Time is on my side

Where to begin? Well, why not get down to the nit-grit of what it is I do. Without trying to explain in exorbitant and mind numbing detail what it is I write and why and what I hope it effects, and who it will... blah blah blah... I'm just going to post some of my loglines (the one or two sentence pitch for a movie that summarizes the tension.) This way you'll get a taste. Then I'll follow up with snippets from some of my screenplays, short stories, etc.

I don't want to be too generous, but more will follow.

On another note, I'd like to mull over the time involved with any kind of scribe work. It is no easy task, and when one has too much time the projects can tend to stretch and stretch until the strength, and perhaps credibility, of that story can weaken to the point of absurdity. But should you just cram it all into a month, a week, a few days? No. Not unless you have to. Those who work on tv scripts have little choice in the matter. The demands of television are hyperkinetic, and in my opinion, in terms of content, overly dramatized. But, I suppose that's what people want. Hell, I used to watch Gray's Anatomy. I still watch Battlestar Galactica. So, I suppose I can't be hypocritical. After all, they have to cram a story arc, character development, and a seasonal plot movement all for a half hour or an hour, if the show happens to have a plot.

But what about novel writers? Or feature film writers? Or for short stories, and, hell, for poetry? Shouldn't one wait till it's absolutely perfect? Excuse me, but when is that? You can perfect the hell out of your story and still it may end up like shit. I've found, over these seven years, that perfection should not, not ever, be the goal. Instead, you should focus on gaining an understanding of when enough is enough. It's a sense of rhythm. A sense of structure, character, and action. Where does that come from? Could be intuitive, an instinctual knack. Could be learned through classes, workshops, comparisons, and just good old fashioned try and try again. Magic will not help here. And for the ever present, monstrous, glorious shadow of those who came before, what is called the Burden of the Past, well, that's difficult. If you think Goethe, Johnson, Keats, Hemingway, or even Shakespeare (whether he was one person or five) never had to practice their craft, never had to read or research, oh, well, you might want to get out now. First, if you're reading this blog, you're probably not of that god-like caliber. Second, even geniuses need practice. Mozart (I'm going musical now) indeed composed his first minuet at the wee age of 5 and played in front of a duke. Still, he learned much from his father, and more so still after. Raw talent is just that. Without refinement, without a constant shaping and reshaping of that "ore", as Keats called it, all the time in the world can't help, never mind perfect, a work of so called art.

P.S. Read the Greats. If you don't, you don't know what shadow you're standing in.

For me, I wrote false poems, like the rest, and thought them true because myself was true in writing them. -Elizabeth Barrett Browning