Every time I have a day off my first thought will always go to writing. I came up here specifically to write. What am I writing? The same thing I’ve been writing, on and off, for three or so years; a script. It used to come much more easily to me. I don’t know, perhaps when I was just writing when I was younger (in high school) and I’d come up with these huge scripts that were obviously way too long and just not that good (not that good in retrospect, but a damn good attempt, I’ll never short change what I did when I was younger. Just that I’d do it much differently now. Which come to think about it, they are mostly on my parents old computer that’s just sitting collecting dust…hmmm…).

Last Spring Break, from working at the school I work at, I devoted an entire week to writing this script (that would be the third official writing of it, but it because the farthest I had ever gone with this particular script–lets give it a name, even if its just initials…we’ll call it “CF&S“. A normal script, meant for a film, should be between 90-120 pages. If you’re looking for any significance in the page length, look no further than it each page is supposed to be about a minute in length. Are they always? No. Usually a page could be of all dialogue and fall roughly shorter than thirty seconds or it could all be description of a scene, or an action sequence or just things happening and one page could be five minutes. It all really depends. A script like a Titanic could run over 200 pages in length, but then again, look how long a movie like that runs.

For CF&S, I have the fullest intentions of it being 120 pages, but when all was said and done at the end of that long week back in March, I had written 185 pages worth of what I had hoped to have been a nice little dramedy (which if for some reason you have never heard of this genre, Wikipedia.org says that:

“Comedy-drama, also called dramedy or dramatic comedy, is a style of television and film in which there is an equal, or nearly equal balance of humor and serious content.”

I had clearly written too much. And in all actuality, that may just be an understatement. It was huge. I really didn’t know quite what to do. How do you tackle something of this size? Seriously. Something had to be done…so I quickly did the only thing I knew what to do…I printed the first thirty pages and went to work quickly on my firest re-write.

I started doing well until I got to the point in the script that I knew I could do without. And that “point” was something so big that it took the next sixty pages to get to. If I could somehow get rid of those sixty pages I may be able to tame this wild beast that I unleashed out into the world (or more like the apartment at that time–poor little Peanut was being chased around by 185 pages of a wild boar of a script, all the while screaming in his little high pitched voice “DADDY! HELP ME! AHHHH!”).

But, alas, it was too much. Being that I finished this colossal undertaking on a Friday, I quickly wrote a blog entry (which can be viewed here: Writing Update: Finished) about how excited I was to be finished and off to the next phase of the evolution of the script: The Re-write. But I stopped. Nothing happened. I had a whole be master plan that I wanted to get it done and to festivals and all that. But nothing happened. Work caught up with me. We moved. We fixed up the house and time went by and, like many days going to and from work, I thought about what I had written and I thought about how best to tackle such an creator as this thing and I figured out ways to tame it but things still bothered me about it.

Then this past November, during my school districts Fall Break (unlike every other freaking school district that has a mid-winter break, ours falls in November) and I started re-writing the script. I had come up with a new way to start the script. I needed a fresh take on it and so I wrote it up. But the week ended and I was back to work.

I find that I get myself to a place in my writing that I just can’t write anymore. I get stuck. Like I’m sure many writers do. And I get frustrated. And I always think about this little guy below.

So excited at first, then I go nuts and I know where things are going and then I hit a snag and I just loose it and loose interest.

I wish I had more discipline in my writing. Seriously, I wish I just had more discipline in life, but I’ll take discipline in writing. I wish I could focus my attention on a single thing at a time and put more energy into it. I wish things were as easy as writing this blog. I mean, if I could put the same energy I’m putting into this entry, where I’m simply bitching about not being able to write, yet at the same time writing over a thousand words on how I’m feeling about writing, then why can’t I just do what I’ve always wanted to do? I don’t know?

There was a time a few years ago that I thought maybe I wrote the best thing I could ever write with Ethan Ross. So not true. It was good. It touched upon everything I had set out to do. But I think a lot of what is wrong with me now is that I’m either too caught up with trying to be original or different or that’s not going to catch their attention. Why am I writing for anyone other than myself right now? Seriously? I’m not out there, I’m not signed by anyone. Why am I pressuring myself to appeal to anyone other than myself. Will I ever be truly happy with what I write?

I sit down and start writing and I always feel like one of the little icons, like this other one below:

and I just wonder, is there an end to my head banging into the keyboard. Why am I banging my head into the keyboard. Why isn’t it just coming to me? Is there just too much rattling up in my head to even think straight? Have I gotten to that point?

And I fear, that if I don’t start getting on the ball and stop life from kicking me in the ass that as I get older I’m just going to regret not writing all of these years, when I’m young and I’m able to do it. I really want to stop being the guy banging my head on the keyboard and just relax. Take a second and enjoy the fact that I do have an ability that doesn’t come that easily to everyone and I should shut my mouth and stop complaining and just get it done. Instead of making excuses for myself and allowing distraction like the Internet (blog included) or TV or whatever else comes my way when I have nothing else to do, like a day like today, that I need to…no…I have to write. It is essential to me and to who I am.

Now, maybe after I’ve written all of this down, I might be able to pull my head out of the keyboard long enough to write a couple of pages.

–Cos