This was a crazy day.
I had to go to work and finish some stuff for the Graphic Novels Reading Group and the Cory Doctorow's event that we're running on the 8th and thus, I cut myself a good chunk of the day that I had planned to use for writing.
Plus I'd arrived home well after 2 in the morning and still chatted with a friend into the early hours of the day. It was just starting to get bright when I went to bed...
And only when I arrived home did I realise that my flight to Lisbon was one of those early ones... So, if I wanted to finish that Miriam script I needed to be fast...
And that's what I did. I focussed on getting all the plot bits on paper and forgot a bit about structure or humour (there was a bit but not much...).
But I did managed to finish it. Already after 2 in the morning and starting to feel the tiredness creep in.
I wrapped up Miriam at 112 pages. It still needs a lot of work but the main thing of these exercises is to have a great big puzzle that you can then jiggle around and fine tune. And it was during the writing of it that I realised that not only it could be a fun film but also a multi-layered one, playing the in-film "real life" with the film ideas that Perry keeps up coming up with for his script. Something that didn't make much sense in the beginning of the writing kind of became one of the supports for this story.
I thought, I'll sleep on the flight.
And I did.
I woke up a couple of times during the flight but I don't even remember the lift off... (even though I did see the crew doing their safety demonstration...)
peace
Showing posts with label miriam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label miriam. Show all posts
Monday, 26 April 2010
Saturday, 24 April 2010
Script Frenzy Day 24
This was the day of AVATAR...
I was really tired from the previous day (and night!) at work and so I woke up late and feeling like I'd been through a boxing ring during the night. I was groggy and lazy. But... I didn't have that much time to type before I had to leave home again and so I more or less managed to type some twenty odd pages on that script pushing it into the eighty something pages.
It was a bit difficult because it's always a bit conflicting to type something that you know is not as good as something you might'v done three or four days ago, when you know that you could be doing something a bit better, if only you had more time.
But these days I really need to feel that there is some sense of completion in every story. If I don't lay down all the pieces of the puzzle then I don't feel quite relaxed. And, to be quite honest, I prefer to feel relaxed knowing that that story - for better or for worse - is "all there" than one third in, at a good level but still incomplete... never knowing WHEN it will be completed.
Because then what happens to me is that these stories keep coming back, over and over again. Like some sort of ghost we've created to haunt ourselves (and I actually think it's something akin to this...)
Completion is important. It frees up a lot of mind space. Even if it falls short of your initial objective.
To be honest I've never exceeded my initial objective.
On a first draft.
Probably not even on a second.
But on a third or a fourth, when the story is really there, rounded and ticking... oooh... that's another matter.
It has happened a few times.
You know why?
Because I had something to work upon. Something to improve upon. Something that I could gain some perspective about.
I mean, stories just keep turning up. Even the ones that we've finished. Some new idea, some new nuance, a slight change of perspective for that chapter that will deepen and impact on the whole.
And you take them in. Especially if you haven't published them. You make notes. You add. You cut. You change.
The story changes. But it changes to become more and more itself.
I still have ideas I want to add to The Shift and Lost Lines. It's just the way it is. Sometimes it's just another phrase that boils down all that you were trying to say for pages and pages. Making it feel simple and effortless.
And we've got to let these things come through in their own time.
But it's just easier if there's something there already to which they can latch on and resonate.
So, I keep telling myself to be fearless of bad first drafts. Their a good step towards a reasonable second draft.
And a good third.
And hopefully a great fourth...
Peace!
I was really tired from the previous day (and night!) at work and so I woke up late and feeling like I'd been through a boxing ring during the night. I was groggy and lazy. But... I didn't have that much time to type before I had to leave home again and so I more or less managed to type some twenty odd pages on that script pushing it into the eighty something pages.
It was a bit difficult because it's always a bit conflicting to type something that you know is not as good as something you might'v done three or four days ago, when you know that you could be doing something a bit better, if only you had more time.
