I’ve moved. That’s right! Its been six months in a new state. The experience has been mixed and I hadn’t understood the feeling of having to acclimate to a new culture until now. It’s odd how different people can be when you shift just a mere fourteen hundred or so miles. The job I am working is the same and its the main reason I was able to do this move, yet now that I am out here it has started to really irritate me. Many people will tell us (the generation I live within now) that you should be thankful for what you have, that having a job is everything. Those notions though come from an older generation, one that worked at one place loyal to a career or to one job, a generation that has yet to meet or understand the “start up” era. At least I think that’s what this time we are living in now is called. An interesting notion to say the least. There may be a slim possibility that the country is shifting from the rich and powerful owning giant corporations, to small groups of people with highly focused areas of interest and expertise. I ramble, this is something for a different blog I suppose.

I’ve spent time on a new story, this one in the form of a novel. Writing in prose is foreign to me but I am getting back into it by reading more and listening to stories read to me while stuck in traffic. I’ve always felt like that was the way a story was meant to be delivered, while books are nice there is something very basic about having a story read to you. It’s how stories were originally told after all, from one ear to another, and I love the act of hearing versus that of just reading.

Writing is slow these days, I try my best on the days that I have to fill them with writing page after page, but those days are few and far between. If I had my wish, I would make the same money I do now at a part time job, rather than this devouring monster that I work now. It does make me work that much harder however when it comes to the days that I do get. I look forward to completing this short novel, and seeing where it takes this career that I have been striving to launch for the past few years.

I am half way through a book entitled; ‘Talk the Talk: A dialogue Workshop for Scriptwriters’ by Penny Penniston. I picked it up off of amazon not to long ago and so far it is pretty interesting. One of the things I have had a major problem with in my screen play is dialogue, and as far as I am concerned it is the most difficult thing to write. The book has excersizes that are focused on helping you understand dialogue, and some of them are kind of intrusive (lasting for weeks sometimes.) and others are simple things that can be done alone. The most helpful thing so far is punctuation in dialogue.

I am a little upset with myself, I had promised that I would have a first draft of my Fringe episode done today, but alas I could not even start it today, as I was tied up with interviews with Apple all day.

Oh and if anyone wants to check out a cool face book page, look up the Nicholl fellowships. It’s actually pretty neat, people from all over the place posting on the wall, all writers, and some of them post some pretty helpful things.

That’s all for now hopefully I will have a new screen play by tomorrow.

I have been having some trouble as of late. I read a book not to long ago called “Save the Cat”. A book on screen writing (no doubt), which gave specific examples and even a structured beat sheet as to how to write a screenplay. There it was in black and white, what page to put what scene on, what genres are out there and their meanings, it was a nice thing to read, made things clear.

Then along comes a video with Robert Mckee, (The script writing “guru”) telling me that having things listed out on pages (what save the cat does for you) is a bad idea. Not only is it a bad idea, it can, and this is his exact words: “ruin a young screen writers career”.

This is everywhere in the world of screen writing, and I am starting to think writing in general. You’ll have one person say, THIS! THIS is the way you need to do it! While another person will go on about something else entirely. It’s led me to believe that NO ONE knows what he or she is doing in this field. I don’t think anyone really knows how to write a screenplay, I think there are just those that get lucky, or know the right people.

It is something I will have to put up with I suppose, but it is still very frustrating.

Hello and welcome to my brand new always updating, and still a work in progress blog. This is a place for me to let others know what I am about and what kind of things I am working on, here is what is going on as of today!

• Submitted my script to the Nicol Fellowship screenwriting competition. (big sigh of relief, more on this later)
• Finally! Finished with the first real version of AFTER THE BOMB. A script I am very proud of, excerpt to come!
• Going back to my first script to ‘reduex’ it! Expect Character bios! Illustrations! This is going to be one hell of a ride people.

That’s it for now folks. As I said there will be a post with more on my competition experience and the weeks leading up to it.