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Oh hello.

The non-stop hellbent ride that is November is over. I have stopped buying sketchy sandwiches from coffee shops, feeling guilty about not working on my script, and exhaustion-based drooling. Thanksgiving was a hit (both in fun and to my word count), so I had to make up 16k words in 3 days. Basically, I'm a winner AND a baller. This novel is a hot mess, but there are some moments and/or characters that I'm fond of, and after I take a break I'm going to attack it with a highlighter, lift the three moments that actually work, and structure something new.

I mean, that's the plan so far.

In the meantime, I have some very specific goals (I outlined day-by-days goal about a week ago, in an attempt to productive to the max. I didn't write for the subsequent two days).

1. Finish the script for V. We are halfway through and I promised the script before Christmas. I'm confident that I can get it done. Every meeting I go into with him I'm expecting to get fired. I don't really know why I feel this way, but I have this mental picture of us sitting down, him looking at the pages quietly, and then saying, "Yeahhhh, this isn't going to work."

But not so! We had a great meeting yesterday, and he's even secured a DP already. Every time I think about him talking to someone about the film, I get a little hyperventilatey-nervous. It makes it super real. It also makes me feel a little bit famous.

2. Rewrite The Exit Strategy over Christmas break. This seems unreasonable when I say it, but I'm going to prep for rewriting all this month, reread the script, figure out the new elements, restructure, replot, reoutline. I have a week and a day off for the holidays, and I can knock through a prepped script that quickly. I think.

3. See some movies. There are some great indie films out that I want to catch, and the holidays are going to bring both popcorn flicks and award nominees. I'm down.

4. Blog about screenwriting more. The novel distraction is over. It's back to work.

Right Through.

About 5k ago I realized that I was on a dangerous road. I was leading my motley crew of four underdog characters straight into the heart of the opposition. Even if they were the most powerful, talented, amazing characters you had ever met, they were destined to lose.

It was sheer numbers.

Sometimes, in NaNoWriMo, when you've written yourself into a corner or you realize that you're going down a tangent that will never make it past the first draft, you're encouraged to write a one sentence transition --

"And then they rescued/killed/bamboozled the roommate/mob boss/Puff the Magic Dragon and found themselves back in New York City/Candy Land/a galaxy far far away."

While I was tempted to do just that, I couldn't. I've never been a writer who can jump around in her story. Even if I'm struggling for a detail, I don't just put [INSERT HENRY'S COMPANY HERE]. I pick a detail and continue. Half the time this means that I end up forgetting to go back and change the things I need to, but that's the way I do things.

I've hit a couple spots in my novel where I've thought, "This is a terrible idea. I know they say no deleting in NaNo, but clearly they had never run into an idea this abysmal. I'm about to solve the whole story/kill my main characters/introduce a dinosaur. This is really quite horrid."

But I've run with it. The only way out is through, right?

And the thing is, while running through plot points I will surely never revisit again, I've met characters and developed themes and expanded ideas that are creating the foundation of my story. When I realized I had written myself into a corner, that my ragtag band of four characters was about to storm a fortified citadel, I realized there was no way they could get in, get their friend, and get out alive. Not in a million years. I was really stressing about it, until I realized--

They don't get out. They are captured almost immediately. I mean, you'd have to be an idiot to try what they did, and it only made logical sense for them to fail. Which suddenly opened up so many questions for my characters. Was my protagonist really who she said she was? Were the other characters going to believe her anymore after this? Was she going to have any faith left in herself?

Every time I have powered through a difficult section, I have come away with useless plot but a richer story. Every time I force the story forward instead of avoiding it, I discover something new. And if that is all I get out of this month, if I have to rewrite my whole novel based on my month long investigation of these characters and their story, then I will be satisfied with NaNoWriMo, declare it a success, and then delve back in to rewriting the whole dang thing.

November?

Hey, guys.

I have so much I want to write about. So much. So little time.

I want to tell you about my script on assignment, how we're almost to the midpoint and how some days I feel like I'm writing crap and some days I start out feeling like I'm writing crap but at some obscure, undefinable moment I realize that I feel good about what I'm writing and I have for a few scenes. I want to talk about the lessons I've been learning and what it feels like when you look at a scene and realize you've implemented years of lessons and practice without even knowing it.

