Year: 2010

Urgh. Not again

Maximum Z blog, loglines, outlines, plot, screenwriting, story

Like it does with the roads and traffic, a rainy day messes me up something fierce.

The threat of rain this morning extended my workday three hours, which I don’t mind because a few more ducats on my paycheck is a welcome thing.

K had a lunch appointment, so that meant driving downtown to pick her up, which I also don’t mind because I’m such a loving and helpful husband.

V had soccer practice, which meant running around in a blustery, heavy mist along with the coach and 5 2nd-grade girls on a muddy field, and the final game of the season is tomorrow, and they needed the practice, but I don’t mind since I’m such a dedicated and helpful father.

V’s friend is sleeping over, which meant making dinner (hot dogs and oven-baked fries) and dessert (banana bread and chocolate ice cream).  Now the girls are watching HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE while I write about not working on the outline.  It’s that very last part I mind.

On one hand, I don’t like not getting anything done.  At all.  It feels counter-productive.  A day spent not writing is another day to wait for things to pay off.  Like the saying goes, “this thing ain’t gonna write itself.”

But, if I look at it from a different angle, I wasn’t feeling as productive as I could have been, so maybe not writing actually worked in my favor.

I’ve been running scenarios in my head since yesterday.  Where do I want the story to go from here?  Can I still follow my plot point milestones?  Am I still in control of this thing?

I’m working on the first question, and a fairly certain ‘yes’ to the second two.

I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get done this weekend, so progress may be on hold until Monday.  But during that time I’ll be trying to figure stuff out, including maybe incorporating possible suggestions/feedback from the writing group.

But for now, my main concern with the first act is that I didn’t do enough exploring the main character.  Again, hopefully the feedback from the group will be helpful.

-I’ve recently started mentioning new posts on Facebook, which I think is contributing to more people checking this blog out.  And that’s great.

I hope people are enjoying my materials, which is what any writer wants.  I’m curious to know what they think of all of this.

Are they enjoying following my progress?  Do they have any questions about how this works?  Does this remind you of another blog, and if so, which one?  Do you think that writer would like mine?  Does anybody know somebody in LA that would be interested in my taking a look at my stuff?  These are questions that need, almost demand, an answer.

So to paraphrase Chicago elections, comment early and comment often.

How ’bout that?

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This was supposed to go up yesterday, but didn’t. And I’m glad about that.

Because then I was working towards the end of Act One. Progress was slow, and I wasn’t happy. I needed more things to click. More to fall into place. I wanted to fill in that gap between page 17 and the end of the first act. And nothing was coming to mind.

So I stopped for the day to resume my role of dad, sans car. And in a great metropolitan city, that means public transit, which means more time getting from point A to point B. By the time we got home and had dinner, I was too wiped to write anything blog or outline-related.

Jump ahead to today. I take care of the running and laundry issues, then finally sit down with LUCY. The blank space where I left off yesterday stares back at me.

I know what I want to happen, but the words get jumbled up between my brain and fingers. I start to type. Okay. That works. Ooh, maybe not that. How about…this? Nice. And this. Hey, that’s cool. The scene/sequence that ends the first act takes up a lot of space, but it reads quickly, is chock-full of exciting adventure-type material and does a good job of showing what my hero is capable of and ends very neatly.

I might even go so far as to say I was practically giddy as I finished. Getting to the next point will definitely be a challenge, but as long as I stay focused and remember where this is supposed to go, it should work out fine.

I know it still needs a lot of work, and I wonder what the writing group will think of it this weekend, but I really think I’m off to a pretty good start.

And it was a lot of fun to write. I love that feeling.

No Movie of the Moment tonight because I’m at V’s hockey practice. But I did watch more of Season 1 of MODERN FAMILY during the laundry phase. Still hilarious.

-On a sad note, I learned today that my film teacher in high school passed away a few years ago. What a shame. He really was one of the first to open my eyes to the world of film beyond the malls and multiplexes.

Like just about every screenwriter, I dream of winning Best Original Screenplay. Part of that scenario would involve me thanking him for what an influence he was to me. Even though he’s apparently been gone for a few years, I’d still do it. He will be missed.

That’s more like it

Maximum Z adventure, movies, outlines, plot, Sherlock Holmes, Star Wars, story

After spending more time worrying about whether or not I’d make progress with the LUCY outline, I managed to punch out a good portion of the first act over the past 2 days.

My mantra for the time being is ‘just keep going!’  What I have now is chock-full of action and excitement, and while it was supposed to end around page 17, it doesn’t.  And I feel oddly fine with that.

Of course, the group may have something to say about that on Sunday, but that’s okay too.  I doubt they’ll be too much in a snit about it, anyway.

As always, this is still a rough draft of the outline and will need a lot of work when it’s done, but it was a great feeling of excitement being able to write like this again.  Thinking of a scenario, plotting it out, making it sure it’s logical and realistic, while also inserting the fantastic into it to make it cinematic.

Boiled down to one statement: It’s what I live for.

And tomorrow, I get to do it again.

The weird thing is as I make progress, the way the story is developing keeps changing.  While I work on the story, I have to try and stay on track in terms of keeping it along what I want it to be.  It feels like it would be too easy to let the events drive what happens, but I have to really make sure I stay in control.  I hate when I don’t.

But as long as I know where it it I want to go, it should be fine.

Tomorrow – the push towards the end of Act One.

Movie of the Moment: not a movie, but a fantastic show from the BBC.  SHERLOCK, the incredibly re-imagining (a word I hate) of Holmes and Watson in modern London, courtesy of Stephen Moffat (spelling?), who was also a big part of the relaunching of Doctor Who.

The writing is crisp, the acting is great.  Overall, mind-blowingly great.  It is such a pity that American writers can’t be this good.  American TV would be an entirely different animal if they could.  Thank God the British have such higher standards.

-As part of her birthday, I took V and a friend to see MEGAMIND.  It was also well-done and a lot of fun.  I also got to thinking about how kids movies today are so much better then when I was that age.  All we had back then were crappy Disney movies.  At least until STAR WARS came along.

Then it all changed.

Whyizzit?

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This is going to be a short one, since I’m in the studio and technically working on the air, so my attention is directed all over the place.

Early during this shift, I worked on my script stuff, which I usually do when I’m in here. Today it was an attempted rewrite of the LUCY plot points.

And once again, being in here makes my creative juices flow (which sounds more provocative than it should). I wanted to try and put a more solid story together, and that’s what seems to have happened.

The midpoint could be a little stronger, but it’s all coming together a little easier.

I wonder if not focusing entirely on the story and constantly being distracted by actually having to do my job is the key. Maybe my creativity is more effective when I’m supposed to be doing something else.

If I did this every day, this script would be done in no time.

And that would be cool.