Nicholas Thurkettle

Of the type that I cannot tell you about. It’s a Hollywood development, it is one of the most exciting things to happen in my career in awhile, and I must remain mum, because:

1) It involves a name I am not officially permitted to drop in public.
2) It does not pass my test of real in Hollywood, which we remember involves a signature on a piece of paper and a check that clears.

It must sound awfully joyless of me that I am so resistant when these things happen for which a lot of would-be screenwriters would trade three toes. But I’m not denying it, just saving it and letting it accrue interest. If this development behaves the way it potentially can – as a hard-to-resist chunk of movie bait that movie-making elements will be drawn out to sniff at – then trust me; you will see joy. Snoopy dancing with his little black nose in the air-type joy.

Until then, keep the faith, brothers and sisters.

Excellent news today. The three 10-minute plays I wrote recently were all picked by student directors for the Alumni Play Festival happening at Bradley in April. I have no idea if this means the plays were well-liked, or that the others who were asked to submit plays just didn’t come through to the same extent. (You will notice that, as usual, I just can’t take a compliment.)

The last time I visited Bradley was almost seven years ago. The school has always wanted me to come back, and I’ve always wanted to go, but between money, time, and needing a good enough reason to commit the first two things, it never quite happened. Now, to get to see a few scripts of mine on their feet, and talk with this generation of theatre students, and reminisce, and hopefully even coax a few fellow alums down from Chicago for some ol’ times kinds of fun…that all adds up pretty nicely.

And if I happen to pop into a couple of classes to say a few words, and if they happen to cough up a small check, that would make it add up even better. Good luck to that in today’s economy, but I’ll hope.

Last night I polished up two 10-minute plays. One of them I wrote in a flurry of creativity back in September; the other I wrote nearly seven years ago as a wedding present for a dear friend in one of the many penniless phases of my adult life. The first was relatively simple – its fundamentals were strong, I just needed to clean up a few places in the dialogue where my central idea went cross-eyed.

The second was more difficult. Certainly that many years provides more than adequate emotional distance for re-writing; unfortunately it created more than a little inertia. As in – “the play has existed for this long like this, why should it not stay like that?” This also grows out of the undeniable truth that I was a far worse writer back then, and the script was weak and limp in more than one place. Too many places to salvage in one night? Very possible.

But I have become nothing if not deft. Once I identified the most egregious problem, there was no hesitation; I knew exactly what to scalpel out and replace, and didn’t miss the excised material in the slightest. It is not great now, no, it was not going to be that; but it is…presentable.

Tonight was all the time I had left to generate a third script for tomorrow’s deadline. I came home with an idea and a half-page of scrawled notes. Now after a couple of hours of work/procrastination, I have a half a script. It feels like good stuff – well, it feels consistent to the oddness of my idea. The beauty of the 10-minute play is, since you have far less time in which to wear out your welcome, you can pursue peculiar impulses in bite-sized form. Just throw it up there and see if it plays.

But I think this is all I’ve got for tonight, and I can go to bed satisfied. I think I can make this deliverable with enough time. I might just have to sneak in a few moments to finish tomorrow morning.

New Year’s Resolutions are like a karmic credit card binge. You make something around 5 pledges to yourself, any one of which would take a major investment of personal will. I mean that you would have to actually liquidate will from somewhere else in your life just to get there. Sure you MIGHT be able to lose 20 pounds OR get a raise OR find that special someone OR finish that addition to the house OR give up whatever particular tool it is you use to pummel your brain. But you’re not doing them all. Hell, even doing one is going to cost you.

I am getting fatter. That’s okay – I don’t think I’ve actually been skinny for ten years. I could exercise – I’ve seen myself build that routine more than once. Maybe I could even do it to the extent that a real change happens.

But I’m using that willpower already.

You might find this strange, Jimmy, but I feel like I am more serious about writing than I was even when I sold my screenplay. It’s not that I DO it more – as we’ve discussed, since I took this job I do it less. It’s just that I notice my interests and attentions narrowing severely. I have a girlfriend who is awesome, and it’s a hell of a year for football; but mostly, when I’m not punching the time clock, I’m working on the novel. Or thinking about the novel. Or distracting myself from the novel.

