I'm Cheating On Microbiology... With A Screenplay!

I have a test tomorrow (I hate the way that sounds), but instead of studying I'm working on my screenplay. I'm having an incredible writing day. I'm like some kind of literary savant right now. I don't know if it's the perceived element of danger that's making my mind work so quick and clear (I just laid out a beat sheet, from scratch, in like thirty minutes flat), or if I'm just super saturated with months and months of creative suppression and it's just now getting a chance to overflow.

I've had a longstanding theory that the best thing you can do for your writing is join a gym, because then your excuse for not working out can be writing. Well, this is even better. You - go sign up for a full credit fall course in Microbiology, or Physiology or something like that, and I give it two weeks before your writing takes off like one of those cube shaped kites that nerds fly for fun. I guess it also helps that I'm writing an alien movie, so every once in a while my teacher will mention something about genetics or spores and on the inside I'm going "plasmids, of course! That's how they do it - they inject the spores via the pilus! It's simple Prokaryotic mutation!"

You know what else is awesome? Finding a new writing spot that nobody knows about. It's like my and my screenplay's cheap motel room, only it's a private study room at the library. I'm in it right now (don't tell anybody). There is nothing in here but a desk, two chairs, an electric typewriter and a whiteboard. And now me, and all my crap. It's beautiful. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. I can reserve this room up to two months in advance. I can literally plan appointments with my writing. With no luck at all, this screenplay will be written before fall semester starts. Take that, nursing school. You can't have all of me! Never!

Couldn't Stand That My Last Post Was From Christmas, So...

And I have nothing to say for myself. Nothing. Still working quite slowly on that new script, nursing school still kicking my butt (as I wipe other's butts). Script Frenzy goes on without me. Life goes on without me. This pity party goes on.

I have to hand it to my good friend Ditty (Elizabethan Theatre). As a friend she is patient with me, and as a writer she is prolific and motivating. I think we may be friends forever.

And as long as I'm shoutin' out, here's to Roger over at ScriptShadow. You are like the energizer bunny of encouragement. I don't understand it, but man am I grateful. People who give good advice are often ignored, because good advice usually involves time-consuming methods by which one can reach their goal. Which is why no one takes good advice anymore. Well, I just wanted you to know I'm taking yours. Thanks for it.

Sorry to have been gone so long. Here's a little something for hanging in there:

Funniest. Blog. Ever.

Christmas and Script Criticism Seem Unfit for Each Other

Christmas... yeah. We did it. Moving on.

Got Goodland back from the script readers (I used Act One). Jack read my script, then gave me a call and talked with me for over an hour. It's a hard thing, taking criticism on the first script you really feel proud of. It's even harder when basically everything the guy is saying rings true, and you wonder within yourself at the complete lack of insight which led you to overlook these problems. He had good things to say, they always have good things to say to you. It is disheartening, though, when you begin to realize that these changes they want you to make are exactly the changes you need to make, but for some reason you would never have figured it out on your own. The lights go on, and you completely see it, but you didn't before, and then you wonder why you didn't see it, which inevitably leads you the the conclusion that you may never see it, and maybe seeing is reserved for those really great screenwriters, of which you will never be since you can't see it.

Or maybe it's just a matter of time before I begin seeing it.

Going with that hypothesis, I theorize that it will be at least five more scripts before I begin seeing it. They tell you that it will take 7-8 scripts before you get a good one, and I'm on 3, so I've got 5 to go (check the math - I'm crap at math). This is also disheartening when you consider that I must trudge along for five more scripts, putting my entire effort into it while knowing that what I will be producing in the end is just a means to an end. Kind of takes all the creative energy out of it. I thought my motivation was fickle before, now there will be no living with it. You almost have to fool yourself into thinking that this next script will be the one, even though you know it won't, because it's only number 4. But come on, it's a romantic comedy with aliens, how can that not be the one?

On the up side, I've got the next three scripts all planned out. Ooh, ooh I just thought of a Christmas analogy for this! It's like a Christmas present that you know is perfect, and you save all your pennies for it, then you go out and buy it, wrap it up really nice with the bows and everything, and then you just put it on a shelf because no one is ever going to open it. But it was good practice. I hate to practice. Is it too much to ask that I be good at just one thing without having to actually work so hard at it?

Nano Off To A Rough Start

Oh man, it's like pulling teeth. I'm sitting on 1,300 words, and every single stinking one of them was absolutely painful. What is this? Writing used to come so easily to me; last year I'd churn out 5,000 in one sitting, no problem. It took me three hours to complete 1,300 measly words, and half the time I was shopping online for shoes. And that's the other problem. Before, I had no problem putting even important things off in the name of completing my Nano goal. Now, it's as if finding the best price on a pair of ankle boots is more important. I don't even know if I like ankle boots. Would I wear them if someone gave me a pair, sure. If they fit and didn't suck. But am I actually going to buy a pair, I don't know. Sometimes I think they look cool, but other times I think, "gosh, is that look totally out? Am I trying to make something happen here that really shouldn't happen? Do they make my legs look stubby, and if so is that cute?"

Here's where I really think this is going. What's happening here is a result of the tragedy of knowing too much. Here's what I know: I'm not a good writer. And by that, what I mean is I'm not producing stuff that makes industry professionals touch their chin and go, "Hmm, that's good." Now, I've been not a good writer for quite some time, but I didn't know it before. I was blissfully unaware of my own literary stench, and now that I know it's paralyzing. Because I care. I didn't used to care, and that was fine because I was young and just starting out, and I knew that it was only a matter of time and some hard work before I really, honestly would be good. It's just taking such a long time, and the work ethic is not there. I had it for a while, and then school. Then family. Then new episodes of 30 Rock and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. So I sit down to write something that I think could be really good, but it's not good because 1. nothing is ever good on the first draft, and 2. I am a whole lot of time and effort away from being good. I don't work hard. I just want it to be good the first time so I don't have to go back and fix it again and again and again. And when it doesn't come out just right the first time, I get frustrated and all my creativity retreats far back into the part of my brain responsible for remembering high school Algebra (i.e. the part of my brain that doesn't work).

Wow, I don't even remember what semblance of motivation I was supposed to pull out of this. Oh yeah - it's not going to be good the first time. Just accept it, and move on. Write the thing. I know you want it to be good (trust me, I do know), but you just have to get something down, and later you can go back and spend years painstakingly rearranging it so that people don't want to vomit when they try to read it (although, there are some books like that out there right now, and boy are they popular). Write it. Write a bad novel. Worse case scenario: it will always be good for a laugh. I wrote a hideous piece of Medieval fiction when I was 19. It took me nine months, it was 100 pages, single spaced, and it was all I could ever think about. Even had one of my friends proof read it for me. It is truly horrible, but I love that book. You never regret writing a bad novel. What you may regret is not writing a bad novel, because in the back of your mind you will always think, "what if it would have been good?"

Nano Is Coming!

If you're cool, you call it Nano. If you're not cool, you say National Novel Writing Month. "Whoa, whoa, whoa" you're thinking, "I thought you were a screenwriter?" Well, I am (okay, so I'm not, but go with me on this), but novels are fun, especially novels that have to be written in one month. 50,000 word novels that have to be written in one month. If you don't think that sounds fun, then how weird are you?

It's a literary vacation is what it is. You just sit at your computer and take a trip far away from structure, style and sense (yeah, this book is going to be greeeeeeeat). It's dangerous. It's super dangerous, and being dangerous is fun, especially when it's done in the privacy of your own home or a well lit, public coffee house (and not late at night at the coffee shop. And not the coffee shop with the one guy that stares at me sometimes when he doesn't think I can see him out of the corner of my eye).

What I'm kind of driving at here is I think you should do it with me. Mostly because it would be really good for you, but also because misery loves company. But mostly because I think misery loves company. Just do it. Do it. Dooooooo it.

This is going to be fun!

People Are the Greatest Stories

Thanks to Roger for reminding me of that. And that's the most awesome thing about being a writer (okay, so everything is the most awesome thing about being a writer, but for today we'll just make this one the most awesome), every part of your life, even when it has nothing to do with writing, has everything to do with story. Being a stressed out, Oreo addicted nursing student is a story. Granted, not my kind of story right off the bat - too melodramatic, and way too much crying. I'd have to throw something in there, like, all the faculty are actually aliens, but really funny aliens that are terribly unorganized and have no idea themselves how to take over a planet like ours, but they're still dangerous because they like to suck our brains out. That's a better story. Still, it's there.

I'm not writing anything creative right now because of school, and that is profoundly frustrating to me. But I have to remind myself of the concept of phases. Sometimes the writing process involves periods of not writing, or "incubation" phases. I'm just in a really, really crappy incubation phase right now. And, considering I have three distinct, and pretty well planned out screenplays up in there, this incubation could last a while. Probably about as long as, say, a typical first year of nursing school would last. I may be able to eek out a little something over Christmas break, but even the thought of that is getting my hopes up, and that I have to avoid altogether. First, the hopes go up, then the expectations rise, then I resolve on writing something, the resolve comes and goes without anything to show for it but the incredible guilt associated with letting myself down. So, yeah, no hopes up. Hopes must stay down, way down.

Who's tired of hearing about this? I see that hand. I see that hand.

Look at this instead:

Go see this movies. Shhhhhh, don't ask any questions, just go see it. You can catch a matinee, I don't even care, just see it.

There. That was for you.

The End of All Motivation

I'm talking about nursing school. I hate nursing school. I realize how bad that sounds now that I've actually written it down, but that's basically it. You know how many butts I wiped on Wednesday? Four. Four butts. Well, not four butts, it was the same butt four times. Same difference. And it's not even that. I don't mind wiping butts. Somebody's got to do it, and I'm the student, so I do it. It's probably worse to be the guy who has to have his butt wiped four times because the doctor was blasting him with fiber and laxatives, and the CP prevents him from getting out of bed to use the bathroom for himself, so he has to go on a bedpan, if he can make it, otherwise he just has to go in the bed, and tell me that's not embarrassing. Yeah, it's definitely much worse to be that guy.

Back to me.

I can't write. Even posting this blog is kind of painful. I've written nothing but a five page scene for a contest that, frankly, wasn't that great. The scene, I mean. The contest is fine. I have a pretty decent beginning to a screenplay that I have not touched since school started. I got nothing. It's not that I don't want to be a nurse, it's just that being a nursing student sucks, and what sucks worse than that alone is that I don't have anything left after doing all my sucky nursing homework to devote to what I really like to do, which is write. I'm not even keeping up with my nursing blog. Nothing. The only thing I haven't lost motivation for is watching TV. Still love to watch TV. Lots of TV. And ice cream. So much ice cream, you wouldn't believe. I'm actually going to quit writing this now, and go get some ice cream. There's been a lot of ice cream on sale lately.