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Again and again.

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I’ve moved. That’s right! Its been six months in a new state. The experience has been mixed and I hadn’t understood the feeling of having to acclimate to a new culture until now. It’s odd how different people can be when you shift just a mere fourteen hundred or so miles. The job I am working is the same and its the main reason I was able to do this move, yet now that I am out here it has started to really irritate me. Many people will tell us (the generation I live within now) that you should be thankful for what you have, that having a job is everything. Those notions though come from an older generation, one that worked at one place loyal to a career or to one job, a generation that has yet to meet or understand the “start up” era. At least I think that’s what this time we are living in now is called. An interesting notion to say the least. There may be a slim possibility that the country is shifting from the rich and powerful owning giant corporations, to small groups of people with highly focused areas of interest and expertise. I ramble, this is something for a different blog I suppose.

I’ve spent time on a new story, this one in the form of a novel. Writing in prose is foreign to me but I am getting back into it by reading more and listening to stories read to me while stuck in traffic. I’ve always felt like that was the way a story was meant to be delivered, while books are nice there is something very basic about having a story read to you. It’s how stories were originally told after all, from one ear to another, and I love the act of hearing versus that of just reading.

Writing is slow these days, I try my best on the days that I have to fill them with writing page after page, but those days are few and far between. If I had my wish, I would make the same money I do now at a part time job, rather than this devouring monster that I work now. It does make me work that much harder however when it comes to the days that I do get. I look forward to completing this short novel, and seeing where it takes this career that I have been striving to launch for the past few years.

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A new direction?

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I’ve been watching a lot of a show called Fire Fly. The shows has made me relearn something I already knew.

It’s the characters of the show, and how they are so deliciously built episode to episode. No character no matter how small is left behind. These are interesting people with interesting stories.  You can see this in other television shows, but in Fire Fly they make you love every single character, and there are few shows out there that do this so flawlessly. At least of the ones I have seen.

I’m not one for T.V. I don’t really watch much of it, I hate commercials and I really hate the “I’ve gotta watch my…” mentality. T.V. is in a weird phase though. Most major networks don’t want to admit it, but the internet is changing T.V. dramatically. It’s not just something you HAVE to watch anymore. Take Fire Fly for example, it’s on Netflix, along with a whole smattering of other shows. Add Hulu, and bit torrent (OH NO’S!), and T.V. becomes something you don’t have to be chained to anymore.  Why watch anything on T.V.?

So what’s your point?

Well back to Fire Fly and it’s characters. There are some stories I have outlined and worked out where I have fallen in love with some of the characters. Their stories flow out of me, and it’s not so much about the over arching plot anymore as much as it is about the characters. That in a sense is what makes a good T.V. show. When you have good character it doesn’t matter what they are doing, or why sometimes. You just want to see them do it! A character could be sitting in his closet talking about the organization of his clothes and you would be glued.

My eye is slowly moving towards this medium.

I say this mainly because I feel like film is dying. Not in revenue, in that respect film is doing just fine. I feel though a lot of the creativity in film has been robbed or buried for the time being. I don’t think it is due to lack of content, there are original scripts being written and purchased out there, just not getting made. Hollywood is to busy looking for the “sure bet.” Millions are invested into a movie, if it flops it stings. T.V. shows though they usually cost less over all, film a season if it sticks they make more, if not they pull it, either way though they have gotten their revenue from the advertising companies. When a T.V. show flops it’s not as huge an impact. This brings me to my final point, the only real creativity right now is in T.V. That may be me just being naive but that is what I see from the outside looking in, and with all the different cable channels picking up great shows left and right, not to mentioned the added revenue of T.V. DVD sales, and you have a pretty wide playing field.

I’m gonna have to really think about this….

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Trying To Finish/ New Software

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The next script that I am working on is SO close to being done I can taste it. I am at page 80 some odd. It has taken me so long to get here! The days I have to write are few and far between, and I have not been spending them as well as I could. I can tell you where this one is going once I am done too: right on the shelf. I don’t want to look at this script again for a few months at least. This is a revision of one of my first scripts so I am getting tired of the idea. While I love the characters and the over all concept, the structure is as weak as a house of cards. This script trips and falls on itself so many times its amusing. So I hope to finish this week. I am giving myself a dead line. Something I try to do more of but often don’t.

I am especially excited to finish and try out a new outlining software I found! I know some writers tend not to use outlining but I learned the hard way that I can’t live without it. The software is called scrivener, and from the videos on the website it looks like it is just what I need to focus my ideas into one central area. As it is now I have a few places for ideas, well more than a few…the cork board, stickies on my mac, notes on my phone, all over the place. Stuff gets lost, forgotten, it sucks. With this program I hope to have everything in one place and focus my outlining time to be used more efficiently.

Other than that I am excited about working on a few stories I am cooking up. Stay tuned! I will hopefully have samples in the coming months!

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Steps backward.

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I am writing the worst script I have ever written. Hands down. Writers often do this, we are to self critical, but I don’t think this is that. I truely believe that this is the worst peiece of work that I have ever done. Even worse than my first venture into this journey.
So what is to blame? What is going on? Why is it that my writing has taken a step in the wrong direction. I would like to think that it is the new job, but I think that is to easy an explination. Perhaps I am just having trouble adjusting to a new life schdule. After all a lot has happened in the last few months. Lost a girl friend, moved back home, a new job than a pretty serious promotion. Much has happened in the last few weeks.

I’ve never not finished a peiece of work. I think that is an injustice and starts a dangerous pattern. This script will get done. I fear however that it will never be read by any eyes but my own and if so as a reminder of what not to do.

This is a challenging time in my life as a writer. A confusing time. Not to whine but I would have hopped my life was in more order at 27 but nothing could be futher from true. I am still as confused and lost as I was fresh out of college and I am starting to wonder if the feeling will ever go away.

