Feeding the Urge
I'm going to Juno with a friend from work tonight (we'll call her KD), so I wasn't sure if I was going to have time afterwards to post something. If this seems hurried or cut short in any way, that's probably the reason.
Anyway, I gotta say, the urge to write something is starting to hit a boiling point. Everything I read, or watch or hear is hitting that stimulation button in the back of my head which has been buzzing non-stop for a few weeks now. I've told the wife and others how I'm feeling wrestless and think I would like to finally take another crack at making a short film, or possibly write some short stories based on characters I've created for a longer prose piece that is taking forever to materialize, but something keeps stopping me from taking that final step.
My guess, based on past experience, is that it's fear that's stopping me. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of not living up to my own, or anyone else's, expectations...I dunno. But I'm pretty sure whatever is stopping me is fear based. Whenever I sit down at a keyboard, for whatever reason (blogging included), I get that clenched up feeling where my brain is telling me I don't know where to start, my body is telling me I have better things to be doing (usually sleep or work), and my gut is telling me to put off today what can be achieved tomorrow. It frustartes the hell out of me, but I'm not entirely sure how to crack it.
I do try and keep the writing muscles from atrophying completely. I manage to get some blog posts out there and I go back and find old scripts that could be tweaked, but they seem like hollow victories because nobody reads the former and the latter are inevitably adaptations of other people's stories. I have a pretty decent version of Neil Gaiman's "Fear of Falling" and another script I call "365 Days" which is based on an Evan Dorkin story, neither of which I have the rights to or the burden of coming up with the story in the first place. The one story I have that I did create from whole cloth has no name to speak of and was filmed once, disastrously, as a short called Dead End.
Dead End featured terrible production values, unforgivable sound design, poor acting and, irony of ironies, was entered into a film festival and even shown to hundreds of people in a local theatre. I guess I'm the one who entered it, and myself, into the festival so I only have myself to blame. Still, as much as I learned from the experience of putting that movie together, it also proved to be a defining moment in regards to my current situation of non-activity.
Coming up with new ideas is proving to be a difficult thing to overcome. In fact, I think Dead End was the last time I was able to put something together with a beginning, middle and end. I can generate characters, no problem, but piecing together a plot is like chinese water torture for me right now. The short story I wanted to do with my character Mark has him going garage saleing one Saturday morning and finds him running across a young woman whose fancy he seems to catch. That's where I stall. The story he originally comes from has more of a structure than that.
Maybe I need a collaborator. I generally do okay when there's someone to bounce ideas off of, but that also creates a problem if there's significant disagreement with your partner. I had one such disagreement on Dead End which began as a writing partnership and ended with me doing the bulk of the story and dialogue with some tweaks contributed by my partner which I never truly embraced. At a certain point during the process she took the high road and just said, 'you know what, it's your movie so you just write it and I'll stick to producing and acting in it'. Looking back, I'm glad that's how it ended up, so what does that say about my desire to collaborate?
The feeling is very reminiscient of when I liked a girl in high school but didn't have the guts to ask her out. I just pined from afar, often befriending the girl in question but never taking it beyond that. That's the unfulfillment I feel when I sit in front of the monitor, the sketchbook or the notepad these days. I'm in love with the characters, the idea and the potential of what may come out of the experience but taking that final leap...
I'm listening to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club right now and in the track playing he sings "I'm a complicated situation" which I think I can relate to right now.
I think I'll leave the rumination there and go get ready for my movie date.
Later!
Anyway, I gotta say, the urge to write something is starting to hit a boiling point. Everything I read, or watch or hear is hitting that stimulation button in the back of my head which has been buzzing non-stop for a few weeks now. I've told the wife and others how I'm feeling wrestless and think I would like to finally take another crack at making a short film, or possibly write some short stories based on characters I've created for a longer prose piece that is taking forever to materialize, but something keeps stopping me from taking that final step.
My guess, based on past experience, is that it's fear that's stopping me. Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of not living up to my own, or anyone else's, expectations...I dunno. But I'm pretty sure whatever is stopping me is fear based. Whenever I sit down at a keyboard, for whatever reason (blogging included), I get that clenched up feeling where my brain is telling me I don't know where to start, my body is telling me I have better things to be doing (usually sleep or work), and my gut is telling me to put off today what can be achieved tomorrow. It frustartes the hell out of me, but I'm not entirely sure how to crack it.
I do try and keep the writing muscles from atrophying completely. I manage to get some blog posts out there and I go back and find old scripts that could be tweaked, but they seem like hollow victories because nobody reads the former and the latter are inevitably adaptations of other people's stories. I have a pretty decent version of Neil Gaiman's "Fear of Falling" and another script I call "365 Days" which is based on an Evan Dorkin story, neither of which I have the rights to or the burden of coming up with the story in the first place. The one story I have that I did create from whole cloth has no name to speak of and was filmed once, disastrously, as a short called Dead End.Dead End featured terrible production values, unforgivable sound design, poor acting and, irony of ironies, was entered into a film festival and even shown to hundreds of people in a local theatre. I guess I'm the one who entered it, and myself, into the festival so I only have myself to blame. Still, as much as I learned from the experience of putting that movie together, it also proved to be a defining moment in regards to my current situation of non-activity.Coming up with new ideas is proving to be a difficult thing to overcome. In fact, I think Dead End was the last time I was able to put something together with a beginning, middle and end. I can generate characters, no problem, but piecing together a plot is like chinese water torture for me right now. The short story I wanted to do with my character Mark has him going garage saleing one Saturday morning and finds him running across a young woman whose fancy he seems to catch. That's where I stall. The story he originally comes from has more of a structure than that.
Maybe I need a collaborator. I generally do okay when there's someone to bounce ideas off of, but that also creates a problem if there's significant disagreement with your partner. I had one such disagreement on Dead End which began as a writing partnership and ended with me doing the bulk of the story and dialogue with some tweaks contributed by my partner which I never truly embraced. At a certain point during the process she took the high road and just said, 'you know what, it's your movie so you just write it and I'll stick to producing and acting in it'. Looking back, I'm glad that's how it ended up, so what does that say about my desire to collaborate?
The feeling is very reminiscient of when I liked a girl in high school but didn't have the guts to ask her out. I just pined from afar, often befriending the girl in question but never taking it beyond that. That's the unfulfillment I feel when I sit in front of the monitor, the sketchbook or the notepad these days. I'm in love with the characters, the idea and the potential of what may come out of the experience but taking that final leap...
I'm listening to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club right now and in the track playing he sings "I'm a complicated situation" which I think I can relate to right now.
I think I'll leave the rumination there and go get ready for my movie date.
Later!
posted by Mike Jozic at
3:53 PM
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