But we don't have time for that (but it feels good to be a gangster, that's what it feels like).

I want to tell you about the huge colossal kitchen fail I had. Guys, it was bad. And super disappointing. And yet still I managed to pull it back around to writing, because that's apparently all I think about now.

But we don't have time for that, and it's still a bit painful.

I want to tell you that if you manage your company's Twitter account, double check to make sure that you've signed back into your own before commenting on a blog or Tweeting or any such thing that can be traced back to you/them.

Really, that's a PSA I always have time for.

I want to tell you about NaNoWriMo. How I am behind because I missed a few whole days earlier this month. How I wrote a thousand words in fifteen minutes yesterday, punks, and how when I made it harder for my characters I made it a bazillion times more interesting. I want to tell you that this novel is going to need significantly more work than I expected post-November, but I think there's a pretty good chance I'll let other people read it.

But we don't have time for that, because I'm still 4,000 words behind.

I want to tell you that if you're looking for a roommate, pick someone who wears your size. It's like instantly doubling your wardrobe.

No brainer.

I want to tell you about the amazing amounts of talented people I've been meeting recently and how you should be meeting as many people as you can, even now. The other day I realized how many talented people I knew that would jump at any chance to further their career, and the amazing opportunity we have right now to do something together.

But we don't have time for that 'right now' right now, sometime after November.

I want to tell you that I haven't been this immersed in the culture and physical act of writing in so long and that I'm being immensely productive. And that the longer I do this, write ten pages of my screenplay then switch to my novel, cram as many words into fifteen minutes as I can, do nothing besides work/write/occasionally see the Hockey Player, the more I love it. Some days it sucks to be a writer. Some days it's difficult and everything comes out clunky and you're uninspired. But if I could do this all day every day, I would be over the moon.

I think I'm in love.

Holidays and Hostages.

I don't have anything to say about hostages. Let's just say it's better than the first consonance I thought up.

Since weekend holidays aren't lengthy enough to justify the trip back home, I spent Easter with the Hockey Player's family. It was nice, and I ate a lot. I did not much get writing done, but I'm pretty sure I got a pass.

There was one moment, as we were sitting around before dinner on Saturday, that I kinda felt like an idiot. I was talking with one of the other women, who was bouncing her newborn, her third son, on her knee when she started to ask me about my writing. I told her I was working on a screenplay and a novel. The trouble started when she asked me what my novel was about.

I hate. hate. hate summarizing what I'm working on. Because this is what I sound like--

"Oh, you know, it's like a fantasy."

To her credit, she continued to ask. "So are there dragons and things?"

"No, you know, it's more like a subtle fantasy." Really? Subtle fantasy? Who am I, some emo high schooler pretending my swords-and-sorcery novel is literature?

And then, because I have to divert the conversation away from my writing but keep it on me, I start to justify my choices.

"Genre novels, paranormal, fantasy, are actually doing really well on solely virtual platforms, like Kindles and e-books. So if it works well, I'd really like to look into self publishing through the internet. People actually make livings that way."

If I had been that articulate, at least I only would have come across sounding like a pompous big-headed nerd. Since I sorta stumbled all over my words, I came across sounding like a dumb pompous big-headed nerd [the Hockey Player insists this wasn't so, but I'm pretty sure he was sleeping on the couch at that point].

And this woman, bless her heart, was nodding along like what I was saying actually made sense, all while I felt like a fourteen year old blathering on about my first novel attempt and how it was going to be brilliant enough that I'd actually make MONEY off of it.

But you know what? I really like this story. The more I think about it, the more excited I get. And whenever I figure out how to talk about it, I for sure WILL be talking about it.

Speaking of fantasy, while we were away for the holidays, George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones, based on his Song of Fire and Ice books, some of my favourite books, premiered on HBO. Since one of the reasons I'm dating the Hockey Player is because he has HBO, I asked him to record it for us to watch when we got back.

I've literally been waiting for this series for over a year.