But these days I really need to feel that there is some sense of completion in every story. If I don't lay down all the pieces of the puzzle then I don't feel quite relaxed. And, to be quite honest, I prefer to feel relaxed knowing that that story - for better or for worse - is "all there" than one third in, at a good level but still incomplete... never knowing WHEN it will be completed.
Because then what happens to me is that these stories keep coming back, over and over again. Like some sort of ghost we've created to haunt ourselves (and I actually think it's something akin to this...)
Completion is important. It frees up a lot of mind space. Even if it falls short of your initial objective.
To be honest I've never exceeded my initial objective.
On a first draft.
Probably not even on a second.
But on a third or a fourth, when the story is really there, rounded and ticking... oooh... that's another matter.
It has happened a few times.
You know why?
Because I had something to work upon. Something to improve upon. Something that I could gain some perspective about.
I mean, stories just keep turning up. Even the ones that we've finished. Some new idea, some new nuance, a slight change of perspective for that chapter that will deepen and impact on the whole.
And you take them in. Especially if you haven't published them. You make notes. You add. You cut. You change.
The story changes. But it changes to become more and more itself.
I still have ideas I want to add to The Shift and Lost Lines. It's just the way it is. Sometimes it's just another phrase that boils down all that you were trying to say for pages and pages. Making it feel simple and effortless.
And we've got to let these things come through in their own time.
But it's just easier if there's something there already to which they can latch on and resonate.
So, I keep telling myself to be fearless of bad first drafts. Their a good step towards a reasonable second draft.
And a good third.
And hopefully a great fourth...
Peace!
Friday, 23 April 2010
Script Frenzy Day 23
Saturday was another day where I felt I was writing against the clock. I don't even remember much of what I did, I just now that I managed to bang out some twenty odd pages of script (some of them a bit funny - whcich helps!) and rush out to a loooong night at work.
I took my stuff but I didn't even have time to think about it, nevermind writing.
On the way back I was so tired that I found myself yawning while cycling.
But then, as a truck passed by me, way past 3 in the morning, I had a flash and an idea for a short script. I didn't stop to note it down. It's one of those ideas that just swims in the background of your mind for years until it actually comes to the surface and defines itself in a moment with some clarity and force.
It's not a pleasant idea, but I think it's one that's important to tell... so, I shared that with Alexandra (it was an idea for her 18 themed project) the day after.
I think she enjoyed it.
That one and the other one I had been tinkering about.
The problem now is that she doesn't have enough time and, we both agree on this, these stories need a bit of space to breathe...
So, we'll see where time takes us...
My plan is to type them down whenever I'm so inclined and start looking out for a place where I can post them so that animators may take those scripts and do something with them.
I'll get the Creative Commons licensing for all of them and away we go!
That's the plan!
And now... onwards to more writing!
peace~!
I took my stuff but I didn't even have time to think about it, nevermind writing.
On the way back I was so tired that I found myself yawning while cycling.
But then, as a truck passed by me, way past 3 in the morning, I had a flash and an idea for a short script. I didn't stop to note it down. It's one of those ideas that just swims in the background of your mind for years until it actually comes to the surface and defines itself in a moment with some clarity and force.
It's not a pleasant idea, but I think it's one that's important to tell... so, I shared that with Alexandra (it was an idea for her 18 themed project) the day after.
I think she enjoyed it.
That one and the other one I had been tinkering about.
The problem now is that she doesn't have enough time and, we both agree on this, these stories need a bit of space to breathe...
So, we'll see where time takes us...
My plan is to type them down whenever I'm so inclined and start looking out for a place where I can post them so that animators may take those scripts and do something with them.
I'll get the Creative Commons licensing for all of them and away we go!
That's the plan!
And now... onwards to more writing!
peace~!
Script Frenzy Day 22
Yesterday was a good day even though I didn't write as much as I'd wanted to... I'm still on page forty something and I wanted to have it finished by now!
However I crossed an important threshhold: Miriam now knows Perry exists... and she's curious!
(and so am I!)
