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By Tgreen, April 30, 2010 12:12 am

Need I say more?

Probably not, but I will anyway. Script stands at 101 pages right now. I probably need 30 more to wrap it up. Then I get to cut a lot of crap to get it back down to about 100, which is really all this story should need.

I know I’d promised a soundtrack list for this one, and I’ll get to that, but not until next week. There was just never enough time to figure out exactly what songs belong to this script. But the minute I figure it all out, I’ll post a list of some songs you’ve probably never heard of, but if you hunt them down and listen they might inspire you enough to demand I let you read a copy of the script. And you know what? I just might. Someone besides me has gotta see this thing at some point under some circumstances. Why not you?

And why, if I just managed to bang out 101 script pages in 30 days (or much less given my vacation) am I entitling my little celebratory blog post “Halfway Home”? Because I’ve still got a short story to finish before the end of April 30. That one still needs work, but I think I’ve got a handle on it and it should be no problem. And then? If there’s an iPad to be found in NYC, it just might end up coming home with me. If I can finish the story, that is.

More later. Sleep now. Thanks for reading.

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By Tgreen, April 28, 2010 11:16 pm

Script = 90 pages.

Short story = 1486 words.

Countdown = T-minus 2 days.

Chances of Friday turning into iPad Friday = 80-or-so %

Chances of any of the words written the last couple of days actually belonging within four miles of each other = 30-or-so %

Chances that I’m going to worry about that before the weekend = 0-or-so %

I’m feeling cautiously optimistic. And very, very tired.

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By Tgreen, April 26, 2010 11:45 pm

When I started this Script Frenzy business on April 1, I had a couple of assumptions. One of them was (though I guess technically this assumption came along a day or so later once I settled on my script) that I knew I wasn’t wrapping this script in 100 pages. I expected I’d need 120-130, and I’d edit down from there. The other assumption was that because of my vacation and the randomness of my work schedule, I wasn’t making it to 100 pages in 30 days anyway. So I packed up these assumptions, stuck them in the back of my brain, and wrote whenever I could.

I wrote on my laptop at night after work. I wrote on my iPhone on the express bus, on the couch, in my hotel room bed at Disney, while waiting around in at least 2 of the Disney parks, and, I’m not ashamed to admit it, on the can. And after 26 days, I find myself at 76 pages. Approximately 3 days behind schedule.

Is this good? I’m not sure. It’s probably better than I thought I’d be when I saw how little time or interest I had in writing while on vacation. But still, I’ve been writing from behind since the first week of this thing, and since I don’t know what the next 4 days will bring at work, 76 pages might be all I get to do. Who knows. But I think tentatively I have to say that 76 pages is probably pretty good for Day 26. It’s 76 more pages than most people will write in a month, for what that’s worth.

And there’s another obstacle, too. While April 30 is the Script Frenzy deadline, May 1 is the deadline for the latest issue of The First Line, and I’m trying real hard to submit something to them too. I’m just over 1000 words on that story, and need at least 1000 more, and possibly more than that. I’m writing this story exclusively on the iPhone, and that’s working out well so far.

So, 24 more pages of script and 1000-2000 more words of short story in 4 days? I don’t think I can pull it off. I’m gonna give it a try, though. It’s too early to give up. That’s what Thursday night is for.

Of course, I did make a deal with myself as kind of an incentive. If I get them both done on time, I might just head on out and reward myself with an iPad. Let’s see if that helps. For now, damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!

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By Tgreen, April 20, 2010 11:21 pm

You now what makes me sad? This makes me sad:

How the hell is it possible that The Empire Strikes Back is turning 30? I’m almost positive I just went to see it at the Brook Theater on Flatbush and Flatlands maybe 2 or 3 years ago. Certainly not 30 years ago. That can’t be possible. I’m not that old.

