John August held a scene writing contest on this blog and I thought it was the perfect thing to get me back into writing so I entered. I didn’t win but, that wasn’t the out come I was hoping for. I wanted to just complete something that had a deadline.

For the contest you had to write a scene using three things: A Fork, A Photo and a Phobia. Easy right? Well I didn’t want to use the clichéd phobias, so I picked two, one being common and the other no so common. This by no means was a polished effort. I just wanted to get it done so I could enter. Now, on to bigger contests. Maybe I can finish a whole screenplay now. Anyway, here is the scene I entered. You can head over to John’s blog to see the other entries (110 in all).

I’ve been keeping an eye on John August’s development of his Scrippets plug-in for Wordpress since he announced it. I’ve always been envious of his way with code that made script excerpts show up on his website  in proper format. Now everyone can do it.

I’m excited this works. Now I can show some of my work for people to tear apart. Checkout the plug in here and here.

Of the few new shows that came on BTWS (before the writers strike), one that I really liked and was looking forward to coming back on ATWS was Life . The show follows Detective Charlie Crews who, after being convected for a crime he didn’t commit, returns to the force. He gets a new lease on “Life” after being given “Life” in prison. He has to deal with all the people who turned their backs on him including his ex-wife and former partner, while trying to find the person who actually committed the triple murder he was sent away for.

It was recently reported in early April that Life would be coming back for a second season but was given and the dreaded Friday time slot. While NBC is touting this as a move to get people to watch TV on a Friday night, I highly doubt this is the best strategy. Shows like Life, which is procedural based, but has an over all mystery that must be played out over the season, haven’t done good recently. The show Journey Man comes to mind. The shows are billed and promoted as big mysteries that cover spans of time (think Lost), which makes the person who might have missed the pilot or the first few episode not want to even bother trying to catch up. 

Luckily, there are ways with sites like Hulu, to keep up or catch up on what you might have missed. I just hope Life gets the push it deserves and this Friday placement wasn’t just a, “If it keeps it’s audience, we’ll keep it, if not, oh well” move. Either way, checkout the pilot below on Hulu.

(Photo by Marisag)

It’s been awhile since I’ve had the urge to write something for pure entertainment. I do still do a little writing over on my other blog, but nothing that’s along the lines of why I started this blog. For the past few months I’ve been saying I was going to leave work and go directly to Borders to do some writing. Maybe outline a new script or update an old one. It never happened. I would just come home, get on the Internet and emerge from cyberspace hours later with nothing to show for it. If I didn’t get on the Internet, I’d either watch some TV, or fall asleep. Sometimes I’d do both.

Lately, I’ve been beating around this idea in my head and earlier this week I decided to jot it down on a piece of paper just in case I felt the urge to write. The plan was, if I do actually, finally, go to Borders I’d have a starting point. This was the writing before the writing. With this, I had something to at least stare at if I did show up.

Today, I left work, came home, packed my Booq bag with my MacBook Pro – yes I’m a snob – and headed to Borders. Just the action of putting my laptop in my bag and the thought of going somewhere to write, not for work but for entertainment, excited me. I chose Borders because I don’t have a t-mobile hotspot account and can’t get detracted by the lure of the Internet. I’ve been to a few Internet cafe type places in the past and tired to write but the free wifi always wins.

Once I set down, pulled out my laptop, and put my Bose headphones on – I know, snob right? – it just felt right. I proceeded to write for two hours, “brain dumping” a bunch of ideas, scenes and character from the little note I jotted down earlier this week. It’s a small step, but a step none the less. And the fact that I’m writing this right now lets me know that I’m heading in the right directions.

I hate it when people with blogs who haven’t written on them in a longtime say things like, “I’m back!” or “I’m going to start blogging again!” or anything along those lines, so I won’t either. What I will say is, I’m excited to be presently writing and besides Borders, this will be one of the places I will continue to do so.

Now that I’m getting back into Screenwriting (and blogging), I wanted to write about one of the problems that’s plaguing me with my writing. Paralysis by analysis or analysis paralysis . This is a big problem for me. I think to much about what I’m about to write and then over analyze it the point of frustration. If I don’t give up at that point – most times I do – I start to “research” which turns into surfing the Internet then into watching TV. Afterwards I’m always upset that I walked away.

