Ten Screenplays

Sorry. I’ve got nothing for you today. I worked until late and came home and ran. I was hoping to see how many kms I could run inside four minutes a km. Turns out I was a little over confident. I was pretty sure I could do two, perhaps even three. Turns out I couldn’t even do one. SO a lot of work to do. Still, it was nice to run. I don’t know why but I can’t seem to deal with the stress from work as well as I used to and running certainly helps.

Anyway, I finished my run, had dinner and I’ve been working for the last couple of hours. It’s close to eleven now and as excited as I am about this new script there ain’t nothing getting writ tonight!

Pleasant dreams.

I had a rather good day today. It didn’t start out so well but it ended on a high note. There’s no concrete reason for that. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. I had as much stress and stuff to do at the end of the day as I did at the start (even more perhaps). All that changed was my outlook. Around about lunchtime I realized I was being too negative and only looking at all the things that were getting me down. I had entered the spiral of negativity. So, I decided to be more cheerful. And so far it has worked. I feel good. Tired but good.

I spent a while this evening working on the plot for the new screenplay. It is turning out well and it’s a movie that I think I would like to watch. I had a moment in a meeting at work earlier where I was thinking over a plot point and I dozed off. When I came back (only seconds later) I had a brief moment of concern that I was actually in the movie. I’m having a little trouble with the ending though. Do we go for happy or realistic? Hollywood would possibly demand the happy one but who knows? I should be able to start writing tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be back to my five pages a day.

I’ll be going for a run tomorrow evening which should help clear my mind. I ran a half marathon a couple of weeks ago and came in at 1hr 42. I want to bring it closer to 1hr 30, and break it if possible so tomorrow I’m going to see how many kms I can run at under 4 minutes a km. I’m trying to change my running style to run more on the balls of my feet with more bounce but it is exhausting because I’m not used to it yet. The speed difference is noticeable though.

Anyway, to bed and 40 pages of my Japanese comic. There’s nothing like reading about a Japanese high school baseball team in bed. It really makes for f**ked up dreams.

It has not been a bad day overall. My stress levels were reaching a dangerous level but I managed to get home and run. As much as I say I don’t enjoy running it really does wonders for my mental state. After just a few kms you start to feel more relaxed and more able to ignore the worries that press in on you from all sides.

I have put my previous idea on the backburner. It was going to be the story of a teacher (I’m a teacher) who can’t control his classes (I can’t control my classes) and has a bicycle accident (I had a bicycle accident) where he sustains brain damage (enough said on that one). He wakes up in hospital and realizes his brain has reconfigured and he now has the power to control people’s emotions. He can now make people afraid of him, like him, respect him etc. The thought came to me last night that this idea might not appeal to as many people as I first thought. In fact, to be honest, it probably wouldn’t appeal to anyone other than myself. It seems like the dream of a person with low self confidence. So, it’s gone to the back of the pile.

The idea I have turned to is this one.

I had the idea yonks ago but I had no idea how to finish it. It was a great intro to a movie but no more than that. Then, today, I was sitting there waiting for a student to come for an appointment (she never did) and the answer just popped into my head. I know where to go with it and I’m quite excited.

Anyway, it’s been quite an exhausting day and there are many more to come so I’m heading off to bed now. Before I sleep I have to try and read 40 pages of a Japanese comic one of my students has lent me. There are 31 books in the series and she is going to lend me one a week. There are 200 pages in a book so that works out at about 40 pages a day. The story is pretty interesting but no matter how much fun it is studying will always be studying.

Pleasant dreams.

What do you do when you realize that the idea you have, the one you really like, is probably only going to be of interest to you? Rethink.

So, here we are then. Together again. It’s been quite a Sunday. I was able to start working at just after 8 o’clock this morning and I managed to get a lot done. (Nothing screenplay related, unfortunately. All school work.) Hopefully, in a few years, I’ll actually be able to get all of my work done at work but it’s going to be a while before I get there. Still, it’s always a good feeling to get so much done.

My cat is chewing my foot which means it must be time to start a new screenplay.

I flicked through my idea box and went past the idea I’d planned to write about. I think it’s a good idea but for some reason it didn’t appeal to me. I ended up on this idea.

