A wheel is a wheel.

This story won't stop changing. It's like an awkward twelve  year old going through a growth spurt, constantly outgrowing itself. Maybe it's a sign of being a bad writer, or an easily manipulated one, because these characters have suckered me into letting them run amok. I was plagued with the thought of "this is too boring, there are too many scenes that are filled with these really profound statements being said dramatically by someone going through an awkward revelation." The next thing I knew I had a frumpy character with a receding hairline standing in a dark alley with a gun shoved in his hand, and another character who I had assumed dead, instead being in a horrible car crash (their fault), killing someone in the process, becoming paralyzed and rotting the rest of their life away. And since they're sort of inadvertently orchestrating the whole thing by the discovery of a bunch of stuff they filmed years prior to the main action (is this making sense to anyone other than myself?), it is the discovering of the footage, of the car crash that leads Gwen, the closest thing to a main character, to a series of awkward and profound revelations. Essentially, its the same thing as it was, but with enough action to jar someone awake if the rather peculiar and probably too lofty for its own good, dialogue was lulling anyone into a slumber. The whole thing ends up sort of coiling around itself and blurring time and the role of one character in relation to another. Its also a bit of a caricature. It's about a family and the typical absurities of one (ugh, I'm writing one of those scripts), but its taken to these crazy extremes, hopefully without screaming "this is another quirky story about a dysfunctional family!" The themes in here, comming of age, love, lust, the pressures of society, strained relationships that people don't let go of, all of that has been done a million times. I'm trying to say something new about each of those things, express something that, while inherantly part of those themes, is not often championed or discusssed in literature. A lot of the story is told from these unexpected points of view, someone talking directly to a camera, or a third party filming something, or silently through a surevilance camera, or an email chain mediums where just get to witness a snippet of a situtaion or dynamic. My hope is that by altering the forms of various parts of the story, certain aspects of the situations or dynamics will be stressed in a subtle way. I came up with this philosophy the other day; there's only so many ways to reinvent the wheel. A wheel is a wheel. There is, however, an infinite number of points from which to view that wheel from, and with each of those vantages comes six new ways to express something about the wheel-ness of the wheel. That is, essentially, the heart of this screenplay I'm writing.

PS. I have discovered that I write like a mediocre Samuel Beckett imposter.

Half of Scene Missing. Missed Opportunity to Meet Edward Albee. Scriptwriting Hates Me.

I sign into the computer, just a few more awkward, tension filled lines to add to the scene and its done. I open it, click on its strange title, scroll down, and...half of its gone. The last half of the scene I've been slaving over for weeks is not there. As if I really needed one more scriptwriting disaster. I discovered yesterday that I manage to miss out on an opportunity to take a week long class, for free taught by my absolute hero. If I could choose anyone, and I really do mean anyone, to study the art of writing under, it would be Edward Albee. I worship his plays, particularly Zoo story, as if they were holy. A thick volume of his collected works sits beside my bed. He is the most phenomenal writer to ever walk the planet. When applying for a weeklong program that offers both film and playwriting, do I happen to click on the list of who teaches it? Of course not. Why would I apply for playwriting? I did that last Summer. I should look more well rounded to colleges, I'll apply for something else. In an effort to look good to college I missed an opportunity to meet my hero. So, how I'm consoling myself over this by making sure every single scene I write from now until January, when hopefully I'll be going to the same program (yet begrudgingly not in a discipline taught by Edward Albee), is worthy to be read by the great Mr. Albee. My plan is to track him down, I mean, how big can this place chock full of two-hundred selected high school seniors be anyway? And run up to him shouting "Mr. Albee! You are the most influential writer I have ever read, I would be honored if you would read this scene and give me some feedback. I would value your critique more than anyone else that has ever walked the earth. Please." And then I'll shove a scene into his old, wise hands, and try not to have a brain aneurysm over the thought of Edward Albee reading my work. Of course though, because clearly luck is not on my side, one of the scene's I was considering to be a candidate for the feedback of Edward Albee, is half gone. I don't understand why it's gone, I press save after nearly every line, I'm always cautious by protecting my agonized over stuff, and yet its not there. This may be the most disappointing thing that has happened in my writing career since I was in third grade and the fifth grader in charge of typing up everyone's poetry to be sent to a contest changed the tenses of all my verbs and made all of the nouns plural so it sounded like a backwoods bum with no teeth had written it. Needless to say, I didn't win the contest. I probably am not going to get the adoring feedback that I've daydreamed about for years from my absolute hero either.

Reflection 10.11.10

I've been writing the screenplay for about a two months now. I've got a, well, a something, that loosely resembles  an outline, which is really more of a series of nouns and a lot of "Scene 13, THAT scene" which is enough to remind myself of what I should be writing for scene 13. I know the story well enough that the lines between where it ends and I begin are kind of well, non-existent. I mean, I've only been writing it for nearly four years, as long as I've been in high school. But, last night something insane happened and I decided I was telling it all wrong, and that is was quickly becoming the sort of  lying, manipulating, formulaic screenplays that lead to forgettable movies that say nothing about truth or the human condition or any of that. As much as I talked about being cutting edge, this story I'm writing sure as heck wasn't. Though I'm not entirely sure how to fit into its new mold, or how the jumps in time are going to function in a non-gimmicky sort of way, or how I am going to fit yet another person into my menagerie of characters, I am however sure that this is how it has to be told, even if that means sacrificing parts of the story that I thought had "classic appeal" or "Oscar buzz" written all over them. Oh, and I changed the name the title of it, its less pretentious, there's no alliteration, and its not as "indie," now its just one word, one noun; Sweater.