Needless to say, when we sat down to watch it, I was stocked. I broke the bank and bought name brand ice cream for the event. But when he pulled it up on the DVR, I was suddenly alarmed--

"Why is the description in Spanish?"

There was this silence, and then a very quiet, "Uh oh."

The Hockey Player doesn't just have HBO. He has HBO Latino. And guess which one he recorded.

Let's just say, lucky for our relationship, the episode was being offered on demand too. And the Hockey Player changed his DVR settings so that he'd record it in English. And it was pretty funny, too, watching the first five minutes, which has no dialog, and then to hear that dramatic first line--in Spanish.

I'm loving the series and wishing more and more that I had beyond basic cable [we don't even get TBS anymore]. Game of Thrones has already been picked up for a second season, so I told the Hockey Player that as long as he keeps his cable subscription around, he's got pretty good insurance on keeping me around too.

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris

Dear Reader. Dear, dear Reader. Let's talk.

First of all, I don't know what's made you so endearing to me all of a sudden. I must be getting sentimental in my old age. And speaking of you dear readers, it's quite alright to pipe up and say something once in a while. I do know people visit this site, oddly enough, you're not slipping that by me, and sometimes I lie awake in my bed at night and wonder why the heck someone from - is that Slovakia? - would find anything of interest here. And who the heck is still in my uni town at this time of the year? I'm not being a stalker, I swear, or a creeper who does like awake thinking about her blog (I already wrote what I lay awake thinking about), I just feel a little left out by all those bloggers who know how to figure out what people are truly Googling when they stumble across their blog.

But seriously - does anyone know how to find that out?

Bullet point number two - I told you I would write about how my creative endeavors (that's totally my new favourite word for some reason. I think it's because I keep using it in my Zoetrope reviews) have been going. Well here it goes:

I haven't written anything.

Ok, so maybe that's not *entirely* true. I picked three feature ideas I think have the strongest potential. I wrote a few lines about each of the main characters, maybe a little plot summary. I nailed a premise for a webseries and wrote out one to two sentence plot summaries for twelve episodes.

But any real writing?

...does writing directions count?

But I protest - this does not mean that I have been uproductive. Not at all, dear - anonymous lurker. I say no! Here it is what I have been doing instead, just over the past week:

- I have made this blog prettier. And for you, reader, I have tried to add some more useful links, blogs, and sites. ... Ok, at the very least, they're better organized.

- I watched Rules of the Game, Once, Stardust, Atonement, Purple Rose of Cairo, and The Searchers. That's six films. Seven if you count the director's commentary I watched of Walk the Line. That's more than I've probably been awake for over the past academic year (outside of class, of course, professors!).

- I cracked and got a MySpace account because some day, some how, in some weird way I might use it for networking. And I've been collaborating with my web designer for the Lives Agape page, hoping that will be running in a few days and "Join This Group?" will be up for the world to see.

- I started participating in two writer's communities: Wordplayer, which I fade in and out of, and Zoetrope, which I'm giving a third attempt, this time whole-heartedly. And it's working because in addition

- I read and reviewed four scripts. To get reviews for a script in Zoetrope, you first have to pay your dues. This was actually a really good experience, though I did all four of them in about four days, which was pretty draining. Let's just say my computer screen and I are still on delicate terms.

- I actively pursued reviews for The 4:05. It's in the hands of three friends/mentors that I know personally as well as being live over at Zoetrope.

- I read David Mamet's book 3 Uses of the Knife. ... I'm sorry, MM, I really am. I know how much you love him, but - he just doesn't cut it for me.

- I listened to threef Creative Screenwriting's Q&A podcasts on Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, Juno, and Waitress. These were incredible and inspiring, and I heartily recommend them. Go to iTunes to get them - don't look for them through that link. That page looks a little outdated to me, but I don't know how to link to iTunes.

So, no, I have not written a real word, but I dare you to call me unproductive. I have learned a lot over the past week.

But still, I felt guilty about not really writing. I mean, I have all this time. I'm not going to be able to write at camp again this year, and when it comes to being back at uni, if I'm honest, I typically put writing second to life in any shape or form. Isn't this a waste? Shouldn't I be pushing forward with something? Haven't the Greats told us that we need to write every day? What good are all the lessons I'm learning if I'm not actively applying them in my writing life?

