DANGERLION

Two problems plaguing me:

1) Writing consistency. The best output I've ever achieved was during my last series of blogs about writing a screenplay. Once I stopped blogging my output shot way down.

2) I am not Pixar. This is obvious, as I am white, Jewish and have big front teeth and they are represented by a sweet CGI desk lamp called Luxo Jr. But what I mean here is that a large part of what makes Pixar's stories great is the testing of ideas, and they do it over and over again. Every step of the story development and writing process is assaulted by the collective criticism of a collaborative, creative culture. Arguments lead to the best ideas, and I am usually only getting this kind of discussion about my own writing from myself (at least early on). 

So here is what I am thinking. Is anyone interested in helping me write a BADASS STORY? YEAHHHHH

I will expose my entire process here, from idea to finished script, and post my ideas and writing on a daily basis for BRUTAL FEEDBACK! The commitment to the blogging will keep my output high, and the discussion around developing the story will lead to better and faster work. If anyone helps A LOT I will figure out a fair way to credit you, and if I ever receive any financial gain from the story I will cut you in on a % of the profit (it would be a small % and depends on the contribution). I'll commit to daily updates, waking up early, getting in the gym and bringing my A game as often as possible to keep the train choo-ing. 

My only parameter for this is that I want to write something FUCKING AWESOME. A dope sandbox for my mind to play around in, and for you guys to talk about with me. Something that we all would want to see in the movies. I have no clue how, if or when we'll get to FUCKING AWESOME, but that is usually part of the fun. 

WHAT SAY YOU READERS. Brilliant idea, or full of suck? HIT ME

Took me a little longer than I would have liked, but today I finally typed FADE OUT. Danced around the ending for a bit but today it all spilled forth. Total length: 80 pages. 

boom. :D

So the plan (now) is to print it out and place it somewhere far from sight for awhile. Eventually I'll get cracking on reworking everything that doesn't work. Which is a lot. I think I might attempt to write the 2nd draft longhand, something I've never done before...

Now the question is... what next? What do I write tomorrow? Think I'll go back to TalkTheTalk and work on some dialogue writing exercises for a bit. Was also thinking about inventing my own exercise where I try to write scenes and stories to specific music or playlists... attempt to capture the emotion and rhythm of the music. That could be pretty instructive, I'll give that a shot. As for the next major piece of work... do I rewrite this? TV pilot? Spec script? Play? Another feature? A game?

WHAT NOW DESTINY?!

A big TY to everyone who cheered me on or just read these posts. Could not have gotten here without you. 4 REALZIES. Let this blog be a testament to what you can do when you make your goal public and chug along at it, just a little each day. It takes a ton of work to get really good at something, but if you enjoy doing it, and you want to be the person who is really good at that thing... I believe you owe it to yourself to do that thing. Be the best version of yourself you can. Life is too short.

Happy New Year all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3hn6fFTxeo

I'm on page 70 and moving into the last major Act (Act 4). Definitely hitting my stride now, and feeling a huge desire to push through all the way to the end. I'm expecting it to come in around 85-90 pages, a count that I'm pretty happy with (better 85 pages than 130, both for my sanity and because a lot will get thrown out for ensuing drafts). Think I will be done this weekend or early next week!

Can't wait to print this thing out and hold it in my hands. I'll post a picture. Will be a very satisfying day. 

THREE BOOMS FOR FINAL PUSH

BOOM

BOOM

BOOM

60 pages! Ahaha. EAT IT, RESISTANCE. EAT MY SHORTS. Had two pieces of lemon tart last night, just fucking because. SCRUMPTIOUS

MagicNinja recently turned me onto a little exercise that has made sitting down to write (probably the hardest part of the whole writing thing) more appealing. It's called OBJECT WRITING. It's essentially a creative writing workout/warmup. You take a random noun and write about it for 10-15 minutes, using your senses to describe it. Screenplay writing, especially first draft writing, can get very mechanical... so anything that allows me to flex my ability to create METAPHOR!!!, I will get down with. I think poker players who have trouble putting in hands are facing the same resistance, so those of you who have that issue might want to try some kind of little fun exercise (hand reading game?) right before you play to get you in THE ZONE.