One of the problems with this script is that it can go so many ways... so what I thought yesterday was to simply incorporate some of these spin off plots into Perry's eternal script, which could then be shown in short snippets throughout the main body of the film... and add to the humour of it all! I really want to show how the male brain can go head over heels over a woman and really go at a tangent...
Amidst all this pondering I managed to write a short animation script for my friend. It's called One Last Time and it's a story of a goodbye to a redundant previous life.
Actually, you can check some of her stuff HERE!
I'd thought initially to do a kind of combo version of the script, with dialogue and non-dialogue descriptions crammed into a single script but then I realised that the dialogue I'd written was mediocre and the whole would probably work a lot better without any words.
That's what I sent her.
I still feel that I haven't gotten to the core of what I really wanted to say but... there you go, sometimes you just get the taste instead of the whole cake...
Just before I went to sleep I started having these really vivid images about another story that I've tentatively called Fosters - simply because it's about foster parents and abandoned children. It's a pretty dark one but one that I think would be worthwhile writing about. It's about predjudice and expectations.
I jotted down the idea on a word file.
Saved it to my Films folder.
(organisation! organisation!)
And off I went to sleep!
peace!
However I crossed an important threshhold: Miriam now knows Perry exists... and she's curious!
(and so am I!)
One of the problems with this script is that it can go so many ways... so what I thought yesterday was to simply incorporate some of these spin off plots into Perry's eternal script, which could then be shown in short snippets throughout the main body of the film... and add to the humour of it all! I really want to show how the male brain can go head over heels over a woman and really go at a tangent...
Amidst all this pondering I managed to write a short animation script for my friend. It's called One Last Time and it's a story of a goodbye to a redundant previous life.
Actually, you can check some of her stuff HERE!
I'd thought initially to do a kind of combo version of the script, with dialogue and non-dialogue descriptions crammed into a single script but then I realised that the dialogue I'd written was mediocre and the whole would probably work a lot better without any words.
That's what I sent her.
I still feel that I haven't gotten to the core of what I really wanted to say but... there you go, sometimes you just get the taste instead of the whole cake...
Just before I went to sleep I started having these really vivid images about another story that I've tentatively called Fosters - simply because it's about foster parents and abandoned children. It's a pretty dark one but one that I think would be worthwhile writing about. It's about predjudice and expectations.
I jotted down the idea on a word file.
Saved it to my Films folder.
(organisation! organisation!)
And off I went to sleep!
peace!
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Script Frenzy Day 21
Well, it's now 4pm and I've just finished drafting the second of the two ideas I had to help out my friend (I'm not mentioning her name here since I don't know if she'd like that or not... that's usually my policy)
We chatted for a good long while yesterday. The theme was about turning 18, the experiences, etc.
I more or less dropped the ideas we chatted initially, came up with another one, with lots of monologue, more internalized. Dropped that two and came up with two others. Both with no dialogue or voice overs.
She's at work now so I'll send her the short animation scripts as soon as she's back online.
The plan for the rest of the day is to finish typing my notes on MIRIAM, print them out and hit that script hard! I want to have it finished before the weekend starts!
Been listening to the B-52's in order to gear myself up to a more positive note. Tried to watch a film yesterday but only watched the first 15min...
I'm hoping that I'll write some 20 or 30 pages today... let's see what happens!
Even though I'm at home I've still been taking care of stuff for friends and friends of friends... that's life! And that's why it is good!
Peace!
We chatted for a good long while yesterday. The theme was about turning 18, the experiences, etc.
I more or less dropped the ideas we chatted initially, came up with another one, with lots of monologue, more internalized. Dropped that two and came up with two others. Both with no dialogue or voice overs.
She's at work now so I'll send her the short animation scripts as soon as she's back online.
The plan for the rest of the day is to finish typing my notes on MIRIAM, print them out and hit that script hard! I want to have it finished before the weekend starts!
Been listening to the B-52's in order to gear myself up to a more positive note. Tried to watch a film yesterday but only watched the first 15min...
