Call me a quitter, sticks and stones

This picture represents my life the past week - drafting Keys to the Garden and working on my cake decorating class. The cake is my final project for the course. The screenplay is a stack of papers I'd like to burn.

Just kidding.

I decided early this morning that I wasn't going to kill myself over the Nicholl. It's difficult to feel motivated when you wake up feeling like someone woke you up by punching you. All over your body.

Ok, I'm a little disappointed about not being able to finish in time but not much. (1) I'm leaving for a weekend roadtrip tomorrow. So that bumps up the midnight Saturday deadline to early Friday morning. Precious precious hours. (2) I'm finding more problems as I write. Namely that I seem to keep running into the same action sequence. I made some good changes, but it's still going to take some elbow grease to get the new changes ironed out. (3) I never thought I had a shot of winning. I wanted to use this year just to see if I could make it past the first cut. (4) I advanced my draft 35 pages this week alone. From Sunday through Thursday. I'm going to throw out most of the three pages I wrote today, but still I'm happy with the extra shot of motivation.

Here's to keeping it up for the other upcoming competitions.

Unlikely to finish

Though I made great progress today. 11 pages. Lots of new material.

Also, I'm retitling it. No longer "Guardians" or "Keys to the Garden" or anything like that. Now I'm going to call it "Even Angels Swear."

Sometimes

Sometimes life moves very quickly. For someone who lives at home and no friends, I've been incredibly busy the last couple weeks. Which is nice in most respects except (A) I wasn't sure I was going resist collapsing from exhaustion yesterday, (C) I'm completely missed *two* Bones episodes, and (C) the Nicholl deadline is now a week away.

...

Last time I checked, I think I was on page 12.

One of the most frustrating things about writing is fitting it into the schedule. Trying to balance life and writing and employment requires more grace than I am known to have. Having a job means coming home exhausted and drained. Taking trips means several days that are a complete wash. Pursing other hobbies means less time time to write. Add in friends, and I'm pretty sure I've suddenly become overbooked. There are so many ways NOT to write that it's a wonder anything ever gets written at all.

But it means that those who really want to write will. It takes sacrifice and discipline, something I did not show when I come home last night, threw on sweats, and proceeded to watch several hours of television. The key is balance, though. I don't think that it's worth missing out on life in order to write. The writing relationships is one of the only ones that actually suffers from monogamy.

Oh, and deadlines are incredibly helpful with productivity.

It also helps that I've now finished watching the first two seasons of the BBC Robin Hood series online. I'm going to go through severe bouts of withdrawal now that I have to wait for my DVDs to come in the mail. Netflix is such a tease.

Not gonna lie, I might choose Robin Hood over Mr. Darcy.

8 inches of snow and then 40 degree sunshiney weather results in flash flood conditions

Movies I need to buy: Moulin Rouge and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Money I have available for buying movies: $0.37. No,but really, I was thinking about how I'm going to have to go hardcore on budgeting next year with living in a house and going to school part time and paying for most of my monthly expenses by the month instead of a huge chunk in the beginning of the semester, and it's going to take a little tricky planning. That's ok, though, because getting better at keeping track of my finances was one of the things on my 1001 list (which needs revising, I've decided...).

I'm terrible at storyboarding. I've figured that out - well, today. I think I always knew that my inability to draw and mentally visualize proportions curtailed my storyboarding skills, but today it became quite evident. I thought about putting the storyboards for each production up on the Lives Agape website, but I don't want to embarrass myself *too* much.

We turned in Act IIa for our screenplays last week (yes, the marathon writing that I did). My professor emailed me back saying that it was coming along very nicely and that he didn't have any major notes. Which is great and all, but I'm going in to office hours next week and demanding that he give me deep, critical notes. And I'm also going to ask him to read my other screenplay that I like and give deep, critical notes. It may be time to rake it through another draft. And I'm thinking about sending Current Draft to the Nicholl this year, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to wring a second draft out of it before that. I should have enough time, because the last half of April will be post school empty, meaningless days.

And Script Frenzy starts in April. Screw.

I think I've reached my teenage years as a writer. All those axioms and heart mantras seem, well, a little constraining. I mean, does a story really need 20+ rewrites to be great? Italian neorealism films hardly had a bloody script (granted, I also hate Italian Neorealism, but that's counterproductive to my point). And I feel that that structure is a little irrelevant as long as you have a good story. It's really marvelous, though, because there were two incidents that happened recently that I found amusing with my whole rebellious writer phase:

1. Mystery Man on Film wrote this post about "the storytelling debate," an obvious rip on McKee (at least I hope it is, because that's what I interpreted it as, and I just called it obvious). Rules can be great, sure, but some of the most beautiful pieces come when a person breaks the rules. I think we call them visionaries, no? There's just a bit of snarky rebellion in MM's post that I feel I can snicker with.