COFFEE GOOD. 

books I'm currently reading:

Page Fright

The Art of Game Design

Is where I'm at now. I haven't made significant progression here... but in the past few days I have written a lot of pages. We're working on a new Micros episode so I've been hammering out some early drafts, and I've probably written about 20 pages or so of that. Makes me feel strong like bull. My new goal for this script is to finish the draft by Christmas time. So about a month later than planned if I can stick to my daily regimen. Since there are no video games in the way anymore I think I'm golden. The old approach was to just spew out as much crap as possible in a suicide run towards the end of the story. Now I'm trying to be a bit more skillful and focusing on individual scenes, making sure that even if the scenes get cut later they're purposefully building towards something decent. The aim is to try to focus more on the enjoyment of the daily process than the desire to hit the finish line. The whole early draft process is painful as hell but there's gotta be some way to make it go down easier. I suppose I could just start drinking whiskey...

You all seem to have pretty good mentalities about running good/bad. I was expecting more tilted rants and bad beat stories. I guess that's what I get for blogging on a training site! Everyone is relatively well adjusted. Go break some monitors and smash some mice.

Saw Hugo in 3D this weekend, then had some ramen and pretzel flavored ice cream at Momofuku. Pretzel flavored ice cream rules all. Hugo was A+ too, I highly recommend (great family film).

What else. This blog post sucks. Is anyone out there playing Skyward Sword? I will probably blog my thoughts when I am a wee bit more in the mood. When you beat the game it opens up Hero Mode, a harder difficulty level. Maybe I'll play that jazz in early 2012 and give running commentary. If you made it this far, I gift you this epic song to grind to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THdRs7grqhE

update: on p. 50 now. MIDPOINT!

So much both has and has not happened...

HAPPENED

I beat Skyward Sword--

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

--in about 56 hours, averaging ~7 hours a day. 

BOOM!

I tend to indulge in addict-level shit like this with video games I love, and I'd like to think Nintendo would be touched that their latest masterpiece owned my soul despite me trying (failed ldo) to limit play time. Even my girlfriend fell into the venus flytrap  -- at first she was all "WTF, I've lost my boyfriend to a video game in which he pretends he's Peter Pan fighting weird pig-looking things with a virtual sword" before succumbing to the motion controlled amazingness that is this latest Zelda game (and spending a decent amount of her own time playing with me). I haven't sorted all my thoughts yet, but I will say it is:

 an INCREDIBLY FUN! and revolutionary gaming experience. It not only met my super high expectations, it blew them away. 4 realz.

If you are into games it is worth buying a Wii for, even if this is the only game you ever play on it. The implementation of motion controls into a game properly designed for them (and the game design is genius)... I have never had an entertainment experience that was as fun, immersive, or as epic as this one. It's the kind of thing you need to play to understand. It's not flawless, but most of its flaws are only flaws because of how grand the ambitions are. Cannot wait to see the games that Skyward Sword inspires in the future. OM NOM NOM. 

DIDN'T HAPPEN

Write anything. 

Well, I wrote some, but once Zelda arrived I forgot about my poor little screenplay and lost my mind to the Wii. I hang my head in sadness and shame that I missed my goal, but a healthy dose of realism always helps me in my quests to GET SHIT DONE. Pining away at what could have been is a useless emotion I discarded long ago. Tomorrow I'm going to set out my new plan (an improved version of the old new plan) and get cracking. I've had some insightful realizations about my process that have me freshly excited to begin the second leg of my journey. (boom)

If Zelda taught me anything, it's that I'm part of a great destiny and unless I wake up from my nap, the world is SCREWED. And how to play the virtual harp.

Today was the day SnappieVouz PM'd me. The content of the message: 

dude... start writing.