I’m not sure if there’s enough of a plot there to make a whole screenplay but the only way to find out it to do it. Anyway, I sketched out a rough plot and I guess we’ll go from there tomorrow. It’s only a rough two thirds of the plot because I don’t really know how to finish it but I can work that out as I go along.

Why do I hate it so much? I just googled “how do you know if you’re a writer” and the dominant result was “if you write more than anything else”. I don’t. I spend more time a day on the toilet than I do writing. I can’t stand it. And that’s not to say I’m a bad writer. I’m not. I’m not good by any stretch of the imagination but I occasionally turn out a passage or two that I kind of like. I just can’t stand it. I’d rather clean out my cat’s litter box than sit down with that blank, insinuating screen. It’s like running. I took up long distance running a few years back and I hate that, too. Each running day I spend longer dreading and thinking up excuses than I actually do running. Is it laziness? I don’t think so because I do run. Very rarely do my excuses get the better of me. So what is it? Where does this dread, no, almost fear, come from?

Anyway, as you can see by looking at the entry below this one, I haven’t quite kept to my five pages a day routine. It was pointed out to me over some very delicious Korean food last night that “somewhat lax” probably doesn’t quite go far enough in describing my approach to this endeavor. So I wrote some more. In fact, I finished the screenplay. I did what any good “writer” would do and I killed everyone. It reads pretty badly and the plot has more holes than my left sock (the cat likes to chew it) but it’s a start. Tomorrow I’ll start my second screenplay and then, when that’s finished, I’ll edit the first.

So, goodnight. Off to bed. Running 21.5km in the morning which is good because it’s always important to have something to look forward to.

PS. Here’s the pages.

I was absent for all of last week. I came down with a touch of a cold and it took me a while to shake. I had all the workings of a cold but I couldn’t seem to pick up a fever. Every morning and evening, 36.6!! Without fail! How can any self respecting virus fail to give me a fever? It shouldn’t be allowed! So… I went to work and it wasn’t so bad in the end.

And now I am recovered. I am back on top of my game. No… better. We’re into test week at school which meant I got to come home at 4:30 today instead of the usual 7:30. I was able to go running while it was still light. I ran my usual Tuesday 10k and I felt rough over the first km (I didn’t run while I was sick) but I warmed up quickly and picked up speed. At the half way point I was flying and two Mormons on bikes passed me in the opposite direction. I turned round at halfway and ran after them. They turned off but ended up behind me. Their church was about 2km further on and I increased my speed to keep them behind me. It hurt but boy did it feel good. And, thanks to Mormon power, I finished in 44:05! The first time I’ve been able to break 45 minutes for 10k. I knocked 2 minutes off my personal best. Couldn’t believe it. Unfortunately, now I know I can do it, I have to keep it under 45 from now on. We’ll see next week if it was a fluke or not.

And I wrote my five pages. I’m up to 73 now and I think the next five pages will finish the movie. I’ve had fun but there’s no way it’s sellable. In fact, even after editing, I doubt it will be. But the point of doing it was simply to do it and prove to myself I could. The tenth screenplay will be the one I sell… fingers crossed.

Here’s proof of today:

I’m feeling good so I’m going to do a spot of Japanese studying. It’s incredible the difference coming home three hours earlier makes to my evening and to my spirits. I wish I could do it more often.

See you tomorrow dear.

So… I almost managed to get eight hours of sleep. I was on the edge of the bed when I remembered my rehab. (The muscle kind, not the drugs). I had some surgery in January and I’m still working on the muscles. That took me ten minutes and pushed me over my target. Yet, I still cleared over seven and a half hours and I did feel good today. Is it worth continuing? If it is then I have to be asleep in (glances at clock) eight minutes! Is it worth it? Am I harming my health by not getting eight hours? Am I shortening my life? I love sleeping but I can’t help feel that I’m wasting my time. Tonight, for example, I got home at 7:40. I ate dinner until a shade after 8 and then did some work on the computer. I had a worksheet to make and emails to reply to (work related – so not putoffable). I started writing my 5 pages at just gone 9 and they took me close on an hour and now here we are. I haven’t done my Japanese. I haven’t made any cartoons. I haven’t spoken to my wife. I haven’t watched any TV or read.