Another example would be reading Screenwriting books or information on screenwriting. While this isn’t bad, I tend to hope and think that inside those pages there will be that one gem that will get me out of the funk and help fix whatever problem I’m having with plot or whatever it is. In reality, it just a form of procrastination. I’m always looking for answers to something that hasn’t been written yet, when I’m sure if I start writing the answers will come. Sometimes you have to just jump of that cliff and build your wings on the way down.

I learned this by starting another blog. The idea was simple. The execution shouldn’t have taken as along as it did, but I got caught up in the idea. This is where most of my projects stall. What was different about starting that blog was I decided to just do it. If it failed so what. How many blogs start and stop on a daily basis? The risk of failing was minimal. I had everything I needed. The only thing holding me back was actually writing the blog.

When I first started taking a stab at Screenwriting, it was all about the writing. The first thing I wrote was a color coded 25 page scene in Microsoft works. I knew nothing about Screenwriting and better yet I feared nothing. There is a quote by Alec Bourne that says; “It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.” Relating to this issue, for me it means, just write. Put down the book. Forget proper format (until you’re done ). All the books, articles and seminars will help you learn more but they don’t help you do the one thing that should come easy. Writing. How do you handle this?

Surfing around the Newyorktimes.com website I came across an article on Indie Sitcoms . While the article didn’t go in depth, it did highlight a few shows like, Duder, Floaters, The Burg and Soup of the Day. One of the projects I’ve been working on is a sitcom. I had the idea of producing it myself for straight-to-Internet distribution but I wasn’t sure it could be done or how to do it. After waiting a few episodes of those straight-to-Internet sitcoms, I plan on making that my focus and creating either a sitcom or a drama.
Check back on Wednesday for a more detailed description of my plan and how I will go about doing so. Until then click on the links of the sitcoms and check them out.

A few days ago I popped over to one of my favored finance blogs and was greeted by the picture you see above. Although this is a finance blog the caption resonated with me. “I’ll do it tomorrow” has become my mantra. I’ve been waiting to start blogging again and hoping to have that great come back blog post that would tell everything about why I was away and hadn’t blogged, but I’ll do it tomorrow always won out. The first draft script that’s been done and in need of a rewrite, I’ll do it tomorrow. The Grey’s Anatomy script I want to write? I’ll do it tomorrow. Sitcom script? I’ll… you get the picture.
I’ve had every excuse to not do any of those things and some were legit (my computer breaking), but laziness is the only real answer as to why I’ll do it tomorrow turned into the broken record that hunted me daily.
So no more I’ll do it tomorrow. I’m starting with this post today.

I haven’t blogged in awhile, but it’s not my fault. I host this blog through yahoo’s small business starter plan and for some reason it stopped letting me acsses my log in page. After a long fight with yahoo’s non-existent customer service, I decided to just delete the blog and start over. To add to that the computer I used to design the blog crashed and I lost all my pretty CSS stylings. Most of my post were saved since I started this blog on blogger, but some of the newer ones where lost. Also lost in the crash were all of my scripts. Every last one of them! I have yet to take the computer to the shop so I’m hoping I can at least get them back. If not, oh well, I’ll start all over.
The worst part of this whole fiasco is I was just starting to get a few readers and now I have to work to get them (you) back. But that’s OK, I will do my best. Please be patient as I rebuild and add all the old post back in along with changing the layout. I will be opening the topic up a little more also to include more the just screenwriting, so be on the look out for that too.

As far as books are concerned, I’ve really gotten into reading them as of late. That might not sound bad if I was say 13, but I’m 26. For a quick background on my inability to grasp anything literary, the only two books I can remember reading, required or not, before I dove head first in to the world of the pedantic were, The autobiography of Malcolm X and the Da Vinci Code. I’m sure there must have been more but I can’t think of any.

Over the last few years I’ve started a little collection of books that’s grown into a little book case which in turn grew into a full book case with piles of books on the floor. Some people do it with drugs, some with sex, some with exercise; I get high off of books.