So I did. I did not like it or want to be doing it but I did. And I'm much happier now that I did than I would have been if I didn't. I'm at page 40 and am very glad I made the decision to blog about doing this. Because it's one thing if I shame myself privately. But another entirely if I shame SnappieVouz too.

Footnotes:

1. I have devised a plan that will surely increase my daily page output. What does Johnny Lodden think the chances are I stick to the plan?

2. BOOM is coming along well but starting to get CRAZY! Deadlines looming in the distance and I'm finding myself awake at 530am to optimize long run expectation. But I like pressure. I'm just not the same Jay without it.

3. Skyward Sword has gotten amazing reviews. I can not put to words my excitement but I will try. I've probably listened to the classic Zelda theme 4x/day for the past two weeks. I watched the GameTrailers retrospective and I've watched/read the IGN review multiple times. I'm having large Russian men come to set up surround sound tomorrow, just for this. The gf and I have been playing Wii Sports Resort to practice. I have been asking my friends if they have a Wii just so I can tell them to get the game and talk about how awesome it is. I am anticipating it will be a TOP 10 LIFE EXPERIENCE. 

Check out this Robin Williams commercial. 

4. I put out a new DC video today about Training and Practice. I think it's worth watching if you want to work hard to get better at poker, we discuss some useful tactics I found on 2p2.

5.. Everyone who happens to be reading - how are you running at poker? I will address your responses in a future post. Where I will talk more about ZELDA

Technically day 16, and I haven't written anything since my last post. This is troublesome and something I'm about to rectify by writing for the next 2-3 hours. But I have an excuse! It's not a great one (IMO) but it's as good as any: I went to LA to work on BOOM. We're editing this bad boy at a fiendish pace and I can easily say it is the most challenging project I've ever been a part of. Making a movie is hard. There are so many variables colliding with each other on a daily basis, we have over 300 hours of footage, and the story itself is so deep and so detailed that figuring out how to mold it into a <2 hr rollercoaster ride of a documentary is a real brain-shellacker. I am happy with where we're currently at, but a few days ago I would have been on the verge of crying. Luckily for my tear ducts poker turned me into an emotionless cucumber. I don't want to spoil anything so I'm going to be light on the details of the movie, but I have no problem buying into my own hype and saying this will be the ULTIMATE POKER MOVIE OF ALL TIME. Did I say that already in an earlier blog post? No clue. Time is folding in on itself. Hopefully we don't fail spectacularly. If so I will retreat to a remote location and sleep on a bed of cuddly sheep. BAAAA

I beat Uncharted 3 on hard mode the night before I left -- the whole thing took me about 12 hours. It was a top 3-5 video gaming experience (ever) and very satisfying. I'd rather play a game like that than watch 6 movies. I wish I had the energy to write my thoughts on the game design, the final levels and the challenge but I JUST DON'T. Expect some dishing on Zelda though -- I might have the most fond memories for that series out of anything and the anticipation is making my keys glisten with fingersweat. Can't wait to swing that gold wiimote. Can't wait. CAN'T WAITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

Long story short, I'm on page 36. Not too happy with my rate of only a little more than 3 pages a day... but considering I have 1/3 of a script done and 11 days ago I wasn't writing at anywhere close to this pace daily, I feel good. I know that more discipline will only improve my speed and the quality of the pages, and that discipline will come...

Today was the first day that I felt like the story was really working on a few levels. I mean, it's really terrible -- first drafts typically are, especially for someone with my experience... but it was the first day that I felt like hey, I can see this actually being really strong after I finish like 5 or 6 rewrites one day way down the line. Encouraging. The characters are finally starting to show their real voices and the dialogue, action and conflict are becoming much more interesting and fun to write. The sequence I'll start on tomorrow is going to be really exciting and should propel me to the midpoint of the story... boom.

Also... Uncharted 3 is as expected, totally cowabunga. I would not do the amazing justice with my words, so I will go with a letter grade: X++. Check out the metacritic reviews if you're interested... or just go rent/buy it. You will find your happiness/wonderment level raised to new heights.