When life gives you lemons, apply pressure and kick ass!
When I write, sometimes I really am punching the keys.
It’s not easy: you want to tell a story, but you can’t articulate. Not just writing a screenplay, but anything. I’m talking about conversations, career choices, coping with rejection, coping with success, responding to the silence when you were expecting an answer.
An example? Almost two years ago, I’d just finished a 12-week screenwriting intensive sponsored by New York Film Academy LA. I’d won a scholarship, I’d learned so much about the language of writing in (motion) pictures, and I hadn’t even finished 10 pages of my screenplay (spoiler alert: I still haven’t). I was frustrated.
Fast forward, six-months later: I’m hunched over the kitchen table in my studio apartment, determined to write a one-scene-wonder monologue for my acting reel and somehow – call it inspiration, call it saturation – I knew what I needed to write: a story about a man who takes away the painful memories of others. One week later, I had written the first draft of my pilot. My mentor, Dan, kindly informed me that I had actually written *half* of a pilot, so time to expand.
Type, type, backspace, type. Done.
Well, not really.
END FLASHBACK. Back-to-the-Present: I don’t know how many drafts it’s been, but my sci-fi pilot, The Relief, has transformed. I’m seeing things I didn’t see before, and I don’t flop out of my seat in panic when new imperfections complications arise.
I look to my fridge. These words, comforting, spur me on:
[quote]”It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it does have to exist.”[/quote]
Well, now it does exist. Won’t ever be perfect, but it might be memorable.
[box title=”So, What’s Happening With Your SciFi Pilot?” style=”glass” box_color=”#333333″ title_color=”#FFFFFF” radius=”3″]As of today (2/11/2016), THE RELIEF has finished as a Top 10 Finalist in the 2015 ScreenCraft Pilot Launch, 12th Place in the 2015 Emerging Screenwriters Competition, and has progressed to the Quarter and Semi-Final rounds with Fresh Voices and Stage32.[/box]
[box title=”What Else Are You Writing?” style=”glass” box_color=”#333333″ title_color=”#FFFFFF” radius=”3″]My other writing projects currently include: the femme fatale short story “Turn Off” (also a Quarter-Finalist with ScreenCraft), the 1/2hr animated action-comedy “Nostalgia Squad”, and a feature screenplay based on one of the great, unsung military miracles of World War II.[/box]
[box title=”And then…?” style=”glass” box_color=”#333333″ title_color=”#FFFFFF” radius=”3″]Win a contest with “The Relief”, gain traction with my other projects, acquire literary representation, and above all, keep punching those keys![/box]
Right on, Write on…