Not necessarily my internal struggle, but you get the idea…
(If you have absolutely no idea who either of these guys are, go here.)
The rewrite’s done, and all of a sudden, I’m nervous. Like, ridiculously so.
I’ve sent scripts out before, but this time something is making it a lot different.
A fear of failure. Of rejection.
What if nobody likes it?
What writer hasn’t gone through this?
But as I tell K every once in a while – the only way I could fail is if I stopped trying, and I don’t plan on doing that either.
It may be that after all this time, the idea of possibly being that much closer to actually achieving my goal is kind of overwhelming. This is where that internal voice kicks in.
Do I have what it takes? Is the script just about ready to be sent out?
Damn straight. I’ve got a lot of confidence in this script and my writing ability.
I can and will do what it takes to make this work.
Writing this week has been even less than the bare minimum due to all those split shifts. But I’m back to my regular schedule this coming week, and hope to get a lot done.
I did manage to finish fine-tuning the first half of the LUCY outline, but now look at the next 16-18 scenes and think “wow, this is kind of dull.” It just doesn’t have the same level of thrills or action of what came before, and that’s really annoying.
While I’d like to fix it now, I think I’ll work on making progress on DREAMSHIP. That way I can move ahead on that, AND see if I can figure out how to make the next section of LUCY better.
Yet again, progress is slow, but steady.
Oops. Just realized. I’m doing the midday shift on Monday, so that will be designated idea time. See how it goes.
Movie of the Moment – GREEN LANTERN: EMERALD KNIGHTS, an animated anthology of sorts about the GL Corps. This was released earlier this summer in connection with the live-action feature. This was worlds better. Interesting stories, good (albeit short) character development, and an overall sense of fun and adventure. All of which the Ryan Reynolds fiasco was sorely lacking.
Warner Brothers and the rest of the studios should wake up and realize that the best people to write comic book movies are comic book writers. They know the material and how to make it work.
Now I’ll take off my fanboy hat and put on my writer hat and get back to work.
You never realize how much you miss writing on a semi-daily basis when you don’t get to do it for a while.
But I’m back home and ready to tackle my assorted projects. Actually, we’ve been home since early this week but I’ve had practically no time to work on the outline or on this blog.
The time away was nice. It’s always pleasant to visit the in-laws, but eating and big meals are a constant part of these trips, so I feel like I gained about 5 pounds. Lots of carb-, sugar- and sodium-heavy stuff. But now that I’m home, I can eat things my body is used to. Like vegetables.
As expected, I didn’t get a lot of writing done during this trip. The closest I came to anything like that was during the flight out. K took a look at what I had so far for DREAMSHIP. She liked it. Good enough for me.
Problem now is I need to take care of Act Three, but I don’t want to rush through it. I want to make sure everything works the way it’s supposed to.
I did the midday traffic shift yesterday and was frustratingly blocked. I like to think it’s my subconscious saying “For crying out loud, don’t mess this up!” Or at least hope that’s what it is.
Hoping to get the outline done this coming week, fine-tune it as necessary, then start on pages. Fingers firmly crossed.
-Movie of the Moment. Never got around to seeing SUPER 8 or X-MEN in theatres, so will probably catch ’em both on Netflix.
The day after we returned, I took V to see GREEN LANTERN. What a disappointment! I’d tried to not read too many spoiler-laden reviews, but the one thing I kept hearing was “lame second act.” And that really applied.
When you’re watching a comic book/superhero movie, you should not be thinking “why isn’t the main character doing more superhero-ish stuff?” Hal should not have returned to Earth. I wanted to see him really learning what it took to be a Green Lantern.
It didn’t help that it took Carol telling him something like “you don’t need to be fearless; just have courage to face your fears” for him to complete the character arc. Just awful.
Why would you make a movie about a space cop and keep him on his home planet for most of the time?
I didn’t have a problem with the cgi/ring effects. I thought they were pretty good, and there should have been more of them. After all: that’s what the ring does.
And that mask? Ugh. I was really worried they were going to go the ‘can’t recognize him ‘ way, but was pleasantly surprised they didn’t.
In summary” First act: pretty good. Second act: terrible. Third act: good for what it was, which isn’t saying much. I feel bad for Warner Brothers, but you should make a good story to appeal to all moviegoers. Not just the fanboys. They’re never happy.
I hadn’t realized it until the other day, but this summer movie season seems to be going on forever.
I’d still like to see CAPTAIN AMERICA and COWBOYS & ALIENS, but those don’t come out until later this month. And CAP would have been an appropriate open for this weekend, but I suspect everybody was already suffering from comic book movie fatigue.
Maximum Z 