But something clicked in all those lessons. It came through Zach Helm (Stranger than Fictions, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium) and Diablo Cody (Juno, Jennifer's Body). And that was this. When asked about their writing schedules and writer's block, they said, honestly and point blank -

If they don't feel like writing, they won't.

I think hearing it twice, from writers who have crafted incredible movies, made it okay for me to face the frustration and lack of motivation and dissatisfaction and the slight panic that comes from not wanting to write. Maybe it's just an excuse. Maybe it shows a lack of will power in me. Maybe it shows a lack of devotion in me. I know there will be people shaking their heads at me. For some people, this is not an "okay" action to take right now. But I think that I'm okay with that. Because you know what? Writing is supposed to be a joy. Sure, it's a heck of a lot of hard work, and it's not always pleasant, but the fact that I have a story that I'm passionate about and that I love - that's supposed to bring me joy. And I don't feel that right now about any of my projects. There's potential there - but there's not any joy yet.

So I'm not going to write. I don't know for how long. Long enough for me to find the story that I want to write. And I don't mean that I'm not going to write at all - now that's bordering on crazy talk. I'm most definitely going to blog (maybe more than usual, actually), because I'm still going to be reading books and listening to podcasts and watching lots of movies, and I want to write about those lessons that I'm learning there. I'm still going to read scripts at Zoetrope and write reviews.

And I think I'm going to take some time to do some personal writing, handwriting, journaling. Because I think the story that I want to tell next - I don't think it's going to come from outside of me. It's inside, I'm sure, sometimes I think I can hear it. So that's where I need to go.

It sounds like it might be a novel.

I can hear every plane that flies over my room.

Sometimes this is fun. I was sitting in Dunkin Donuts the other day, and it was cloudless, and all of a sudden this huge shadow quickly swept over us. It was a plane, and it was pretty cool. I forgot about the air traffic over Jersey.

I also forgot that I have trouble sleeping in my own room. I think it's because I get too much sleep at home.

My 101 Things to do in 1001 Days list is almost done. It's hard coming up with that many things.

I was looking for a quote on painting by Renoir, the artist not the filmmaker, the other day - well, that was really just a cover for me looking for quotes on writing - and I came across some really good quotes. I will sprinkle my posts with them to make myself look learned and witty.

"Writing is a fairly lonely business unless you invite people in to watch you do it, which is often distracting and then [you] have to ask them to leave." - Marc Lawrence

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." - Red Smith

I've been living at home for the past couple of weeks. This has been a great experience for me creatively. Not only have I had the opportunity to sit around and do nothing all day except take long walks and write (note to self: it's 11:15 and you still have not written 5 pages for Current Draft. Darn.), but I have come to acknowledge something. Every writer should take advantage of the inspiration around them to write a family drama.

I most of my ideas are dramatic. I'm not really good at comedy, and though I'd like to take a couple of stabs at action, I'm not as interested because I don't think it has the potential for revelation and exploration that drama has. In drama, you *expect* people to have life-revealing monologues dripping from their lips. Yeah, so, anyway, I had this idea for a family drama. I was thinking of writing it after I finished The 4:05, so I did a little prewriting on it (which for me is saying something) and promptly moved on to something else and forgot about it. Now it's in my notebook with a whole bunch of other ideas that are in no hurry to be written but are waiting for a time when I'm just looking for something to play around with. Should have picked that story instead of Current Draft.

The point is, I was hanging out the other day with my Aunt. We had gone out to lunch, just the two of us, because we have nothing to do. It's fabulous, we're living this life of ridiculous luxury (until I go to work next week), and her new favourite line at restaurants is to tell the waiter, "Don't worry. We're not in a hurry." Because we're not. She's living us (and other various relatives) while her house is being built, and I'm just doing... nothing. My aunt is a great talker. I have a problem coming up with interesting things to talk about with people I see on a regular basis, but not this woman. One thing we talk about, because she has spent so much time travelling around different family members, is our family, especially the stories that my grandparents tell her. In fact, we've decided that our family history, as colorful as it is, would make an interesting book.