The only movie I have been to in almost two weeks was the Inglorious Basterds screening, and I had seen that movie already. For me to be spending this much time away from the big screen, in DECEMBER, is a scandal.

I’ve noticed that seriousness infecting everything to do with what I write. I find myself thinking more and more about how, if something in this life proves worthy of the brain I was given, it’s going to be something I wrote. I think less and less about my big studio screenplay ideas, and more about the wild and personal ideas that were supposed to wait until I was more solvent. I don’t think about settling down, making my own family. I just think about these stories I’m trying to tell, and how I will BE one of those people who finishes that novel, damn it. I am thinking less about HOW this is supposed to make me money, and betting more on the simple faith that it will.

The other night I got in bed, meaning to get a full night’s sleep, but mad with myself for only putting 300 new words into the book. So I told myself I didn’t need the sleep so badly (I did; I really did), got out of bed and wrote another 500.

By all rational measures, I am becoming more foolish as I become more fat. I think this is an encouraging development.

I wrote this article last year – it was published back then, but reading was something of a pain, since you had to download a .pdf and page through it. They have since made it more easily available; so if you want to read a little travel piece about a State Park in the mountains undergoing an extraordinary recovery from a fire, make like a dance machine and Do the Clicky.

It is a rare thing to be able to write your first novel for money; and more rare still to be cashing checks from someone patient enough to understand you are learning on the job. Not every form of writing is the same ol’ Amish barn to raise, and it’s difficult to estimate progress when I am essentially inventing my working method as I go. I have this nagging sense I could be getting more done, and more quickly, but it’s rare that I don’t feel that way when I’m on any substantial project. That’s just that snapping, hungry pet called “Self-Criticism” I brought home from the pound many years ago.

It’s already one of the longest pieces of prose I have ever set down, and we are still very early in the draft. Word count comparisons to screenplays aren’t entirely useful, but by the time I get to “The End” I’ll have pasted enough together into sentences to constitute three or four screenplays at least. Put it that way and it wouldn’t intimidate me; but I won’t get to put these words that way.

I have been at this for months, and any day in this span I have worked on or even thought about this book, my overarching belief is that there’s no way I will actually do this. But I am kind of comforted by that, since that’s how I feel about every screenplay I set out to write. And it’s usually not until I am near to done with the first draft that I start to think anything like otherwise.

I met with my collaborator/patron on this novel project, and after making my usual noises asking patience in the delivery of new chapters, he assured me that he is beyond pleased with the work provided so far, and that we are on a perfectly effective timeline for his goals. He even offered to hasten to me the next installment of delicious monies, which I have avoided asking for because I don’t feel I have turned in enough yet to merit it. I am sure my credit card companies would like it if I loosened my scruples.

I also learned that the 10-minute plays I wrote last week are indeed wanted, and not too late to be used, but will actually not be needed until the spring. I’m grateful to know this, because I think the second in particular could stand to marinate a little more, and this knowledge will allow me to set them aside for a spell before the necessary re-writing.

Which is not to say I get to relax at all. The novel is still hungry for more words, and there’s those three screenplays in various stages of gestation (two drafting, one revising), each begging for attention. And I just learned that I will indeed be directing the webisode script I wrote a few weeks ago. Shooting will be in less than three weeks, and I just learned that the actor I based my opening scene gag around will not be available.

In this context, it seems silly to even worry about all the movie reviews I want to write; but we need room to be silly with this much to do.

I wrote a 10-minute play today – truth be told I wrote half of a second on top of that. I could probably bull my way through to a “blackout” on that second one, but I believe a writer should reserve for themselves the affirmative power of the closing whistle after a respectable day’s work. I say I am done and so I am done. Plus – there is football on soon.

I don’t know if the situation I wrote this script for is still available; I’ll find out tomorrow, hopefully after I have awakened with a replenished supply of mojo and finished this second one. The past couple of weeks have not seen a lot of product, and that has a way of putting me into the anxiety sweats. The sense of accomplishment has a way of pushing back at all other problems in life, and so I am constantly recommending short films, monologues, short stories, and stage sketches like this one, as a way to keep your muscles flexed and spirit warm in between the big projects.