Meet Mr. 50mm f/1.4

Script Frenzy is over, and I didn’t write the 100 pages. I made it to 38 pages on the 13th, then looked at what I had, and spent a day or two thinking about what to do. On the one hand, continuing was very much possible, and the 100 pages were within reach. On the other, my antagonist was by far the most interesting person in the story, quite contrary to my protagonist, who was somewhat passive in the whole thing…

By now, that’s almost habitual for me…

So I made the decision to halt the endeavour, and re-outline the story. And that’s where I am now.

The only thing standing between me and a finished outline is thus, GTA...

DAMN YOU GRAND THEFT AUTO!

I’m not even kidding. That game is seriously addictive.

Meanwhile, I also had my 30th birthday, for which I gifted myself a 50mm f/1.4 Sony lens, which I eagerly took for a spin around sunset today:

Copenhagen

Me at 30

Rant

Eli

The depth of field on that thing is like having sex with light…

Halfway. A Third Done.

April 15th, and Script Frenzy is half empty. Me, I like to think of it as: “ARGH! Two Weeks!? Twooo Weeeeks!?”

Now, first off, let me just correct a common mistake made by quite a few people I know. I didn’t quit Script Frenzy, I quit Cheap Cyborg, and in its place, I’m writing… a drama… comedy… I don’t know.

A script.

Shit. I have no idea what it is. I’m on page 35, and it’s still up in the air. But then, I’m writing from the loosest of outlines and pretty much making it up as I go along. Laying the tracks for the train just in front of it.

Luckily the train is slow as molasses.

The upside is, I’ve found myself to be not entirely incompetent at writing dialog. Once my characters start talkin’, they just won’t shut the hell up.

The downside is, once my characters start talkin’, they just won’t shut the hell up! It’s making my scenes rather long, which of course rakes up the page count, which is good for Script Frenzy. But it has undoubtedly put a dent in my plan to win an oscar for this particular screenplay.

But yeah, as expected, I’ve wanted to throw in the towel many times. And to be honest, I have no illusion of making 100 pages for April 30th. This month has turned out to be one of the most booked I’ve ever had. And in the good way.

If I didn’t have a script to write.

But that’s alright; I remember what it was like, as a kid, to try something and fail miserably at it.

You get up, and you try again.

And again.

Take a break.

And again.

It’ll take years before something worthwhile leaves these fingers, just as with everything else I’ve ever tried.

The key is to be naive and not know that that is the case.

Luckily being naive is my speciality.

Bork Bork Bork

I chickened out.

It’s three days to Fade In and I dang-diddly chickened out.

I admit it. I’m not ready to wrangle Cheap Cyborg. Shit, I’m not even sure I can write a 100 pages of anything in a month, let alone an ambitious, if messy and unfocused science fiction epic…

Especially a messy and unfocused science fiction epic.

And just as everything was going so well.

Sure, it was in the nick of time, but I had finally gathered up all my Cheap Cyborg notes, started fleshing out the few characters I had thought up and I was even working on a rough outline.

I had almost convinced myself that I could do it. That I could really step up and write the shit out of this thing. Yeah, so I had a bunch of holes, but I could make it up as I go along, right? It doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be long…

Well, I’ve tried facing the brick wall of ‘what the fuck do I do now?’. It isn’t fun. In fact, it’s brutal and unforgiving and it takes time. Under pressure of time and especially when trying to prove to myself that these nimble ungroomed fingers can do creative writing as well as code, a more accessible project is probably a good idea.

So around noon yesterday I created a new Scrivener project, full-screened it and stared at it for a while, waiting patiently for my brain to start sending those nuggest of gold I knew were in there down the river…

And I waited…

And I waited…

This is the hardest part for me, about writing. Psh, not that I know, because really I haven’t written anything to such a length that I can properly say that, so really everything that follows is a pile o’ dong… But please, by all means.

Anyway, this is the hardest part of writing. It’s not that conjuring ideas into existence isn’t easy. It’s a breeze. I have a folder-load of those, I’ve called it ‘Writing’. But truthfully I should rename it to ‘The Idea Graveyard’.

It’s not that the ideas are bad… Come on!... Alright, alright, some of them are bad… Okay, so a lot of them are bad… probably. The point is, finding that one good idea that is at once powerful, elegant and simple as well as translatable, is inhumane.

Someone really famous—who exactly I’ve forgotten, so he/she can’t have been that famous—said something to the effect of: perseverance beats out skill and luck every time. And in turning those graveyard ideas into workable ideas, perseverance will undoubtedly eventually get me over the finish line.

But the good idea saves you the time and a hell of a lot of work.

So I waited…

Aaand…

I’m ready. I think. No… I’m ready. Yes.

Now comes the harsh reality of actually writing one hundred pages in one month. Between my birthday, three RPG sessions, a night out on the town, a concert and various other minutia, I’m already down to three weeks. That evens out to about 5 pages a day, which, I happen to know, is what George Lucas writes in a full day, morning to evening…

Since I only have night and weekends, that’s… optimistic.

