writing group

I get by with a little help from…

Maximum Z Raiders of the Lost Ark, screenwriting, writing group

I had a good talk today with a friend of mine from our old writing group.  The new group hasn’t met since February, despite word from the organizer that “she’s working on it.”  So my friend and I reconnected, and it was nice.

We each described what we were working on; me and the rewrite, her and her new story idea.  Then we talked about what we’ve seen lately, and talked about possibly bringing back another former member.

I don’t know how many writers like me take part in a writing group, but if you don’t, you really should.  And if there aren’t any around, try starting one.  Craigslist is a good place to start.

It’s like a support group made up of people just like you. The skill levels are for the most part equal, and confidence levels adjust with each meeting.  Being part of one has been incredibly beneficial to me.  I get feedback on my work, and give feedback to others.  It’s really played a significant part of helping me become a better writer.

-I worked the midday shift yesterday, and was making some good progress on the rewrite, but then there was a fatality around the halfway mark, so I kind of had to focus on all that work stuff.  Which was probably for the better.  Especially with the GM constantly coming in to ask questions.

I also made the decision to cut out a part of the story I still love, only because it  wasn’t really working in the overall scheme of things.  On a positive note, this forces me to think of an alternative idea, which will most likely be more effective than before.

-Question time! Is 8 1/2 too young to watch RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK? Today was the last day of school, and K suggested we celebrate by watching it as a family.  I wasn’t sure if it would be too scary.  Your thoughts?  Experiences?  And let’s avoid the ‘depends on the child’ argument.

Ain’t lookin’ good

Maximum Z Dreamship, Movie of the Moment, screenwriting, The Walking Dead, writing group

The good news is I may have stumbled onto a great new angle for DREAMSHIP. The bad news is Act Two will most likely have to be completely rewritten, which will put the proverbial kibosh on getting it done in time for the Nicholl.  It’s possible I could get it done, but I’d rather take my time.

On one hand, I like how the story seems much, much stronger now. There are also a lot more possibilities regarding what could happen.  Those notes are proving very helpful.

But on the other hand, it would have been nice to get it done by May 2nd.  Ah well.  There’s always next year.

-Finally heard back from the lady who runs the writing group.  She does a lot of freelance work, so hasn’t done any writing since February. She wants to contact the rest of the group at the end of April(!) and suggest two potential dates in May(!!) to meet.  Since I’m still a newer member of the group, I don’t want to make any trouble by telling her that’s a terrible way to approach this.  Which it is.

Exactly what’s the problem with setting a definitive time and see who shows up?  Fortunately, I can still meet with my fellow former-groupmember and we can discuss our stuff.

Another member of the group appears to have moved back to LA, or is at least housesitting there through June.  She seems to be a very fast writer, mentioning that she finished and polished a werewolf script after our last meeting (which may have been in February).

I admire someone who can really crank them out like that.  I can’t, but I also don’t think her life is similar to mine (married with children), so maybe she has more free time to write.  I find it when I can.

Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s not.  But I still enjoy it.

-No Movie of the Moment tonight, but I’m almost done with Season One of WALKING DEAD.  Still loving it.  Great storytelling.

Steppin’ in and takin’ charge

Maximum Z screenwriting, writing group

A friend of mine from the writing group had dinner with us last ngiht. We’ve known each other for about ten years, more or less.

Part of why we met was because even when the original group we were part of shrank to just the two of us, we still made an effort to meet on a semi-regular basis.

Since becoming part of this more recent group, the meetings were happening less and less frequently. I think the last time was in February. Meeting times kept changing, people couldn’t make it for one reason or another, so get-togethers were always being postponed or canceled altogether.

It didn’t help that the woman organizing it felt that there had to be at least 4 people or it wasn’t worth meeting at all. As somebody who enjoys getting and giving feedback, I’d rather meet with at least one other person than not meet with anybody.

I tried contacting her last week, but have yet to hear back.  I’m sure she’s been busy.  It’s happened before.

But it’s time for drastic action.

I’m taking the initiative and going to invite the group over on an every-other-week basis. If they can make it, great. If not, that’s okay too.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who really benefits from these meetings, so hopefully steering the group in this direction will be good for everybody.

My friend and I also discussed that the group as it was had been helpful to a certain extent. People would have constructive criticism and feedback, but weren’t being supportive about it. You’d hear “This needs to be fixed” instead of “There’s some potential here. What if…?”

I’m not talking about false praise. Without positive support and encouragement, it’s easy for a writer to lose focus and get off track.

The writing group should be a comfortable situation where everybody works together to make each person a better writer.  It also helps if it’s fun; people should want to be there.

