So... How are things?

Every once in awhile I run into someone I haven't seen in a few years. I know they don't follow the blog or Twitter or Facebook or any of the other ways I talk about myself. And, as much as I like them and enjoy their company, I always feel a little like a doofus when talking to them.

The reason is that there are two story lines in any person's life at any given time - the day-to-day "these are my daily worries, issues, and problems" story and the big "this is an overview of my life" story.

I can tell a decent day-to-day story because every day something strange happens to me. For example, every day, someone I know announces to the internet that they are bored and every day I whisper to myself, "Set yourself on fire - that's pretty exciting." And then I feel guilty because if I actually said this to the bored person's face, they probably would end our friendship out of sheer boredom because they are so bored they could just die, but if they set themselves on fire, it doesn't really solve their terrible boredom problem as much as would entertain me.

Every day I have a pleasant exchange with someone on the job that I can later retell with me speaking normally and the other person talking in a funny voice. And every day, someone of dubious lineage does something stupid in traffic.

These stories I embellish and retell to the Mrs. every day when she asks how my day was. And sometimes I use puppets.

I have a problem, though, when I talk to people who I only see every couple of years. Conversations go something like this:

"So, what are you up to?"

"Don't you read my blog?"

Blank stare.

Pause.

"So... how are things?"

This is a tough conversation for me to have because I know I am going to be starting a conversation that will not be continued for another few years. If I talk about a particular health problem, I know I will have to revisit that topic long after that goiter is gone. And that is uncomfortable and socially awkward.

And the truth is that big things don't happen to me all that often. I got married once and plan on never doing that again. No kids. Just the job and the goofy hobbies. And who wants meet someone after about five years and hear about theories about the secret meanings in the 'Lost' TV show.

I have developed a professional "elevator pitch" for myself. The idea is that if you are stuck on an elevator with an executive, you have to 30 seconds to explain to that person why they should hire you and/or what you bring to the table.

I have decided to develop one of those for my personal life, just so I don't get stuck in socially awkward situations.

Let's try it out...

Things are great! We're still happily married. No kids, but we have Rock Band, so it is like we are still kids ourselves. I play guitar unless I have a few drinks, then I sing. Job is going great. I have to travel sometimes, but it is totally worth it because I love my company. I know you don't read blogs, but I have one of those. Yeah, the URL is some sort of alphabet soup, give me your email and I'll send it to you. I'm on Facebook. I write screenplays as a hobby, including a really bad bad one called "Zombie Prom Queen." I have a book coming out sometime soon. "Lost" is really about Buddhism. How are you?

The Road to Divorce

Haitian Divorce is the fifth feature-length screenplay I have written and the first one that I consider close-to-good.

I listen to the Creative Screenwriting podcast and in almost all of them, the screenwriters say, "This was my fifteenth screenplay. None of them were produced until now."

"Will you ever make your old scripts available online?"

"No. They're all crap."

"Aw, come on. I'm sure they aren't all that bad."

"Yes. Yes, they are."

Before I actually wrote a screenplay, I was all on the side of the journalist. If there isn't a chance of the screenplay getting produced, then what is the harm in posting it online? People (like me) love downloading and reading screenplays. Adding more to the stack wouldn't really hurt.

Then I wrote a bad screenplay. And another. And another.

I like the concept of white out. I like totally obliterating what has gone before when I don't like it. But if you've ever actually used white out, you know that it doesn't really hide your mistakes, but instead makes them all the more obvious thanks to the huge chunks of white goo surrounding them.

So, instead of pretending the Haitian Divorce is my first screenplay and it magically turned out to be sort of good (or, at least, not-all-that-bad), I will devote the rest of this blog entry to the big pile o' crap that has gone on before.

The four previous feature-length screenplays penned by myself are as follows:

Comicon Pimps - This was my first screenplay. I tried to be both funny and geeky and it didn't come out all that right. Basically, it was about a pimp contest at a comic book convention. Pimpin' ain't easy, especially when the potential clients would rather have a Star Trek Collector's plate instead of the company of a good woman dressed up as Catwoman.

It was pretty much a one-joke premise. I cut out all the filler and rewrote this feature-length monster (about 100 pages) as a four-page short film script. It is much better that way, and, in a way, oddly similar to the movie Gyuss Baaltar posted on his blog the other day, although (in my opinion) my script is a little bit funnier. It is filled with all sorts of pottymouth language, so I don't recommend it for anyone too young to be impressionable and too old to disapprove of my childish actions.

Zombie Prom Queen - I have new respect for the Troma Film guys. I tried to write a Troma-esque film and failed. Miserably. And, to add insult to injury, after I finished it, I found out that there was a short film named Zombie Prom already out there.

Hell Breaks Loose - Demons terrorize a small West Texas town. But they're in the fight for their lives, because everyone in West Texas is armed. Yeah. You heard me.

Scablickers - I wrote this one for the Slamdance Horror Screenplay Contest. This one is another horror film that involves a lot of people licking each other's scabs. And, no, it is not very good, unless, of course, you are into that sort of thing. I thought maybe David Cronenberg would like it.

So now you know why I don't share all of them. The next batch is going to be better, I promise. For one thing, I think I have the whole "cheap horror film" thing out of my system. I'll talk a little about the current batch of creative projects tomorrow.

Status Report on the Writing Thing

So I have passed the 20,000 word mark on the 50,000 word novel I'm writing for National Novel Writing Month, or as it is affectionately called, NaNoWriMo. My novel (working title Personal Myths) is about a reality show that invades a Literature class for a semester. Right now, I have really mixed feelings about the quality of the work (or lack thereof), but I think it might shape into something interesting after four or five dozen major rewrites.

But perfection is not what NaNoWriMo is about. It is about words on the page, even if by words we mean the word "very" repeated several hundred times.

I am currently 2555 words behind schedule, but I haven't done today's writing yet. I'm supposed to average 1667 words a day, so if we assume I hit the required 1667 words today, I'll only be behind 888 words. Which is nothing. I've written blog posts longer than that. (Please don't fact check that last sentence, and just accept it as the truth.) So I think, all things considered, I'm in good shape.

I have a NaNoWriMo page where you can follow my progress, see bar charts, and read an excerpt. It is here.

In other writing news...

The Slamdance Horror Screenplay Contest pushed the due date back from October 12th to November 12th and then again to November 21st. I had one screenplay ready by that first deadline, and I was aiming to have two done by the second one. Now that I have an extra week, I think I can squeeze that third screenplay in. As you can probably guess, these are not examples of my best work. They are low budget horror films written expressly for a low budget horror film contest. I do not plan to use these to get an agent or to drum up independent financing so I can get my personal vision on a screen near you.

Years from now, when people accuse me of forsaking my art and selling out, I will calmly point out that I sold out right at the beginning when I decided to write a screenplay called Zombie Prom Queen. It has zombies in it. It has a prom in it. And then it has a zombie prom in it. That's how good it is.

This blog post was 396 words long.

In Case You Are Expecting Things On This Blog...

I have a half-way finished blog post that isn't quite ready to go, so I'm putting it off until Christmas. Which is kind of sad because it was about torture in entertainment (specifically comedies about torture) and that theme fits more with Halloween than Christmas (unless, of course you are a Grinch).

However, I am going to take a one-maybe-two month break from the ol' blog because I will have too LITTLE time on my hands, particularly where writing is concerned.

Because I know some people read this, I thought I would warn you ahead of time - it is not going to be updated for some time.

Here is my writing schedule for the next two months (and remember, the writing schedule often takes the back-burner to job, family, and household chores):

Current writing projects - I am trying to enter three different scripts in the Slamdance Horror Screenplay competition. Currently, I have one completely finished one, and two half-finished ones. The deadline is November 12th, so I need to finish those two halfway done ones. There is a good chance I will only finish one of the two by the November 12th deadline. To give you an idea of the high-concept, lowest common denominator type of work I'm churning out, I'll give you the title of one of my scripts: Zombie Prom Queen!

Future projects - I am participating in NaNoWriMo this year. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Sounds like a lot until you break it down to 1,667 words a day. I write emails longer than that. Anyway, this idea has been cooking for awhile and I already have an outline, so I'm excited about getting it finished. Working title of the novel: Personal Myths.

After November (and NaNoWriMo) ends, the December projects are the annual Christmas letter (which will turn up on the blog) and a super secret project for the fans of the Filmspotting podcast.

Next year, I want to start out by writing another spec script for The Office (I have a brilliant idea for a show and it won't leave me alone) and then get another screenplay ready for the BlueCat Screenwriting contest in March.

So that's the pie-in-the-sky ambitious writing schedule through Spring '08. Hopefully, I'll work some blog posts in there, too.

P.S. I will still update my other blog, WTFDVDs, on a regular basis. As you can probably tell, it doesn't take much to maintain that one.