I'm hoping that I'll write some 20 or 30 pages today... let's see what happens!
Even though I'm at home I've still been taking care of stuff for friends and friends of friends... that's life! And that's why it is good!
Peace!
Script Frenzy Day 19
After spending a good part of the day ceiling mounting my projector I ended up going to the IMAX to watch Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland 3D - which I thoroughly enjoyed. Probably because my expectations were quite low.
It's a blockbuster so, blockbuster rules apply...
But i'ts always a treat to see Tim Burton's wild imaginings take life on the big screen. Especially one as big as the IMAX one!
When I came home I didn't do much. Just went straight to sleep!
Then the next day I started working on my other script called MIRIAM.
After a lot of pottering about I managed to plot the whole thing and write a few scenes. But I felt far away from my 40 page a day frenzies...
The good thing was that the bits I did write actually felt funny - or at least amusing.
I decided I needed a little break so I didn't push myself that much...
peace!
It's a blockbuster so, blockbuster rules apply...
But i'ts always a treat to see Tim Burton's wild imaginings take life on the big screen. Especially one as big as the IMAX one!
When I came home I didn't do much. Just went straight to sleep!
Then the next day I started working on my other script called MIRIAM.
After a lot of pottering about I managed to plot the whole thing and write a few scenes. But I felt far away from my 40 page a day frenzies...
The good thing was that the bits I did write actually felt funny - or at least amusing.
I decided I needed a little break so I didn't push myself that much...
peace!
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Script Frenzy Day 18
Hello and good afternoon!
Well, I've more or less finished this one!
Just ended typing up 7 new short scenes that I'm going to have to insert back into the story in a second revision phase - even though I think I still need to create 5 or 6 more for one of the secondary characters. He kind of has a strong start and I never picked it up. So I'll have to develop that a bit more and then wrap it up quickly.
I'm also wondering if I should give Jennifer a bit of a back story. After all she is the only character in the story that doesn't seem to have much to hide.
oh.
I just remembered.
I did do that...
Ages ago...
Not to worry then!
Problem solved!
(I should trust my skills more...)
As soon as I finished chapter 25, Grace, my computer collapsed. I thought power had failed. But it turns out that it didn't... Maybe I've burned one of the RAMs... I don't know. I replaced one of them for one of the old ones I've kept lying about and it's working now... I need to clean this computer... TLC TLC TLC... it's always the first thing to go out the window...
Anyway, when I rebooted the whole thing I realised that the last three pages (that I felt were actually quite good) and disappeared.
And I'm pretty sure that I'd saved them...
I was really frustrated for a while and really didn't want to go back and re-write the whole thing again. It was the most gruesome scene in the whole series and I didn't feel like revisiting it at all for the time being.
But I did and I re-wrote it even though I don't think it flows as well as first time round...
Well... there's always revision...
Chapter 26, This Blinding Light, the epilogue, was much easier to write.
I still don't know if the ending that I've written is the one that will stay. I'm quite tempted to tone down the final scenes in chapter 25. My only fear is that they're not believable enough in that way. At the same time this might contribute to what happens in chapter 26 to be more believable also...
Revision will decide!
I think now I'm gonna sort out my room a bit. Find out where all the bits of information in relation to Miriam are located and prepare a file with all my notes about it. I don't think I'll start writing that film today. But I do want to start it tomorrow.
I'm gonna watch a film in a few hours!
I think I deserve it!
I had planned to go to one of the scriptfrenzy meets in Southbank but I think it's best if I hang back and actually clean my pc...
Peace!
Well, I've more or less finished this one!
Just ended typing up 7 new short scenes that I'm going to have to insert back into the story in a second revision phase - even though I think I still need to create 5 or 6 more for one of the secondary characters. He kind of has a strong start and I never picked it up. So I'll have to develop that a bit more and then wrap it up quickly.
I'm also wondering if I should give Jennifer a bit of a back story. After all she is the only character in the story that doesn't seem to have much to hide.
oh.