2. I got to explain act structure to one of my friends. I think I was referring to my 26-page marathon and realized the phrase "Act IIa" might not mean anything to him. So I broke it down, explained what happened in each one and how the plot points worked, and how long each one took, roughly. His response was along the lines, "You guys really think about all that stuff?" Not four days later, I got to refer to act structure with another friend who was equal unawares. Clearly, act structure is very important. It's a natural rhythm for storytelling. And I'm sure if the act structure in a movie was completely off and we sat my two friends down in front of it, they would realize at least that *something* was wrong.

I'm not sure what it is. I don't think I've written enough screenplays to feel bored with the traditional rules yet. I don't think I've "mastered" traditional forms yet. I think I just start feeling restless when I look at the rich history of storytelling and think about all the stories to be told because all the rules are just as insistent. Maybe we need a different approach. Maybe writers need a chance to experiment with their own voice before being confronted with the traditional rules. I know, I know, they've been tested, they've been tried, and rules that create structure free some part of your creativity or something. Maybe that's true. Maybe I'm being lazy. Maybe I'm being a rebellious writer in her "teenage" years.

But maybe it's time to try something else.

The Transforming Power of Film

Well, I'm back from camp. No more sleepouts. No more almost stepping on frogs in the middle of the night. No more star gazing. No more showering with insects. No more Bible Exs or devotions or awesome campers. No more cookouts and ice cream and worship Tuesday night. No more songfests. No more counselor hunts. No more bird names. No more of a lot of things. Until next summer, that is. Cross my fingers.

I didn't get much writing done this summer. Waaay too busy. I've got a few ideas though, so we'll see how it goes in the next couple of weeks.

So I have a friend whose friend had a life changing experience with a movie. He saw Transformers, and it's inspired him. To do what, you might ask.

Join the Air Force.

I don't know whether to be encouraged or exasperated, really. It is, at the very least, revealing, I think. Obviously I'm going to have to see Transformers eventually. On a similar writing note, I got my gentle let down from the Nicholls. I finished Script Frenzy with a horrendous script. So I'm feeling a little pressure to make this next script, if not good, at least a story that I like.

Paranoid Writer Syndrome

I have very recently realized what a nervous writer I am. The thing is, writers are all a little bit mental. We all have our varied neurosises, which are, of course, endearing, and the one I will focus on today is our disinclination towards the Current Draft.

You see, the Current Draft proves what absolutely inadequate writers we are. Any previous successes can be admired and future ideas can be refined into idols, but the Current Draft, well, that's what matters. And if you can feel that with each key you press on your keyboard, your story becomes less inspired, more cliched, and flatter than the paper it will be printed on - well, that sort of dread doesn't just go away. The problem with the Current Draft is that it proves we are Talentless Hacks.

I wrote a screenplay last summer. I even sent it off to the Nicholl competition last week. And as I was working on it, I was happy to notice one thing. I Liked It. I really, truly enjoy the story of The 4:05. I would be happy to work on it for years, rewriting it incessently, grinding my teeth against unnecassry but enforced changes, watching it on the big screen. It's a story I am proud of. And even one of the shorts I've written since. It's been through two drafts and received some criticism from a screenwriting student more advanced than I, and I can see myself working on it until it's perfect and pursuing its production by All Means Necessary (there's a scene with an outdoor wedding that might be a little tricky). So past scripts, ok, I Like Them and future ideas, well, I'm all geared up and excited for Script Frenzy. I spend waaay too much time gabbing on the message boards and dreaming up ideas for my poster, because I'm afraid if I do any really planning, I'll get bored with my idea before we start (another neurosis, Pre-Writing Burn Out). So past and future scripts, I Feel Good about.

It's this crappy thing I'm working on right now that's killing me.

I needed something to write in between the Nicholl competition and Script Frenzy, and I was bored with shorts, so I just picked one of my three feature ideas and just determinedly plugged away at it. Since this week, I've gotten it up to 28 pages. Not bad at all. I'm done with Act I, I think. The Thing That Is Bad, though, is the fact that I pretty much feel nothing for this story at all. Maybe I'll get attached to Act II. I have some good ideas. But that's like the Idolization of Future Ideas syndrome. Of course they're Good Ideas! I haven't written them yet!

