Monthly Archives: December 2009

It’s Okay to Say “No”

I learned something new about myself, yesterday. 

Okay, I love to write.  But my “writing time” is precious and I don’t want to spend it on a project that doesn’t bring me pleasure.  Kind of sounds selfish.  But,that’s it in a nutshell…

A filmmaker was kind of enough to ask for my help on a collaberation.  He outlined the direction he wanted me to go and I spent a couple hours writing five pages.

On one hand, it was a learning experience … a genre I would never tackle on my own.  On another hand, I didn’t enjoy it at all.   The main character needed to be a “super hero”.  Let’s face it.  Outside of Superman, I’ve never watched anything vaguely related to super heros.  Needless to say, the filmmaker didn’t like anything about my five pages.

So, I changed my mind about being part of the project.  The filmmaker was willing to work with me and, I suppose if I was younger, I would have kept plugging ahead.      In fact, I think if  I was younger, it would be difficult to say “no” to any project.  But at this point in my life, I’m going to allow myself the luxury of picking and choosing what I write.

It is good for me to  delve into projects outside my comfort level and I know it’s good experience to do this.   And I do that, quite often, at MoviePoet.com.    The environment at MoviePoet.com allows me to experiment without too much fear …   But for me to “experiment” on someone else’s project.  Just could not do it.

I’m going to write what gives me pleasure and participate in projects I feel good about.

It’s okay for a writer to say “no”.   That’s what I learned.

Lots Going On…

I’m about five hours into the rewrite of “A Thousand Miles to Freedom”.   And I’m only up to page six.    But, it’s a MAJOR rewrite with significant changes.  I realized this morning that now I’m telling the story through a character who wasn’t even in the first draft.

It’s a process.  Writing is rewriting.   I’m willing to go the long haul because I really love this work.  I  love seeing the SP develop, take shape, grow…  I just hope that someday I’ll see one of my features on screen!

A filmmaker on DVXUser contacted me about collaborating with him on a couple of stories for the Betrayal Fest.  As soon as I get his notes, I’ll get started. 

I finished a “Betrayal” short based on a  story idea by Robbie Comeau.   Title is “Speculative Affection”.  I posted the logline on DVXUser and I’m waiting to see if anyone is interested in using it.

Over a week ago, I wrote a short for another DVXUser filmmaker.   I sent it to him but I haven’t received comments or anything, yet.   This is the frustrating part of being a screenwriter.  We do so much work and then wait… wait… wait…

Which is why it’s good to have several projects going.   That way there’s always something to keep you focused so you don’t dwell on the waiting… waiting… waiting…

I entered three stories in the NYCMM “Tweet Me a Story” contest.  Each story had to be 140 characters or less.  My entries had to include the word PRETEND.   Two of my stories advanced to the next step, the voting!  The stories that advanced are:

(1)    He tried to pretend nothing had changed but war had taken his legs and he could only dance in his dreams. So he slept & danced all night.

(2)   She could pretend to love a rich man. She even married him. After she killed him, she was wealthy, but no one ever loved her again.

Changing Viewpoint in “Freedom”

I started a major rewrite of “A Thousand Miles to Freedom”.   When I say major, I mean MAJOR.  I’m going to tell the story through another character’s eyes.  It will be tricky to pull off but I think it will be a more unique story.   That’s all I’m willing to say at this point, but I think it will improve the marketability of this story.

One thing I’m doing different with this rewrite is kind of “mechanical” in nature.  First I read the SP through on the computer (with the rewrite in mind).   Usually I do this with a hard-copy.  As I read and got ideas on how to change the story, I made  notes  in a different color.   In the past, I’ve always made my notes on the hard copy.  We’ll see how this change works…

Back to Work

So, I didn’t compete in the finals of the NYCMM screenwriting championships this week-end.  What did I do?  Well, not much writing but, I did “think” about writing.  Not the same thing I suppose, but, I guess we all need a break every once in a while.

I worked on this site a bit.  In fact, I uploaded a recently-written short “Aichmophobia”.  It’s a thriller about a man who develops a phobia (fear of pointed objects) and tries to get revenge.

Hey, I did get all my Christmas shopping done and we put up the Christmas tree.  The family went to an H1N1 clinic and got our flu shot.  I was busy, except for the hours I spent vegging on the sofa.  I began to read “The Seven Rays”, Jessica Bendinger’s novel.   I usually don’t read “fantasy” but I want to enter the novel’s scene SP contest next year so I’m reading the book to find which scene I want to write.

I guess the next few weeks will be spent rewriting “A Thousand Miles to Freedom”.   I want to enter it in some contests next year so I’ve got a bit of clean-up to do.  Besides rewriting, I’m going to continue to flesh out the screenplay I’m going to start writing in January.

So I kind of took the week-end off but not really.  I was busy.  Just didn’t get much written.

No Contest this Week-end

Well, I didn’t proceed to the finals of the NYCMM contest.  As much as I wanted to participate, I found that I wasn’t too disappointed.   I’m glad that I entered and I got some important lessons from the competition but the writing week-ends were always very stressful.  And, with the holidays upon us, I don’t need anymore stress.

I learned two important things from this contest.  First, I can write under a deadline.  I’d rather NOT have a deadline but I can do it and that’s an important thing to know.  The other thing I learned is that I can write about just about anything that is thrown at me.  I mean, if I can come up with a science fiction story that has a fish farm AND a plunger in it, I must have some creativity hidden inside my brain.  Somewhere.  I just have to find it and coax it onto the paper. 

I’ve left some hints to  Santa that I would really like to find Dramatica Pro 4.1  under the tree on Christmas morning.   From what I’ve read, I think it would be a great help to boost creativity and help in story development.

I was surfing the web the other day and discovered a great writer’s resource.  I’ve posted the link .   It’s a great resource for finding Great Quotes.   And it has them sorted all kind of ways, by topic, person, etc.  There are even quotes for movies.