Just another name in the pile
I’ve been mulling why last night’s semi-finalist announcement gave me so much happy vim. It’s definitely good news but a long way from being significant in the long-run. It will take a lot more of this to build a profile as a playwright. Finishing one small step is worth some inner glow but this feels [...]
I must write ALL THE THINGS
Last night I found an excellent resource for identifying theater companies around the country that support new work either through productions, readings, contests, or fellowships. What’s funny to me is that even though I was writing plays before I ever finished a screenplay, I am decidedly behind-the-curve now when it comes to the process of [...]
Good thing he’s here to tell me these things
Someone in a writer’s community who doesn’t know me reviewed the script for the short film I am going to make, and called it “something that completely ignores the primary principles of good film making.” He added that “it feels like you are totally missing the point of what the “medium of film” is all [...]
The Dreaming Space
As I said, I wrapped up my evening at a reasonable hour last night, feeling satisfied about a productive coffeehouse writing session and relaxed after treating myself to a little bedtime reading. I never spend enough time with BOOKS. I felt myself ready to go to sleep, but decided to try something. I had just [...]
That’s weird
I’m sitting down to write. I’ve got my Iced Vanilla Chai next to me, the music is at the right volume, and…nothing. Have you ever looked at something like a toaster and had that moment where you momentarily have no idea what it is, what it does, or how to use it? That’s how I’m [...]
Affirmation
My long-time buddy Irish knows my writing going back to my very first, very miserable-bad screenplay, and he’s both pretty sharp when it comes to story and pretty willing to speak his mind. He’s one of those trusted readers who usually see the earliest drafts of whatever the latest screenplay is. And in this case, [...]
Dancing with myself
It has been a strange experiment, essentially working with the 25-year-old version of myself as a collaborator. I think I’ve mentioned before that several years ago, I started writing a sci-fi script on a whim – no outline, no sureness of direction, just an image that came into my head during the morning commute through [...]
Adjusted definition of lazy
So far today I’ve dusted some shelves, hung a picture, taken out my busted cable box, sketched out a couple more beats for this screenplay idea, had a half-hour workout and taken a twenty-minute walk. That’s after sleeping in late. And yet I persist in thinking of this as a lazy Saturday. I think, because [...]
Let my Cameron go
Did a little outlining of an idea last night, and then followed that up with two pages on that personal screenplay I add to from time to time. On the latter, I am ruthlessly enforcing a lack of my usual discipline; I write scenes without knowing in what order they will appear, and often without [...]
It is never done
Last night I started trimming the new script. I don’t really think of this as a polish, just the last clean-up phase of the first draft. Still, I might need to make a couple of cutting choices that I usually put off until the real first polish. I want this thing to clear under 120, [...]