A Little Catch-up Entry

Just finished reading a couple days out of Kevin Smith's life, and started to feel like maybe I should make an entry. It's a little less easy to just plop down and blog now that I have ti actually make an effort to do so...

So okay, it's Wednesday, before I go to work.

Monday night I discovered that Step 7 is actually taking the story and backstory I've created and just trying to make the first story beat happen. I wrote the first page and quarter-page of the first draft of the first episode of Ezekiel Hollow and I'm proud of it!!! I read an article in Creative Screenwriting magazine by Karl Iglesias, whose new column is titled "Crafting Emotional Impact", and he helped me ensure that first scene worked.

Iglesias points out that a screenwriter (professional or asping) isn't trying to write a well-structured, well written script; he/she is actually -- if they are serious about their craft -- trying to creat what he calls "WOW! moments". And we want them on every page!!! That is to say, if someone picks up our script and randomly opnes it to any page, that someone should be compelled to continue reading! Because let's face it, if the scrict isn't that good, it doesn't really stand a chance of competing in a marketplace that has better and better writers.

Basically, every writer that inspires me and makes me want to write stories: I'm competing against them! That's a bit of a generality, but not really an overstatement.

I mean, I want to write and produce radio dramas to hopefully be heard on whatever radio stations will play them, as well as possibly the Net, and to be sold as cds. Now for a person -- for you, reading this -- to buy my story you have to use the money you have. And that's money you might be saving for a Spielberg or Soderberg or Sonenfeld movie, a Crichton or Koontz or King novel, or to buy Twilight Zone or Firefly or Simpsons on dvd, or your favorite comic books, or your favorite manga, or you favorite videogames!!! So I really can't dick around with my mediocre stuff. I have to hit you with material that is better that I think I can pull off.

THANK YOU, KARL IGLESIAS!!!

So anyway, Monday night I found that "channel" that allowed me to tap into the best I can do (on the first pass, anyway) as a writer and I was pleased by my writing.

In fact, I've got this theory that when we create something good, we know it. We feel it. (Maybe this is just true if you've been doing it for a few years. It may take time to set our creative "barometers", I'm not sure.) And if you're really dying for someone to tell you whether or not it's good, then it's not ready yet.

And I tested this theory Monday night. I wanted to show the pages to My Genius Friend Dave, but then I realized that I felt that the pages were good. But then I wondered how much I could trust my theory -- I mean, it's not as though I'm a professional writer, right? So I explained all this to Dave and he agreed to read the pages.

And he liked them.

Now, this might seem as though I'm like "Dave, tell me these pages are good" and Dave's like "Oh, all right, they're good." Dave's not like that. He's a Creative, too, and he truly understands the value of HONEST feedback. (Something that only true Creatives appreciate: Wannabe Creatives just want to hear that their work is good -- been there -- but Real Creatives want to know what needs to be fixed, so that the next person to check out their work is honestly impressed.)
So I trust My Genius Friend Dave when he assures me that the work is solid.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm only talking about a page and a quarter. It's not like I wrote the whole first script.

HOWEVER, without the individual pages I can't have the entire script. And without each script I can't have the whole series. And the point is that I can turn out pages packed with interest! That's the accomplishment I'm going on and on about.

So YAY!

And then last night Brian and I watched Dogtown and the Z-Boys, the documentary that inspired the movie Lords of Dogtown currently at your local theater. It was great!!!

And then we stuffed ourselves full of the first half of Father of the Pride: The Complete Series!!! GENIUS comedy!!! I honestly can't believe the show got canceled!!!

Oh, and I listened to more of the Star Wars: The Radio Drama! Good stuff! Inspiring stuff!
Let's see, I heard "Fit the Twenty-fifth", the penultimate episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy the radio series. (Next week, it's all over...)

Oh, and Monday I had my teeth cleaned, then yesterday I had some filling put in (2 consecutive days in the dentist's chair)! And as I was leaving the dentist's office, I got to say hi to Brian, who was just settling into the chair!!!

A fairly packed couple days, really!

I hope that maybe tonight I'll get the next scene written.

OH! Just a note on craft: When I write the scenes, what I do is outline all the material that should go into the scene, writing rather a dense synopsis of the scene. Then when I write the pages, I usually end up streamlining some stuff out. Basically, I write more than I will be able to fit into the scene. That is, I believe, how I accomplished a compelling page-and-a-quarter.

The Newbie tendency is to write the pages, and let the scene unfold as the pages get written. And that seems to work for novelists and short-story writers. But screenwriting -- and at least my audioplays -- can't afford the figurative "ums" and "ahs" that happen when the writer is trying to figure out what happens next. There needs to be a rich world beneath the surface, the story can't exist only on the surface.

So in order to do that without writing an actual treament, I do that with each scene just before I write it.

There seem to be many different creative processes in play, and switching between backstory and characterization and treatment and pages and back to backstory again seems to keep the creativity alive for the impatient writer. (Me.) A more disciplined writer could probably do one from beginning to end, then do another from beginning to end, and so on.

But I am not a disciplined writer.

And I'm aware of that. And I'm attempting to ensure that my impatience does not -- as it has for the last 12 years of my life -- interfere with getting the actual work done.
So there. Probably one of my more pompous entries, and sorry about that. But maybe it's helpful to someone...

:)