moriartys.net

My Screenwriting III class starts tonight for me (I missed the REAL first class last week due to work related travel), and they want me to start a brand new screenplay for it.   Let’s see… I have the “competition screenplay” that I worked on with two friends that I still want to rewrite, the screenplay I started for SW I, and the one I worked on for Script Frenzy last year and started refining in my SW II class.  Now with this new one I’ll have four active screenplays rattling around in my noggin.

Apparently each level of this SW curriculum  wants to start with a clean sheet of paper.  I get that from the standpoint of refining technique at script creation, which is a tricky process all by itself, but I think I’ve reached my brain limit.  I’ve taken the goal with my writing group to get Rev 2 of one of the screenplays done by end of March, which will be a nice feeling.  At least then the screenplays won’t all be at the same development stage.

Anyway, this is mostly idle grumbling as I do love writing and am getting much better at the screenplay style as these classes wind on.   It’s all good.

I just finished reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and I’m mentally exhausted.  I’d had the book for months, picking it up in an airport bookstore and then never quite getting to it.

The Coen Bros’ movie “No Country For Old Men” led me to read McCarthy’s book of the same name, and I was, I guess the word is, impressed.  Throw in some awed.  Also a little intimidated.  It’s a fantastic book, and I’m glad I read it before seeing the movie.

The Road is something else entirely.  It has the same, taut, shattering use of English that I should be so fortunate to command for a single paragraph in all my writing endeavors.  It’s bleak and unflinching, and having read No Country I was under no illusions as to the likely fate of the main characters, the father and son.  Still, I could not stop turning the pages, hoping some ray of sunshine would hit these two nameless figures.  Their world is cold and cruel, but they have each other.  That is everything.

I’ve been warned that Blood Meridian is a difficult read, but I think I will have to work my way through the rest of this titles.  I’ll just have to pace them out a bit.

I cannot recommend The Road enough.  It’s not easy to read, but if you have a love of good writing and a willingness to go into some of the most hopeless and hopeful corners of our world, you will find it impossible to forget.

I think I’m going to need finger replacement surgery after this month.  I’m in the home stretch on NaNoWriMo, which I think I’ll complete okay with an extra effort this coming week.  The story is starting to flow a bit better, which of course helps the word count.

I’m also wrapping up the final revision on the first act of the screenplay due for for my Screenwriting class.  I’m very happy with how that is coming together, and can’t wait to complete the screenplay and submit it to a competition or two for some coverage.

Just doing two at once that proved a tad, perhaps a trifle, maybe a nudge over ambitious.   At least it helped me stretch myself a bit - which is the only way to learn your limits (and how to expand them).

What about my eeka, you may ask?  Not much, really.  But I did manage to get the dust off and upgrade this site software.  Will work on some plug ins and fancification later.

Just one small step for moi.  Next up - a stogie, a margarita, and some more (BLEEPING) NaNoWriMo.

Writing is a lonely hobby.  Just me and my evil foe, the Blinking Cursor Of Despair, slugging it out day after day.  So I’ll take any encouragement I can get along the way.  I’m not picky, but I find the unexpected nuggets are the sweetest.

Last night in my Screenwriting class we were taking turns reading our latest scenes aloud for the class to critique.  It helps enormously to hear your dialog actually read, and I usually do a lot of wincing and note taking about where things don’t flow.  Anyway, we had already done three screenplays that night, and he wanted to squeeze one more in before we broke for the night.  This class is 7:00pm to 10:00pm, so people are pretty bushed towards the end.   He pointed over at me to pass out my copies for reading and this guy sitting two desks away claps!  Another guy goes “Yes!  I love this script!”

I had NO idea.  There are eleven of us in the class and we’ve all been working our scripts for the past two months.  Nearly everyone in the class volunteered to read a part, and I got more kudos from people for the dialog and pacing.  I’ve been doing well on the assignments, but that sort of impromptu praise from the class, a group of people all fighting the same fight as me, was huge. I’m going to see if I can finish this baby off for a local film festival submission in December!

The moral of the story is to never underestimate the impact of a little praise or some encouraging words.

I’ve been spending some time working on screenwriting over the past few years, and I’ve recently started to take it more seriously. As such, I’ve been looking for goals to help me challenge myself. One of these is participating in Script Frenzy.

Short version - it is a challenge to write a full, feature-length screenplay in a month. No easy feat. I have my ideas, some characters, and a rough story arc, so we’ll see if that (and a lack of sleep) is enough.

Gonna be a goood time!