What if The 4:05... what if it was - a Fluke? Writers don't get very many indications of Talent. All we have are those people who we force our manuscripts upon, and if they aren't legally bound to give us the thumbs up, they probably don't want to hurt our feelings anyway. Even if they genuinely, truly liked it, a writer will go crazy from the words "It was good" because what does that indicate, really? "It was good" gives no idea about Talent. And that is what matters in this business. You have to be talented enough to craft a story that enough people connect with that a script reader will give a Pass on it, a development producer will meet with you for lunch, someone will sign you, executives won't sign another writer to replace you, stars will connect with the characters, a director won't mangle it (too much), an editor won't splice it, distributors will buy it, theatres will show it, and thousands of people will spend their hard earned 8 dollars on it, just to ensure that you will get another shot at conjuring the magic that worked once. I know I've missed a whole bunch of people along the way, forgive me.

The point is, with the Current Draft, you can't be too sure you have that Talent. It's like training to be an economist without being sure if your supply and demand theories are right, training for desert fighting when you could be at war in the mountains, practicing the harp without hearing other harpists, building airplanes without knowing if the fact that you put in square windows is a bad idea (it is, by the way). Cameron Crowe once said that making a movie is like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. Screenwriting is no different.

And I'm just praying that it will rain.

Maybe if I write about screenwriting, I'll become a screenwriter.

This week I mailed off a script to the Nicholl Fellowship competition, run by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The guys who do the Oscars. This contest is *the* contest for amateur screenwriters. The $30,000 prize is nothing to sneeze at, but I think the thing that everyone really covets is the week-long trip to Hollywood where they introduce you to a lot of important people and let you go to lots of fancy dinners with your fellow star-struck and still dirt poor screenwriting winners.

Unfortunately, getting my script out in the mail was kind of a big hassle. I've decided I don't function well unless there's an abnormal amount of stress in my life. The night before I needed to mail out the screenplay I decided that Celtx formatting wasn't going to cut it for the Nicholl competition. Mind you, these people have accepted *handwritten* submissions before, and Celtx is only off by about half an inch with its dialogue margins and its type is a little too large, but I become a perfectionist in the worst of times. So that night I spent four hours reformatting into Word - and I didn't even finish. Transferring my script into Word also showed just how many typos my screenplay suffered from, though, so it wasn't a complete loss.

The next was May 1, the day it had to be post marked. I thought I would have enough time to perfect it and print it out to send it from our local post office by 5:00 pm. Imagine me, 3:30 on the bus back from New York City, stuck in traffic and frantically working on my laptop deleting superfluous returns, praying that my battery didn't die. Luckily, my aunt had tipped me off to a 24-hour post office back in New York in case I didn't make it in time for the Jersey post office. So when I had finally printed off my 78-page screenplay and squeezed it into the envelope at 7:30, it was back to the bus stop to go back into New York. A bus came pretty quickly, though I was almost denied entry because I had an open soda (I managed to hand it off to some nice man exiting the bus. Who says Jersey people aren't sweet?) but can you imagine letting something like that stop me? I wish it had, in retrospect, as I apparently boarded the local bus and was treated to an hour long scenic route into New York. On the plus side, now I know all the romantic spots to take my dates to impress them with the beauty of the New York skyline.

The 24-hour post office is only about ten blocks from the Port Authority. I must not walk downtown a lot at night (does 9:00 really count as night in the city that never sleeps?), but though I don't consider myself a girl who is easily unnerved, I'm not sure what I would have done if I had needed to take a side street off 8th Avenue. Creepy. Apparently, lots of people need the 24-hour service, because when I got there, the line almost stretched half the length of the building. I was in line for 45 minutes. On the plus side, I managed to engage the people around me in conversation. The guy behind me was about to graduate in film from the only other college I applied to along with Michigan. Crazy, I don't know big Hunter is or if we would have run into each other, but we could have been friends instead of random strangers in line at the post office.

Eventually, I managed to mail off my script. I think, though, that I could have just used the self service machines in the lobby to get the May 1st postmark. It's ok. I'd rather have my peace of mind.

My chances in this competition are slim. Around 5,000 people competed last year for 5 fellowships. But I still feel that even entering the competition was a big step. And it helped me finish The 4:05. I can completely put it aside now and start work on something new. I have a couple of features I'm tinkering with, but I'm most looking forward to June's Script Frenzy by the same people who do National Novel Writing Month. That's the month I leave for my summer job, though, so I'll only have 20 days to write a script instead of 30.

Like I said, I think stress is just a necessary part of my life...