So I already have it in the back of my head the vague idea for this novel, when I really start to pay attention to how my family relationships are *right now.* I mean, sure, the fact that my great-grandfather rode off with my great grandmother when she was 15 and they got married at a crossroads before her father could find her is definitely interesting. But at the same time I have all these ideas in my head spinning. About how siblings interact. The ways that you can learn new things all the time about people you've known you're entire life. How to so many people who've lived independent lives can come back to one place and coexist together. How just taking the time to go to lunch with someone two times a week and listening to them can strengthen your relationship with them. And all this time, I realize that the time I should be writing my family drama script is right now. Because you never understand family dynamics so much as when you are actually in the midst of them.

And besides. If you're looking for inspiration, well, your family will give you an infinite amount of drama.

"I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear." - Joan Didion

Current Draft v. Old Love

I am now 43 pages into Current Draft. I had a miserable time writing today. Perhaps it was because I went to the library this time, where there's internet but no eating or drinking. Perhaps it's because I started writing a scene that pretty much mirrored an earlier scene and yet I could not delete. Perhaps it's just because I really don't like this story. Only yesterday it was starting to grow on me when I made one of my angry but trying teenagers beat the crap out of a jukebox with his drum sticks.

That was fun.

I've started adding all these cool features to my blog, besides its recent face lift. I'm quite fond of them. I like how writerly my picture makes me look, though in reality I think that night I was trying to read an article for Film History on the French New Wave or something after three nights of getting an average of 5 hours of sleep. I'm going to try to figure out how to do progress bars for my stories like Emily does over on her blog, because I'm sure that's what you all are *really* here for.

My aunt has been reading The 4:05, which thrills me. The last time we talked about it she had just stopped right before the Climax. She only started reading it yesterday, and I'm sure she's done by now, so I said to her at dinner, "Don't you think it's easier to read scripts than novels?"

And to my surprise, she said "no."

The thing is, sure, she reads it faster, but she was telling me how much she misses the description of novels. "Purple prose," I once heard it called, and screenwriters are told to stay away from it like the plague. Which, I feel, causes a dilemma because film is also a *visual* medium, they tell us over and over again, trying to make us screenwriters feel bad about our words, it's a *visual* story that's where the art comes from not from your snappy dialog and I just want to say, oh yeah? then what about all those college guys who spend their lunch periods quoting movies? Yeah, I never had to endure forty five minutes of them trying to recreate the angles and proportions of the puzzle scene from Citizen Kane!

I digress.

And then she got me thinking... a novel would be nice. I know I'm scripting in June, but what if I worked on a novel, over the summer (this summer is turning into quite the writer's treat, as I shall expound later... oh, expound, what a fun word.). Because, see, I don't know if you've noticed, but I've gotten a lot more... verbose lately. Verbage everywhere! I'm pouring out by the paragraphs, frivolous, superfluous dialog that would be strictly forbidden in the scripting world.

And I remember, how I started as a *fiction* writer. All this nonsense about movies came later. I can practically already feel the salt wind coming off the ocean in my setting. There's even an indistinct character walking along the beach and a woman who's watching him. It's so tempting...

Here is the problem. I have written three novels and another novel-length piece, but I've never written a real novel without NaNo. And it's terribly difficult, or at least daunting, to switch from the style of screenwriting to the style of novel writing. I was terrified to do it for NaNo this past year, but somehow I pulled through. A writer is a writer is a writer. I'm confident that I could even be a halfway decent poet if I tried long enough and practiced hard enough. And I've already novelled. Maybe I'll start in secret and type away furiously until I think I have a sustainable effort that can be proudly touted in front of everyone (what am I saying, a secret? I have a blog for crying out loud). Maybe I won't attempt anything at all until November, when I was planning, I confess, to write something silly and completely unsellable as it would not even be under my copyright.

Someone actually called me a serious writer on the Script Frenzy board (much love to you, sir!). Perhaps I could be a serious novelist for once.

Because, you see, Old Loves never really leave. And mine is tempting me back right now.