Trolling on

I now find myself 10 shoddy pages into a 30 page treatment. What a miraculous turnaround.

To be fair, most of it was already written. Much of what I'm doing is expanding on what was already written in shorthand. Trying to make it sound less like rough notes on a story and a little more treatment-y.

One thing I'm about a third of the way through is a step outline. Literally, I'm going back and forth between this and that. I had done this originally and used that to write the treatment but now I can't find it, if I even kept it. It's really useful to have all this information on one page, especially as this is an old piece and I am re-discovering it for myself.

The beginning of my second act I though was a little thin. Truth is it's just that the protagonist seems to go away for a little while. I had thought of this as a one character piece. I want my hero to be a real catalyst for change, with his grubby little mitts all over everything that happens. Which he is, but I see he's less involved than I'd hoped. Rather than try and shoehorn him in, I'm just going to cut these scenes back. Put less of them on screen. I just hope I have enough material...

So after a little juggling I have what looks like a decent step outline. A few things have moved around, but not very far, It's like one of those puzzles, you move one black but then you need to move another to make the picture look right.

I discovered last night that Prom night isn't the last time that American kids see each other. They still have school and exams to go, then they don't even have a leavers ball! It's just nothing until graduation, which is the true last time these people will see each other.

This was a problem for me because I had my script opening just after the Prom (or even during it). The leads girlfriend dumps him and heads off to Europe. He has to get a job so he can afford to go off after her. So easily fixed. Just forget the Prom and have it take place the day after a house party. But then I noticed character problems.

So this guy is so infatuated with his girlfriend (ex girlfriend) that he gets a job to save the money to rush off to Italy to win her back. He gets a job, but it is terrible and he has to quit. All good so far. We see this guy is a quitter and has given up on the job. But if he was such a quitter why didn't he just give up on his girlfriend? Also, at work, he meets another girl. It's the thought of losing out on this girl that convinces him to go and get his job back. So he wants to get his job back to earn enough money to go and win his girlfriend back and yet the thing that really convinces him to go back for the job is the idea of winning over another girl? What a mess!

So I'm keeping the ex, added to his financial straits it puts him at a low place to begin with. His ordinary world is now a low place. He's unlucky in all aspects of his life and a quitter. The end of the movie will put him in a completely different place. Now I can make the return of the ex another obstacle in his relationship with new girl. There are plenty of others, why not one more. One planted in the first scene which will pay off late in act 2 to be resolved (with our hero and love interest finally getting together) in act 3.

Yeah, now we're onto something. Now to put it on the page.

Work and Panic attacks

I keep having these really tense moments. To describe them as panic attacks is overstating. I am the cool, calm, collected centre of the universe. My feathers are rarely ruffled, but I do occasionally find myself pausing before breathing.

What could it be that causes such a robotic and emotionless stone any degree of worry?

I keep thinking I may never make it as a writer. I mean, what if I don't? Never mind the shattered dreams and all the rest of it, what the hell else am I going to do? I can't do anything. I am rapidly approaching my 31st birthday (although still am mistaken for a 21 year old ladies!), unqualified for anything much, unable to do even less and damn near unemployable, it seems.

I have 2 terribly underpiad DJing jobs, but I had never intended to be a DJ, I just sort of fumbled through it until I found myself being a few people's "go to guy". But the young guns are rapidly coming up behindme. These kids actully like the music they play (although learning fast, as I did, that people have no taste). Pretty soon I may be shit out of the luck I've been coasting on there.

Not only that I am chronically disorganised and as I am about to head into year 2 of my MA I still have not sorted out any means of funding. Yup, that's right. I won't even be allowed back in if I don't fix this. Which means a trip to the bank, to beg for money. Maybe I'll take in my marks and see if thatimpresses them any. "Look I got good marks! I may make it and be able to pay this back one day!"

So I sort of realized it's write or die for me.

So what do I do? Do I start scribbling away at the treatment I need for my MA? My actual coursework. No. Of course not. I start writing a prose novel which will probably be terrible. I did thisonce before. It was about a bunch of lads on a night out. Students. Dazed & Confused meets Swingers. It probably wasn't that bada story, but I shouldve written itas a screenplay. Imean the whole time I was writing I was thinking about the movie adaptation rather than the book anyway, but this was before I realised I should try screenwriting. In fact I think I did start to adapt it - but by adapt I mean rewrite it in movie format, rather than restructure into movie structure.

I saw a friend of mine on Facebook has an interest in movies and is starting to write a Zombie thing. Some kind of multi part web series. I don't think he's ever tried writing before. I've offered my help so we'll see where that goes.

So back to my treatment. My MA coursework.

I took a look at a short treatment I did a while back and realized just how much work I have to do. I mean shit loads. For 30 pages. So What I'm going to do is turn this short treatment into a longer treatment. I just have so much work to do that I need something I've already started just to give me a helping hand.

It's set in 1986 and I was discouraged from writing it because I saw the trailer for ADVENTURELAND and thought this was quite similar but having now seen the movie I realize mine is different enough to warrant an effort to write it.

Now to work.