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Because I am incredibly nerdy, I maintain a spreadsheet list of the projects I want to write where I keep track of their current stage of development. I also have a separate tab on the spreadsheet where I note everything that I am actually mid-draft on and on which I have recently-worked. (The novel I started on my own like eight years ago and haven’t worked on in four years doesn’t count.) On the “in progress” tab, I have the projected length also marked and the ratio of the two automatically generates a neat little bar graph where I can see how far along I am with all of it.

For the first time since I made that bar graph, it has only four bars on it. One is a 10-minute play that I have half-completed. The other is a full-length play that is about 25% drafted. The other two are screenplays – this very personal sci-fi thing that I started 11 freaking years ago and seems to come out one agonizing page at a time. It’s now 72 pages and I might even finish it before I die because it really shouldn’t be over 95. And the other is another personal piece that has reached the point where I have to reconceptualize it from being a feature screenplay to something else because it really is The Script That Will Never End. I currently have 139 pages of that and am still nowhere near done.

I have been pressing hard on the sci-fi piece – my best friend/sometimes writing partner Adam really wants to see it and I must admit I am fed up with it not being done. I am also trying to make up for a couple of years where I feel like my screenwriting pace slipped to unacceptable levels. Of these four bars; I think that’s likeliest to rise up to victorious heights and then disappear like a Tetris row next.

Like I said, it’s really rare of me to have so few things mid-draft. Sure, there’s a lot of stuff brainstorming…but I don’t know what it would mean for me to have nearly all of the mid-process stuff done. To not have something to just fire up the computer and hang words on. I mean, from a practical standpoint it would mean I have no choice but to muscle some long-simmering stuff into position to be written. Whatever this restless energy is that has produced so much work these last 4-5 months is still inside me, and needs projects to work on. I’ve never had to come up with material for it on-demand in this way.

Adam and I are crunching on a new collaborative piece for which he has technically already written a few pages; but I know we’re going to re-write them and I’m not sure how long this thing should be, yet. So it’s not yet on the graph, though it will be soon. I also have a new short film idea that has triggered some good ideas over the last few days. That one could start producing pages surprisingly soon.

So maybe the bars will multiply again and I won’t have to face this unknown phase. Or maybe I should take this as a sign to really finish these pieces and see what happens then.

As usual, I have no idea what the hell I’m going to do tomorrow. Except write, Jimmy. These days, it’s a good bet I’ll be doing that.

Basically, I get an idea. Usually, the idea comes in the form of a question: “What if….?” I ask myself the question. I ask a few close friends the question. I see if the question provokes any interesting reactions in them, or in myself. I’m testing whether there’s an emotional nerve exposed and tickled by the question. Then I start wondering what might happen in the process of seeing the question dramatically answered; what the journey to the answer might feel like. This stage is absolutely crucial for whether the idea lives and grows into a story or falls apart like old Jell-o.

I add details, I reject many. I come up with stupid ideas. Astonishingly good ideas seem to come out of nowhere. I can’t glimpse the thing directly; it’s too ephemeral – but by testing one thing at a time to see whether or not it belongs in the thing, I start to understand it indirectly. Usually, there’s at least one night where I’m torn between going to sleep and jumping out of bed to get to the keyboard and write some of this stuff down.

I can’t always tell when, but at some point, I recognize it. Maybe it doesn’t have a title, but I’ve named it in my mind – because I have a sense of what it’s about, what it feels like, what I want it to look like.

And then – there’s a new thing on the list of Stuff Nick Has to Write.