Well, I missed my deadline, and I feel pretty bad about it. Spoke to one of the producers today, and told him I had two hurtles to overcome: the lack of a narrator makes the action semi-impossible to depict, and one of the character's motivations doesn't exist yet. I told him I would keep working on it, but said that I was less confident in this draft than in the first. Surprisingly, he was not thrilled to hear that.
I don't know why I ever thought that I could write for pay and work for other people. Big Anklevich never lets me forget that, when we were in college and shooting a student film I wrote, that I exploded at all the other guys, "While every single one of you was either sleeping last night or out having sex, I was in front of the computer until four am trying to get this written!" I guess that was pretty funny for him to hear, since the front of his pants were still moist when I was having my little outburst.
But that's how it is. It's oh-so-easy to see that the story falls apart in the third act, sitting in a comfortable executive's chair (which cost more than I was paid to do the script), but it's far less simple to write something in the first place, or try to figure out how it won't fall apart, or fix it when it does.
Man, I look forward to oblivion. Like I said when that car zoomed past me last night, "Sweet death, is that you?" Then I sulked for another block.
Maybe I should be done with this daily writing thing. It doesn't help that it's now a competition between Big Anklevich and me (although hey, maybe it always was, and it certainly didn't bother me when I was the one in the lead, did it?), and he seems to have found his muse, while I am increasingly despondent that I ever thought I could be happy, when everything leading up to this moment should have clued me in that I won't be.
Where's that Smiths song when I need it?
So, I opened the screenplay. The two main characters are Nat and Alec, and I realized that, if I had Alec intuit that something was a big deal to Nat, that was motivation enough to get him where I need him. Not too bad.
I dedicated most of my afternoon to it, and got through to the end.
INT. FILTHY BEDROOM - NIGHT
Rish, bathed in the glow of his new laptop, lets out a RELIEVED SIGH.
But it just occurred to me, I didn't keep track of my words the whole afternoon--changing lines here and there, adding new bits, trying to condense dialogue, replacing Nat's angry father with his more pleasant one, etc.. How do I manage, then?
Sit-ups Today: 130 (is that a record? If not, I'll do a few more before I go to sleep)
Sit-ups Total: 1573
Speaking of exercise, my Uncle John came over today. He used to be more into exercise than anybody I knew, actually being a high school wrestler and part-time body builder. At his peak, his arms were as big as my tendency toward self-loathing.
Anyway, he's been trying to lose weight lately and dedicate himself to exercise, and talked to me about my nightly routine. I told him how my body always wants to quit at right before the half-mile point in every one of my runs--except for the few times it wants to give out before then. He speculated that that was my body's way of trying to get me to stop, and that I only get the endorphin rush afterwards by pushing past that point of surrender. He then demonstrated his recent regimen of push-ups by doing, I kid you not, 150 of them on the floor in front of me.
He then wanted me to feel his wrists, biceps and chest, but I'll not go into that.
After finishing the screenplay, I got some exercise of my own, nearly posted an Outcast episode, considered publishing a story on Amazon, and wrote just a bit on "Only Have Eyes." I feel a bit less worthless today than yesterday. Funny that.
Words Today: 1637(ish)
Words In May: 29,640
Words Total: 150,869
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