I would characterize it borderline insane, but I don’t want to jinx myself already.

I’d better go flesh out my outline a bit more…

April

Bachelor Weekend Writing

I needed these last 10 days of vacation like Superman needs the sun. You know, that part of life that isn’t work? The part that is relegated to the few hours of your day between waking and leaving for work and coming home and going to sleep?

That’s what we’ve been doing, and it’s been heavenly. Lounging, reading, watching, browsing, shopping, roleplaying, coding, loving and Thinking.

Like putting the brain into sleep mode (with, in the back of your head, the knowledge that it will inevitably be awakened brutally tomorrow morning when Rikke’s cell, with some glee I think, brings us back into worker-ant-mode).

So at the moment I’m looking forward about a week, to April 1st, which aside from being yet again that day a year where the media becomes entirely useless (well… more so) in their attempt at ‘funny’ deceiving pranks, is also the start date for Script Frenzy, which as you may remember, I’m joining this year.

This is me by the way. Add me.

Obviously; the trouble is—as you should have come to expect—I haven’t actually prepared myself to the extend I should have; nor the extent I sorta-kinda-maybe promised myself I would.

After all, by now I should have a fully fledged outline, complete with characters and curves and arcs and… so on. Conventional thinking says that might help me ein bischen with felling down one hundred pages in 30 days. Conventional thinking, in this case, is probably right. Yeah.

But then, you know, life. And between Monolith (which is proceeding steadily, thank you, though I fear it will come to a stand-still as I punish myself towards 100 pages in April) and roleplaying and not doing anything. Well, the days are only so long, and I am so so lazy.

Don’t get me wrong; I do in fact have an idea. Yessireebob. A gen-u-ine idea.

In fact, it’s the idea that wouldn’t die. You know? I keep finding all its flaws. Keep doubting my ability to actually, truly, live up to it; to write it properly, like it deserves. In my head anyway. But despite that, it always creeps back in.

It’s code-named ‘Cheap Cyborg’ by the way. Not that that title is representative of the story any more, but that’s how it started out, and since I haven’t really found a new one yet… Hey, Cheap Cyborg.

Besides, titling a work should be like a coronation, right? “I pronounce you ‘Star Wars’”. The crowd roars. You bathe in money and fame.

Then you wake up.

The history of Cheap Cyborg is long and sordid and absolutely uninteresting until it becomes a bestseller and I bathe in money and fame (and wake up).

But essentially it was pretty much from its birth meant as a comicbook. Yeah, it could be a novel, but I always thought of it as very visual, so… And I’m not convinced that its structure, pacing or subject matter fits a film.

And…

Well, alright, so, some of it is a bit odd. Weird even. It’s Science Fiction, right, so… Well it wouldn’t beat out Pirates at the box office, I don’t think. In fact, it would probably be hailed as a damn mess and a waste of money, I would be called a fraud and a waste of air (Wake up! Wake up!).

The clinch is, for Script Frenzy I always thought I would write a film script, because that’s a format I understand fairly well. And comicbook scripts… Well… There’s no format to stick to. Everyone has their own style and rapport with their artist(s). It’s a mess. And one of those awful liberal ‘artistic interpretation’ messes even!

Thus it came to be, that I decided to pen Cheap Cyborg as a comic, but in film script format. I want a readable more than a produceable project at the end anyway, and this saves me having to nail down each frame as well, which I’m not sure I can do satisfactory while also trying to ring the bell at the top of the 100-page-tower…

So that’s what I’m doing.

And I have notes. Lots of notes. Pages of notes.

Going in roughly all directions.

And no outline. Did I mention that? No outline? Yeah… I have no outline.

I don’t want to call it quits ahead of time. I mean, I’m not a quitter, you know? But… Psh; it’ll be a miracle if I make it to the 100 pages, I can tell you that much up front. A Goddamn miracle.

But I’m not a quitter. Nope.

I won’t make it.

But then that’s what 2008 is all about, so I might as well get too it.

There’s one thing that always brings me back from my late-night fits of self-pity, when I fling glasses of sherry at the wall and wail out: “I’ll never amount to anything, waaaaahhhh. I’ll never be a respected author!... Aaahahaaaaa”, which may also be helpful to you, if you happen to be a Star Wars fan, like me.

Star Wars: The Annotated Screenplays. Because, if Star Wars could be born from such crud; well then there is a your favorite author inside us all.

Seriously.

If When all else fails, luckily the plot generator on the Script Frenzy site is a veritable treasure trove of money-in-the-bank ideas:

In a haunted space station orbiting Pluto the oldest park ranger in the Andes attempts to rewrite Finnish history.

Eh… Screw Cheap Cyborg, I’m going with this.

PS: I will of course be following up on Cheap Cyborg here, but you can also follow my progress on Twitter.