Project Waldo

After nearly a week of dithering, I've finally buckled down and made some rules.  Work starts at 10, finishes at 7, and there's an hour of lunch in the middle.  Take no notice of the fact I'm writing this at 6.  The main rule: no internet during work hours.  I can take non-essential showers (which I did this afternoon, as it seems to be a place where ideas get born), I can read books on subjects useful to the project (today was half an hour of the Sense and Sensibility screenplay ), but I cannot, under any circumstances, surf the net. Not surprisingly, today was a productive day.  It's very hard to say exactly where I am in the process, as everything seems to be endlessly rewritten.  There's a very credible first act, I think.  I'm somewhere in the second act right now, trying to turn the screw without giving too much away too quickly.  I understand my characters a little better now, and that's helping things move along.  I feel good about my step outline, t...

I have discovered FAST TIME.  I first noticed it today while contemplating the speed with which my nose hair has regrown.  The last two weeks -- wait, no, now it's three weeks-- have blown by in an instant.  I guess that's the paradox of doing what you want to be doing, of losing yourself in your work: you end up with less time. My screenplay is horrifically bad.  Like, Power Rangers bad.  I will not give up.  I will find something true inside this mess. Today wasn't too productive, but I kept my butt in my seat.  I need to shake loose a new idea. Okay, it's probably not Power Rangers bad, though it feels like it sometimes.  I need to be more patient.  It's going to be good.  I won't give up until it's good.

Going a little bit crazy.  I had to deal with a bout of "what on Earth was I thinking" today.  I really am pretty green.  I probably wouldn't have attempted this project if I'd grokked how huge a challenge it would be.  I'm glad I didn't grok it until I was past the point of no return. That said, I think the script is still getting better.  I honestly have no idea where it's going, but what's there seems more and more credible.  I'm sure it's still dreadful, but as long as we're trending upwards, I've got no cause to complain. When I was first imagining the film, I started putting together a playlist of songs that I thought would go well with the action.  That first playlist is pretty energetic -- lots of slightly Britpoppy and technoey stuff.  Jiyoung and I have been watching a lot of 80's movies lately (my fault), and I've realized that very few of them weather well.  That seems mostly attributable to two factors: first, the p...

With each revision, the story improves.  It's a frustrating, occasionally panic-inducing process.  Looking at the Post-it wall, there are few similarities between the story I started with two weeks ago and what exists now.   This morning, after a day of banging my head on a third act that didn't feel right, I started sketching out five-sentence synopses of every possible ending variant that popped into my head.  After I had about eight, I started to zero in on something that didn't feel like a complete cop-out.  But the way things have been going, I'll probably wake up tomorrow morning and feel like today's additions were crappy.  Well, even if I only save five percent of each day's gains, that'll get me somewhere, eventually. One thing I've zeroed in on is that this really is a love story.  It sounds like a simple thing to say, but I had to sweat for about a week before that was clear to me. Another thing that I'm starting to notice is that a lot of...