The books I read cover a range of topics as you can see by looking at the sidebar of this blog. The most recent one being Cast Of Shadows by Kevin Guilfoile. I won this book in an ebay auction against myself for $0.99 plus shipping and handling. I first remember reading about it on a blog that I go to daily and thought the premises was very intriguing. A Doctor clones his daughter’s killer to look him in the eye once he grows up. Amazon does a better job describing it and you can check out their wordy synopsis and an excerpt here.

The story takes place over a 20 year span starting with the vivid scene of Dr. Davis Moore walking onto the crime scene of his recently murdered daughter Anna Kat. I knew I would like this book after I read the dust jacket, but after reading these first few chapters and the way the author invoked emotion, I was hooked.

Going in, you know a lot about the story; Cloning is legal, Dr. Moore’s daughter will die, he will clone the killer and watch him grow up with the idea of vengeance on his mind. You would think this will give the reader some insight into how the story might develop and hint at an ending that would be easily predicted, but it’s not.
For anyone looking for a good story I highly recommend this. Check it out in paper back this month.

Over the last 2 weeks I’ve made my way down to old city on numerous occasions to catch a few flix at the Philadelphia Film Festival. Alicia and I have been talking about going for the past 2 years or so but never made it  there. This year we caught 4 good movies and 1 not so good one. The first was Half Nelson staring Ryan Gosling which I liked a lot more then I thought I would. I picked this one because I’m fan of his and the director was giving a Q&A afterwards. While I thought some parts were very awkward I enjoyed this very much and got to ask the director, Ryan Fleck a question. Also in attendance was the young female lead in the film Shareeka Epps. She did a great job and was very excited to be in Philly as she wants to attend a local college here. Great movie followed by an even better Q&A.
The next film was the documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated which is about the MPAA ratings board and the rating system it uses. I highly recommend this one. Go see it when it’s released wide. The cut we saw was different then the one in Sundance and the director, Kirby Dick said he still has a few things to tweak before it’s released wide. The film uses film clips from well known movies to expose the hypocrisy of the ratings system in a funny, informative and entertaining way. The Egg people explaining what can and can’t be done in movies is classic. The film also interviews well known directors (John Waters, Kevin Smith, Kimberly Peirce, Matt Stone) who’ve had to deal with the MPAA’s self-righteous maneuverings.  Afterwards Kirby Dick fielded some questions and entertained the crowd before running out of time before the next movie screening. This movie was well worth it and made me want to see some of his other films.
Next was LOL. Before LOL the short film Fly was screened and received a warming applause. It was a funny 12 minute movie about a young man’s compulsive attention to his “fly.” After seeing this I had a feeling it was going to be better then the feature to follow. I was right. LOL is an 82 minute film that could have been cut now to the 12 minute running time of its opening act Fly. Most of the cast was in attendance as well as the director, and after the movie ended they took some questions from the crowd. The director announced that they film was not scripted and you could almost here the audience exhale and say, “That’s why it wasn’t good.” The Q&A did add a little incite which made some things make since but it was not enough we make me like the film even though I wanted too. After the Q&A they gave out CD’s which was cool but it was music from the movie, so it really didn’t matter. This film has been compared to the film Funny Ha Ha which I hated but many people love. I think the same thing that pulled me into that film pulled me into this one. A Young cast, young director and good trailer. The one thing I liked about this was that they were all happy to be at the screening and seemed truly excited.
On Saturday April 9th, we saw Hard Candy. Hard Candy comes out this weekend, GO SEE THIS MOVIE. This is an awkward and tense work of beauty. Ellen Page’s performance was amazing. One of the best torture scenes ever! Once again, GO SEE THIS MOVIE! The gripping suspense will have you stuck to the edge of your seat with an unease that’s gut wrenching but engaging. Do it, go see it, do it.
And lastly we saw One Last Thing… which has local ties with the writer, director and some cast members being local as well as some of the movie being shot in Marcus Hook, PA. This movie was very funny despite of the subject matter – a young man with a terminal illness makes an unconventional request on local television. The writer did a great job making you care for every character and handle the inclusion of religion with out making it seen preachy or forced. This is a great movie to see with a great cast to boot.In all, I had a great time at the film fest and will be attending next year. One thing I would have liked to see more of is people hyping there own films. I only had one person hand me a flier to go see his movie. I wish there were more people pimping there films. Hopefully next year I can hand out fliers to my film at this festival.