This sounds like an endless complaint but that’s not how I intend it. I’m simply curious as to how and why other people prioritize their lives. Do you put sleep ahead of things you want to do or vice versa? A colleague at work today told me he thinks adults only need 6 hours of sleep. Is that right? Ah… who knows?

I do know that my waffling is wasting time. Time I could be spending in bed.

Just hope I don’t have too many odd dreams tonight. I dreamt last night I had accidentally stuck a 4 inch needle into my left eye and couldn’t pull it out. Horrible.

Here’s proof of today’s pages:

Pleasant dreams…

So, here we are again. Did you have a good weekend? Did you miss me? I sure missed you.

I would like to proceed with today’s entry in the usual style. I would like to begin with excuses, move onto something completely unrelated that I nonetheless think is worth writing about and finally finish with a brief tie up and proof of my pages.

Part 1: the excuses.
I was up the mountains. Honest! Would I lie about something like that? We took the whole grade (200 kids) for three days of mountain climbing to force them to make friends with each other. I guess the idea is they begin to hate us so much for forcing them to march through waist deep snow that they draw together against us. I think it worked. So Wednesday and Thursday were out because I had no computer. Then Friday was out because, obviously, after we got the kids to bed the teachers stayed up sampling a few beverages so we didn’t have an awful lot of sleep. Saturday was off because … well … I didn’t feel like it. And yesterday was Sunday. (That’s not really an excuse). So, as you see, perfectly valid and worthwhile reasons why I haven’t written five pages since last Tuesday.

Part 2: the random and unconnected part.
I watched a lecture on TED last night that said we should all have more sleep. (Link provided if you feel like watching it). My first thought was, “this is ironic.” I had only wandered across the video by endlessly clicking “stumble” on stumbleupon, a site I cannot stop using and that keeps me up hours past when I could have gone to bed. Then I thought, “how can I get more sleep?” I work half seven to half seven. I run or have Japanese classes which means I don’t eat dinner until 8:30. If I’m to get eight hours sleep I need to be in bed by half ten. That leaves me two hours to eat, wash, and do whatever else I want to do (i.e. my screenplays, desktops and cartoon.) Is it possible to get eight hours of sleep? Do you manage? And then there are all the other things I would like to do. I would like to read my book every evening, watch some TV or maybe a movie, study some Japanese and … although this is a last resort … talk to my wife. Any advice? And if the advice is “stop whining! At least you’ve got a job … etc.” then, go for it. The more criticism the better.

Part 3: where we try to tie everything together and provide proof.
So, at risk of not getting eight hours of sleep, I have written my five pages. Here they are:

The screenplay is almost at an end. I’m at a crossroads though. I don’t know whether to end the movie on a slight twist or play the whole thing out. I still don’t know if 62 pages is short or not. Is there anyway to tell? There is a lot of action. More so than dialogue.

Ah… who knows? Who cares? It’s time to read a little Japanese Harry Potter and then have my nightly fight. To stumble or not to stumble!

Pleasant dreams.

I have only managed 3 pages today. Well, managed might be the wrong word. I ran 10km after work, beating my best training time. I can’t seem to get inside 45 minutes but people tell me it’s a psychological barrier more than anything else. Then I had my dinner; a rather delicious helping of tuna on rice and, being unusually tired, plonked myself in front of the TV for a while. When I realized the time it was half nine! I rushed off my pages, but had to stop at three. You see, I have to pack.

Isn’t this beginning to sound like one of my feeble excuses? Well… that’s because it is! But, it’s also the truth. I’m heading into the wild and untamed mountains for three days. (Not so wild – I’m climbing in wellington boots, and I’ll be with 200 hundred students so not so untamed either.) School has decided, for better or worse, that the best way to get the new students to like each other is to force them to do something unpleasant together. Bonding in adversity kind of thing. They hate it. I love it. Being out of school, in the fresh air is wonderful. It’s going to be a good three days. On the downside though, I can’t write my pages tomorrow or Thursday and I have only done three today because of the pressing need to pack something. I’ve spent long enough yelling at the students not to forget anything that I really should make sure I don’t.

Here’s proof of today’s pages:

Have a great couple of days and spare my a thought wading through waist deep snow, beating a trail for 200 kids that don’t want to be there. I’m going to have a great time! I bet you wish you were me right now!