I just remembered.
I did do that...
Ages ago...
Not to worry then!
Problem solved!
(I should trust my skills more...)
As soon as I finished chapter 25, Grace, my computer collapsed. I thought power had failed. But it turns out that it didn't... Maybe I've burned one of the RAMs... I don't know. I replaced one of them for one of the old ones I've kept lying about and it's working now... I need to clean this computer... TLC TLC TLC... it's always the first thing to go out the window...
Anyway, when I rebooted the whole thing I realised that the last three pages (that I felt were actually quite good) and disappeared.
And I'm pretty sure that I'd saved them...
I was really frustrated for a while and really didn't want to go back and re-write the whole thing again. It was the most gruesome scene in the whole series and I didn't feel like revisiting it at all for the time being.
But I did and I re-wrote it even though I don't think it flows as well as first time round...
Well... there's always revision...
Chapter 26, This Blinding Light, the epilogue, was much easier to write.
I still don't know if the ending that I've written is the one that will stay. I'm quite tempted to tone down the final scenes in chapter 25. My only fear is that they're not believable enough in that way. At the same time this might contribute to what happens in chapter 26 to be more believable also...
Revision will decide!
I think now I'm gonna sort out my room a bit. Find out where all the bits of information in relation to Miriam are located and prepare a file with all my notes about it. I don't think I'll start writing that film today. But I do want to start it tomorrow.
I'm gonna watch a film in a few hours!
I think I deserve it!
I had planned to go to one of the scriptfrenzy meets in Southbank but I think it's best if I hang back and actually clean my pc...
Peace!
Friday, 16 April 2010
Script Frenzy Day 16 part two...
Hey there again!
I know, I know, I can't stop blogging... I guess I'm all hyper from all the writing. What can you do?! Might as well enjoy it while it lasts!
Right. After that little ramble a few hours ago I type away at chapter 24, Requiem. This is when Roanoke and Jennifer get themselves into some serious trouble.
I won't tell you much because I would spoil it a bit, I'll just say that what I've written so far as been great fun. So much so that I wish I could be at home right now (I almost wrote, write now...) typing away.
I've realised that my plot for chapter 24 is actually better than what I envisioned. After I finished chapter 23 I jumped into a couple of scenes that I assumed belonged to c.24 but are, in fact, chapter 25...
This is really the cliffhanger issue!
Like the last one!
But what I'm happy about is that these will have MEANING by the time the reader gets to them. It's not so much the cliffhanger per se but rather what it might bring about...
Anyway, enough chit chat, I should actually be taking notes for some ideas I had for that other script (a film script) that's been showing up every so often in my head... it's called MIRIAM, and just so you know, it's a romantic comedy.
Come on.
I need it.
After all this talk about dark stuff I want to do something light but equally fun (though a lighter kind of fun...)
Peace!
I know, I know, I can't stop blogging... I guess I'm all hyper from all the writing. What can you do?! Might as well enjoy it while it lasts!
Right. After that little ramble a few hours ago I type away at chapter 24, Requiem. This is when Roanoke and Jennifer get themselves into some serious trouble.
I won't tell you much because I would spoil it a bit, I'll just say that what I've written so far as been great fun. So much so that I wish I could be at home right now (I almost wrote, write now...) typing away.
I've realised that my plot for chapter 24 is actually better than what I envisioned. After I finished chapter 23 I jumped into a couple of scenes that I assumed belonged to c.24 but are, in fact, chapter 25...
This is really the cliffhanger issue!
Like the last one!
But what I'm happy about is that these will have MEANING by the time the reader gets to them. It's not so much the cliffhanger per se but rather what it might bring about...
Anyway, enough chit chat, I should actually be taking notes for some ideas I had for that other script (a film script) that's been showing up every so often in my head... it's called MIRIAM, and just so you know, it's a romantic comedy.
Come on.
I need it.
After all this talk about dark stuff I want to do something light but equally fun (though a lighter kind of fun...)
Peace!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
