DANGERLION

pages wrote: 5

total pages: 26

Polished off the first act yesterday. Today we move into Act 2, a whole new world!!! Everything that came before was related to the main character's situation causing a big problem in his life. An opportunity was presented (in the form of his estranged sister returning home after a long time) and now he's decided to take it because it seems way more fun than what he was doing before. Little did he know he'd be dealing with an airplane full of Japanese revolutionaries. Silly goose.

Uncharted 3 gets here at some point today. Only allowing myself to play after the day's writing is complete. If you get it/have it and are playing multiplayer let me know, we can make some things go BOOM

We had some people over to watch The Evil Dead, which was super gory and unfortunately not scary at all. Back to the grind today as I near the break into Act 2...
Happy Halloween! 

nawhead commented on my last post with some good advice: 

you should just write something very derivative. just copy other better things. and if it's bad, so what? then write it again better. and if it's still bad, so what? then write it again better. this is what the Bronte sisters did. 

http://thetalentcode.com/2009/03/30/bronte-sisters/

I'm not too worried about being unoriginal, but I was being too hard on myself too early. I thought I needed the perfect solution to the whole puzzle NOW but that really will not come without time and work and tons of rewriting. So I sat down in Scrivener (nifty outlining program) and thought about what choice I could make now that would open up the most possibilities for later, and I settled on one. From there I was able to outline a bunch of the important beats throughout the rest of the story. This should make things go much more smoothly -- I now know I need to get from point A to B to C to D to E to F to G to H, and what those points are. They may not be the best ideas, but they'll get me to the endgame.

some other tools i'm using to get this done:

Final Draft (for the screenwriting)

Dramatica Pro (story structure)

Evernote (to remember any and every idea)

pages wrote today: 4

total pages: 21!

Failed badly at writing 10 pages. Wrote 1! instead. Terrible. Atrocious. Pathetic. At least I'm being honest about it.

pages: 1

total pages: 17

I'm now coming up against the problem of not having made a rock solid structural plan. A very important character has just arrived, and her arrival creates an opportunity for the main character to change his situation. But I'm dealing with decision paralysis: deciding what that opportunity is and what the main character decides to do with it will end up informing the entire meaning of the story. I'm really inclined to spend the time I have tomorrow and Sunday thinking this through more and laying out these two characters' entire arcs...

Today the resistance was brutal. Really did not want to write. Somehow got through 4 pages, but it was torturous. Have to EMBRACE THE PAIN!@@!

pages today: 4* (may come back later)

total pages: 16 (I miscounted somewhere?)

I'm yet to get on a big roll, so new insane mini-goal is to sprint to the end of the first act (p.25-30) by the end of the day tomorrow... hoping my disgust with today will motivate me BIG TIME

BACTA TANK BONUS

Six pages wrote today Tecmo. Six pages wrote.

That's 13 total. Today I even managed to sneak in a wee bit of rewriting to make everything up to this point read better. BOOM!

A note on "BOOM": I'm a frequent user of this word in everyday life, and I've decided to try to deploy it even more frequently in the days and weeks ahead. It's as versatile as a "Like" button but more emphatic and exciting, and it doubles as free promotion for the upcoming ULTIMATE POKER MOVIE OF ALL TIME. BOOM!

BOOM.

Btw, I finished Attack of the Block and highly recommend. Amazing action adventure alien invasion comedy from the guys who did Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead. Very funny, witty satire and a genuinely great movie. Boom.

pages wrote: 5

total pages wrote: 7

So I didn't catch up to quota but I got 5 done. My impulse is to spend today rewriting because half of it isn't very good, but I'll suppress that urge in the spirit of continuing to move. I've got 90 min before muy thai so hoping I can maybe get into another scene and make some magic happen. I still don't have a firm grip on my characters' voices so it's been surprising to see what they end up saying to each other. My psyche is sorting itself out, trying to communicate some kind of big idea through these imaginary people. 

things I watched yesterday (worth watching): Marwencol and Attack the Block. I only got through the first 30 min of Attack the Block and had to stop, but it's pretty awesome so far...

Yesterday was a mixed bag. A double-edged sword. A coconut smoothie of chaos. I had to switch gears and spend most of the day working on BOOM, where editing is in full swing and a new treatment is being worked on to define the story's structure. So I got consumed by thinking about the order of scenes and when to introduce the characters and other idea-filled conversations with Ryan.

I did, however, get to some screenwriting. I spent too much time searching for the right synonym for ludicrous (went with preposterous, but risible was close) and thus only wrote two pages. So 2/5, three pages behind quota but at least I started. Beginnings are essential to finishing. They can be hard to write because you get caught up in trying to make sure it's a great opening, something that grabs a reader/audience and hooks them just enough on the characters or world to keep their attention. But in my case, I don't even know exactly where I'm trying to end the story yet, so it's much more fruitful to blast through and worry about the specifics of the opening later on. I'll attempt to write 8 pages today to catch up, but if not at least 5, or I will slap my wrist repeatedly with a wooden ruler and post pics.

pages wrote: 2

total pages wrote: 2

random musing: Uncharted 3 reviews are out. IGN gave it a perfect score and called it a masterpiece. Uncharted 2 was one of, if not the most fun console games I've ever played. A totally immersive, cinematic, interactive experience. I remember watching the special features on the disc because I had to know more about how they put it all together. If you have PS3 and haven't played it, and enjoy video games -- IMO it is the pinnacle of modern gaming. Snap buy. Can't wait to play this one. It's awesome to have grown up playing 8-bit Mario and Mega Man and now there are games like this. Hell yeah Santa. Living in the future = the nuts.

Tomorrow I start writing a movie. I've decided to reactivate this blog to hold myself accountable to my goal: finish a draft before Thanksgiving. I haven't written one of these bad boys in awhile (thanks poker...), and I'm not sure how much I'll end up sharing publicly about what the story is about, but we'll see how this goes. I've spent a few weeks breaking down the structure (and even longer thinking about the characters), and I'm still not really sure where it's going to lead past page 30, but I feel strongly that any more time spent not writing pages is just procrastination. Since my last post (May!) I've been continuing to work and read scripts and study so many different films, TV shows and video games that I really need to get down to writing to see what I'm capable of. In a way I've been focused far too much on theory with too few hands played. That's not to say I haven't been writing, but I haven't been writing enough pages of screenwriting. Time to change that.

I've found that I'm most productive when I write first thing in the morning, so that's when I'll be doing most of my work. The plan is to pump out 5 pages/day, with very little time spent rewriting. When it's done I'll drop it in a drawer for at least two weeks before I even think about the first rewrite. More tomorrow. If anyone is interested I'm happy to answer any questions about screenwriting, storytelling or the process of writing what will eventually be a ~110 page movie.

My rewards for all this hard work: