Sayonara, Silver Screen!

Well, me and Tony have officially won Script Frenzy 2008. It's been an interesting month, we me moving during the first week and Tony ready to move next week, but somewhere in between, when I wasn't doing taxes, I figured out how to write a screenplay.

Not a good screenplay, by any stretch of the imagination. It's poorly paced (books aren't movies) and talky and confusing. But it's done. 100 pages even. I even had to concoct a scene that I'm sure would find it's way onto the cutting room floor in an instant to grab those last two pages.

For a writer like me, with elephantitis of the word count, this was an eye-opening experience.

Screenplays are an interesting game. The lack of narration, the sparsity of descriptors, the funky and oh-so-easy way to throw out massive amounts of dialogue are all wildly different from the books I'm used to. It's a fun medium, I'll admit. The only problem I have is what comes after--when you finish a script, you still have to ship it off to hope that people can hack at it and reinterpret it before people see it.

I could never deal with that disconnect. It'd drive me mad. No, I want my words to be what people experience. If that's ego, it's ego. I'm okay with that.

But now that April's over, and the script's done, I'm looking forward to NaNo in November, and Screnzy next year, where I'm sure I'll dabble again (whether me and Tony team up for another script remains to be seen, a year is a long way off).

Until then...

Ciao, Hollywood!

Here thar be lists!

Here’s another arbitrary update because I’m uncompelled to produce content. It was either this or work on the script, and to be completely honest I’m just not feeling the whole noir vibe under fluorescent lighting. Maybe it’s just me.

By all accounts (barring complete block or disasters both medical and technological) Tony and I should be finishing the script up by Friday. Which means that I’ll be free to pursue other things. There are three that are standing at my door waiting for me.

1. Finish writing Tango
2. Edit WTC
3. Do a third draft on MS

I’m not really keen on 3, since it’s been only two months since I kicked it back out, so I’m bouncing between the other two. Opinions have been weighed in, though they’re mostly biased. I don’t know what I want to do, though, and since I’m the one who has to sit down every night and be happy with my output, this is something of a problem.

I also am tempted to do something rash and foolish. I won’t say what, but there are a few options not listed up there (4-6, I think, offhand) and they’re tugging at me from time to time.

I have until Friday to figure out what the hell I’m doing. Saturday, if I really want to press it. When these are decisions about what you’re going to be spending the next two months of your life focused on, this sort of indecision is a real pain in the ass.

Maybe I’ll just do all six of them at once and break down from the stress and lack of sleep.