Enough blathering…time to get back to work…

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A word to the wise.

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It’s true what they say. What do they say you ask? They say that if you stop doing something you get bad at it. I find it a terribly fantastic thing, how universal this theme is. It is everywhere. If you don’t practice it, it gets harder. Nothing is more true when it comes to writing.

Days off are killers. Write something everyday. Even if it is painful, even if it is a god awful peace of crap. Had a long day? Write. Got free time? Why not write? It’s what i am going to have to get back to. I have to make time for writing now, and it is really hard. What I am finding out is that if I don’t write, at least something every day, the days that I do have a chance to do some serious work are tremendously tedious. I am brushing up against all the days I haven’t written a thing. It would be like a weight lifter going out and lifting for 2 hours without working out for months. It’s just not smart.

What happens is you get antsy. You know you have limited time and you should be writing but you can’t seem to get a grip on anything. Like all the ideas you’ve had all week, all the prep work for a script is dead, or meaningless. Its a sinking feeling. Something I do not like. I aim to fix this. I am to write. I am to work around the job I have to do to get better at the job I want to do. I will not let it kill what I am.

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Hello Again

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So it’s been a while. A couple of things have come up and have made me a busy person. For starters I just got promoted at my job! I skipped a position so it’s a pretty big deal. They will be flying me out to California sometime next year for a month of training. It’s all pretty exciting.

Enough of that, I have been working on the first full length script that I ever wrote a lot recently. It’s interesting, things seem to be falling in place pretty smoothly. I suppose it’s true that the longer you let something seethe on a shelf the easier it is to work on. After that I will return to some other stuff, or start something new. I only get a few days to write a week now, and in those days I get only a couple of hours, so I have to make the most of it.

I hope to write more blog posts, it will help me from getting rusty. I also find the act of writing to space pretty soothing it is mainly why I started doing this.

Oh and, Happy Halloween!

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My new Job

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My new job is killing my ability to write. There I said it.

Here I am at the great devide that all artists find themselves: The quest for creative freedom vs. the need for monetary fulfillment. I need to eat. I need shelter. To get these things I need money. The question is have I sacrificed to much? Has my balance been skewed? Shifted from a focus on my writing to one on a carrier in which the only true reward I receive is a bi-weekly paycheck.

What to do?

I know I need the money, that’s a given, and I know I need to write more, but how to make the two mesh better? It seems that whenever I have time off, I am so damned exhausted from my current job that I can’t seem to muster up the energy to write. Days are wasting away. Soon I will be 27 years old, and I have yet to achieve any kind of real success at doing something I want to do, instead of something I have to.

One thing is for sure, I have always been a creative person. It is a part of me that I can not get rid of. There is no job out there that will kill that desire, but the one I have certainly is trying its best.

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Hiatus

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Ok, so I have been away for a few weeks, and here is why: A new Job. That’s right, I went out and finally got myself a new job, and it has for the most part taken over my life. I am working 40 plus hours a week in a super fast paced environment, and in turn my writing has taken a back seat. Soon though, I intend to find a way to get back to the thing I love to do. I have to, my ideas are starting to gnaw at my mind.

An update: I did not win any of the competitions that I submitted my scripts to. At first I was a little upset, but now I am at ease with it, it makes me want to work that much harder. In a way rejection is a writers best friend. I did however recieve some posative feedback from one of my readers notes  in which he called the premise of After the Bomb, “brilliant”, and that made me smile.

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New Book on Dialogue

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I am half way through a book entitled; ‘Talk the Talk: A dialogue Workshop for Scriptwriters’ by Penny Penniston. I picked it up off of amazon not to long ago and so far it is pretty interesting. One of the things I have had a major problem with in my screen play is dialogue, and as far as I am concerned it is the most difficult thing to write. The book has excersizes that are focused on helping you understand dialogue, and some of them are kind of intrusive (lasting for weeks sometimes.) and others are simple things that can be done alone. The most helpful thing so far is punctuation in dialogue.

I am a little upset with myself, I had promised that I would have a first draft of my Fringe episode done today, but alas I could not even start it today, as I was tied up with interviews with Apple all day.

Oh and if anyone wants to check out a cool face book page, look up the Nicholl fellowships. It’s actually pretty neat, people from all over the place posting on the wall, all writers, and some of them post some pretty helpful things.

That’s all for now hopefully I will have a new screen play by tomorrow.

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Sorry : (

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Sorry for the Hiatus. I have been super busy with my new project(s) YES that’s plural. I have been working diligantly to enter into a new “competition” by the end of this month; NBC/Universal’s writers on the verge program. This is the first time I will be writing for television and I am kind of nervous. Television plays the same game as film, but plays by different rules.

So the competition has writers turn in spec scripts for shows that are currently on the air. You write an episode that would seamlessly fit right into the season for which you are writing. In this case I am writing for season 2 of Fringe. Fringe is an odd little show, it’s right up my ally in terms of genre, and is quirky enough to keep my mildly entertained. The one good thing for me however, is that the show is EXTREMELY formulaic. You can almost predict exactly what is going to happen each episode, as far as what characters will do, or where the plot is going. I guess that’s why they like to keep the audience going with their little secrets, so we miss the fact that every episode is virtually the same. Well, that and J.J. Abrams’ little love affair with mystery’s that don’t play out…don’t get me wrong he is no M.Night (as far as bad secrets go), and I have no real angst against the guys work, even though I couldn’t sit through clover field…I want my 8 bucks back now.

Any way, I will be entering this one head on and will post some excerpts from the script here as soon as it is done.

And as for the other project I mentioned two posts ago…don’t even ask, we are at a tiff.