Fingers crossed hoping for positive results.

Just…a little bit…more!

Maximum Z adventure, characters, loglines, outlines, radio, story, writing group

As I’ve stated before, one of the great things about where I work is that sometimes there’s so much downtime between reports, I get to work on non-radio stuff.

Especially scripts.  I don’t know why, but more often than not, I’m more productive in the studio than on my couch or at the desk in the home office.  Crazy.

Since the past two days were holidays, I worked the 5am-noon shift.  Amazingly, there isn’t a whole lot of traffic during the morning of major holidays, which means I had a lot of time to work with.

Which is what I did.  Oh boy, did I.

I was able to bring my laptop in yesterday, with the intent of getting something done with LUCY.  I like how the first act is developing, but it feels like it’s >this< close to being where I want to be.

Earlier in the week, I had worked on inserting the sidekick angle. So far, not too bad.  Still need to work on that opening sequence though.

But I was able to expand a bit on the first ten pages, fleshing out Lucy and the sidekick a bit more.  Based on suggestions from the writing group, I slightly altered what happens at page 10, and was able to edit out some extraneous scenes between that and page 17 (or at least what’s supposed to be there).

The rest of the first act also came together.  While I like the way it’s going, I worry that the sidekick doesn’t have enough to do.  But everything is still in the early development stage, so there’s still lots of time to fix this and that.

My goal today was to try and venture forth into Act Two (which I have a good idea how it’s going to start out), but there were two things bothering me:

-what happens if Lucy fails?  It has to be something really big.  Something majorly important. I have a few ideas, but nothing that really says “this is it!”

-While I have a connection between Lucy and the main antagonist (thanks again, writing group!), I need something in there so logical to allow/enable Lucy to go after him, that there’s no doubt that’s what she needs to do.  This is quite an obstacle, but I bet I’ll come up with something sooner than I think.  I’ve done it before.

In the meantime, I may start working out the next sequence or two, just to see if I can make things connect smoothly.

Besides, I’m doing the midday shift two days this coming week, so you just know I’ll get results.

-Going against my better judgment, I entered the logline contest again, this time with an entry I’ve never tried before.  I have my doubts, but you never know.

Right after I did that, I looked at my logline for LUCY and realized it’s just okay.  It doesn’t grab you.  That’s something else I’ll work on this week.  I want it to be so kickass you can’t help but think “that sounds so AWESOME!”

So for now, the toil and drudgery continues…

Okay, maybe

Maximum Z adventure, contracts, loglines, outlines, screenwriting, script doctor eric, story, Veronica, writing group

Good meeting with the writing group last night.  I read the first act of LUCY, and got bombarded with questions.  Some I was even prepared for.

When I explained I liked the action aspects (as did some of the members), I wanted to try and expand on Lucy as a character.  They responded with suggestions covering aspects I hadn’t thought of.  Which is how these things usually work for me.

Somebody suggested having the bad guy be connected with Lucy in such a way as to provide a good, solid twist later on in the story.  Maybe.

There were comments about how historically accurate this was supposed to be.  That I’m not too concerned with.  It’s fictional.

Another suggestion was that Lucy needs a sidekick, or else it isn’t believable that she can do all the things I have her doing up to this point.  She’s not superhuman.  I wanted to avoid the idea, but more than one person made a good argument about why it would work.

I gotta admit.  They made some good points.

And since the story takes place in the Civil War era, I had considered putting a character who used to be a slave somewhere in there.  This could work.  But would it fit in the story?  Oh yes.  Quite nicely.

Still haven’t worked out the bounty hunter angle, but I’m getting there.  Slowly, but still getting there.

While I was hoping to start the slight rewrite/moving forward phase today, I had to put on my metaphoric Dad hat and take V to assorted appointments.  So my self-imposed assignment begins tomorrow.

And still looking forward to it.

But I think what was especially nice was as the evening was wrapping up, my friend, the one who I was in the previous group with and we kept the last remnants of said group alive as long as we could, said she really liked what I had so far for LUCY.  That means a lot.

Again, there feels like a ton of potential in this story.  And I plan to make the most of it.

-*Sidenote:  When I originally came up with this idea, I developed the logline for it.  Which has since changed.  Since then, I have submitted said logline to the usual contest.  That’s about four weeks, complete with four straight losses.  So I’m calling it quits.  I’d rather focus on getting LUCY developed and written, rather than worrying about if my logline passes muster.

Besides, I won once, and that’s enough.  I shouldn’t be greedy.  Yeah, it would be nice to win again, but the script is more important.

Words to live by indeed.