Whether I’m old enough or not, this surprising news means I’ll probably go and dig out the Star Wars essay I wrote for T & Sympathy at the Treetop Lounge a couple of years ago and add it here, maybe with an edit or two. And then I’m gonna write one up for Empire, because I’ve got some similar stuff to say about that movie. And then I’ll go get drunk over the very real possibility that I might be so old that I saw this movie premiere 30 years ago. Though I still don’t completely believe it.

I could also use a time machine to help me out with my Script Frenzy script. I’m back to writing regularly, but I’m way behind, which we’ll get to in a post tomorrow, I believe. And a time machine might ensure that I actually get around to creating some of the action-packed Tgreen vs Walt Disney World content that I want to post to this blog. But mostly, the time machine would help me go back and prove there’s no way I’m old enough to remember this movie’s premiere and must be thinking of its latest DVD release. Any other possibility is not worth considering.

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By Tgreen, April 4, 2010 12:21 am

Okay, so against my better judgement I did in fact start up my script for Script Frenzy. It was not a trouble-free process. If you recall back in November when I started up Nanowrimo, my main point, other than the fact that it was a bad idea, was that I went in with nothing. No idea as to what I was going to write. No characters, no setting, no plot, no nothing. And this did not worry me, because I’ve been writing fiction for years and feel that if nothing else, I know how to work my way into a story even when I’m starting on fumes.

Turns out script writing is different, at least for me. Probably because I’m not used to the format, when I sat down on the night of April 1st to write, it was awkward. Maybe not quite “oh crap, I think I’m accidentally writing an episode of According to Jim” awkward, but it was pretty awkward. I dutifully banged out my 4 pages of script, powered down the computer for the night, and went to sleep. The thing is, though, I wasn’t itching to start working on page 5, and one thing I’ve learned from my several attempts at Nanowrimo, once I get started I can usually at least keep myself interested for the first few days or longer. If my script was boring me on day 1, how was I going to get through something like day 20, when no doubt I’d be several pages behind with a half dozen work deadlines kicking my ass?

Now, if you’ll hang on for just a second — a side trip. I mentioned the other day that I knew going into this thing that there was no way I’d be able to write 100 script pages in April. This is because I’ll be headed down to Disney World for a week, and I don’t expect to get a whole lot of writing done while I’m down there. But since I wasn’t going to let 4 lame script pages sink my month before it had even started, I looked for a way to get some writing done while on vacation. Since I wrote some of my Nanowrimo story on my iPhone, I went looking for a script-writing app and sure enough, I found several. One of them offered a free trial version, so on Friday I downloaded it and gave it a try. I didn’t pick up on page 5 of the script I was working on. Instead, I just started a second script and wrote about a page or so. It was no better than the other 4 pages, with no big prospects to get better.

If you’re keeping score at home, by day 2 of Script Frenzy I had 2 different scripts that I didn’t like, with barely a plot between them. What could I do? Would I have to give up on the 2nd day? I thought about it, sure. But then while I was at work another idea came to me. I did have one particular story kicking around the back of my head the last 2 years or so. It’s heavily music-based and most of the climax involves a singing performance, and from back when I first thought of it I knew that if the story were ever going to survive outside the confines of my brain, it would only work if people could hear the song, watch it being sung, and experience what the characters experience as it happens. This meant screenplay, which explains why the story got exiled to the back of my brain, called forward only when I played a particular sequence of songs on my iPod.

But I was thinking, maybe I’m not good enough to try and crank out a script by starting from zero. Maybe if I’m writing a script, I need the comfort of some pre-considered ideas to get me over the unfamiliar terrain of script writing. So I went home the second day of Script Frenzy, planted ass in seat, and instead of picking up the script from the night before, or the script on my iPhone, I decided to start my 3rd script in less than 48 hours and I wrote this:

INT. HOLLY’S WORLD STORE #8, NIGHT
BRIAN JONES, late 20s and dressed in business casual attire gone wrinkled and sloppy after a 12+ hour day, walks the empty floor of the store one last time, scanning up and down aisles for any activity as he heads for the bank of light switches past the checkout counters near the front door. NEIL, mid-20s and dressed in shabby jeans and a Holly’s World smock, slouches by the front door waiting for Brian. Brian hits switches in sequence as he passes, and a click is audible as a bank of lights goes out each time. When no light remains but the emergency lights pooled near the front door, he shoos Neil out the door and follows him.

