries and scene details. Everything but the actual script to the point where I'm running out of ways to avoid writing it. Which is really what I've been doing all along.


Always don't have the time to really sit down and hack out this act or that scene. Always need to get this or that out of the way first. To think about why this scene isn't working. To come up with a reason for that character to act that way. Always an excuse. Because I've got this script. I've got it in my head where it's perfect, where it's amazing, where it's this sparkling jewel of creativity. But as soon as I put it down, it's not going to be so perfect anymore, it's just going to be this ruddy thing full of mistakes and flaws – a lump of coal that I might be able to press down into a diamond one day. But it's not going to be as good as I want it to be. As good as I know it can be. And I know it can be.


So, yeah, it's not going well at the moment. My goal is still to be finished by the end of the month. And there's still plenty of time to make it. But I'm in a funk right now.

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