CUT TO:

EXT. HOLLY’S WORLD PARKING LOT, SECONDS LATER
Brian and Neil walk to opposite sides of the wide entrance area and wrestle down the metal security grating. Brian closes the padlock on his end, then walks to Neil’s end and closes the padlock there as well. He blows a small cloud of steam into the cool night air as he and Neil survey the parking lot, empty except for Brian’s car and a minivan that just finished pulling up several spots away from them.

NEIL:
Oh Jesus, this isn’t a customer, is it? It’s like 2 in the morning.

BRIAN:
This is what happens when you cut back from 24 hours. People forget but they still need stuff.

NEIL:
It’s not our problem this dumb bastard showed up after the store closed. C’mon, let’s go.

BRIAN:
Let’s at least wait until we find out what he wants. We can point him toward the 24-hour store by the Interstate.

NEIL:
If we don’t freeze to death first.

Nothing Oscar-worthy, to be sure. But all of a sudden, I was writing a script for a story I’d thought up maybe 2 years ago. I’m on page 14 or 15 right now, and while I’m not even up to the first scene I’d imagined for this story, I’ve already introduced a character I never imagined lived in this story and who turns out to be pretty cool. And I’m looking forward to sitting down and writing this one every day, to see if I can make it to that last scene with that last song. I’m going all in on this one, and I hope it pays off.

Expect to see more script excerpts throughout the month, and also soundtrack listings, since for once I’ll be completely justified in making a soundtrack for a story. Thanks to my vacation I doubt I’ll make it to page 100 before April 30. But if it all works out, I’ll find a way to get this whole story down. Thanks for stopping by and indulging a more-than-slightly-burned-out writer wannabe.

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By Tgreen, April 1, 2010 1:06 am

In theory, it should work like this — you want to write, so you write. Simple. Believable. Like the song says, it oughtta be easy, oughtta be simple enough. And yet, after banging my brain against the inside of my skull for at least 8 hours a day at work, most nights the best I can do is crank out an email or two, perhaps a Yelp review, and maybe a tweet. Certainly nothing more than that. It’s not to say I don’t have the best of intentions. But those intentions seem to melt away once ass hits couch after the long trip home on the D train.

So in the absence of the easy way, what’s left? Why, a stunt, of course. Last November I wrote a novel in a month, and if you scroll down a bit you can read all about it. This month? Well, this month I’m trying something different, if no less ridiculous. This month I’m writing a 100-page script while participating in Script Frenzy. I’ve never written much in the way of scripts, and don’t have a whole lot of interest in it, but for the month of April, Script Frenzy gives me a goal, a deadline, and hopefully the right amount of motivation to write something more substantial than a Waffle House review.

When I sit down this evening to start my script, I have a few options. I can write a movie script, or a TV show, or a play, or even a graphic novel (high-class-speak for comic book). As I write this, I’ve got no idea which one I’ll choose. I wrote a TV episode script once. It sucked. I wrote 3/4ths of a movie script once. It sucked. I wrote about half of a script that was either an animated movie or a hybrid of live action and animation. It sucked. And while I’ve never bothered to sit down and write a comic book script, I’ve sure created many comics in my day. Some of them didn’t suck.

I guess what I’m getting at here is that I haven’t exactly set the bar terribly high as far as script writing is concerned, so assuming I make it to 100 pages in a month, whatever I write is bound to be at least as bad as all the other crap I’ve done, and maybe it might be a little better. Of course, the dirty little secret in all this is I know going into it that it will be almost impossible for me to get to 100 pages in this particular month. But we’ll get to that later. For now, there’s nothing but good times ahead. Hey kids, let’s put on a show!