First, I want to thank a lot of people for reaching out and making comments and the like to let me know that I'm not the only one who starts projects that they never finish. I never thought that I was the only one, and I wasn't trying to write any "woe is Shane, the only writer who can't finish..." type of post the other night. I was just merely attempting to address my writing ADHD and how I start off so passionate with an idea that I quickly lose interest in the story.
That, obviously went down the rabbit hole of sharing some personal thoughts and feelings on some of the projects I have had in the past, at various stages. Perhaps I shared too much, but someone once gave me the compliment of calling me "intrepid" and that something that I have attempted to hold myself up to. I write/say/do things that I probably shouldn't at times, but it's how I embrace life. I deal with the consequences later.
So, looking back on that previous post - I want to make sure that people also understand about me: I am proud of all of the stuff that I have written. Be it but one chapter, ten chapters, a whole script, or only 33 chapters of a novel. I love every character that I create in my mind and transfer into the words on a computer. All of those project did one important thing for me: they made me use my brain to create people, situations, interactions, and dialogue. It took those synapses and put my fingers to work making the words come alive on the screen. And I am most proud of the fact that I have completed 33 chapters of a SciFi novel, telling a story that I am very proud of.
Now, as far as "Perfect Life For Large Price" goes, I've hit a tough spot - and this is going to sound somewhat like a cop-out, but it's more just an evaluation of who I am. I need a driving force, and I've always wanted an "editor" for the novel. I've always wanted someone to read it after I wrote it, make some grammatical errors and corrections for me, tidy up some of the places where I talk too much, etc... When I was doing film work, I always had Jason or Zach in this role - "Where's the script?" or "Is the new scene done yet?" - I had people who I did not want to let down, thus it was my driving force. Same thing on editing those films, "I want to see the next scene, is it cut yet?" - and I would dedicate all my time to getting that done and ready for them to see. In the beginning of "Perfect Life For Large Price" I had a lot of people telling me there were reading it, I had a lot of people telling their friends to read it. I was getting some good page hits from all over the US, as people were recommending it on Facebook. And that drove me. That motivated me. The concept of delivering to these people, specifically my close friends. Everything was going on such a great pace, until the death of one of my best friends. That just rocked my world, shook me to the core, and made me stop caring about a lot of things. I lost my way, and it's taken me many years to get back to this point, where I'm more interested in sitting on the back patio, enjoying this beautiful brisk evening, and typing away on a laptop - instead of going out and partying hard with people. That all being said, and my rejuvenation in passion for words - still brings me to the need for someone to hold me accountable. I've still got great friends like Claire and Jill who are super supportive and do constantly harp at me for not working more on the novel, but I can't expect either of them, or anyone else to have the desire in life to constantly be reading what I write, edit it for me, and then tell we what I need to work better on - especially not with the paycheck of zero dollars being my highest offer. Not too long ago, I was spending a good amount of time with a girl who did stage production and script supervising, and was somewhat of book-nerd herself. I thought that I had found the perfect person to help me, but she just never showed any interest in doing what I needed done. She offered to read it, but when I told what I was wanting help with, she just seemed to shy away from the idea. Which, was a quite a disappointment, I felt like she would have been good at motivating me.
I know I need to find self-motivation, and I'm partially hoping that these late-night writing sessions (as after as I can, because life does something still get in the way...) can begin to fuel that fire again, and get me back into the mindset of writing. The other major problem with "Perfect Life For Large Price" right now is how long I have taken away from it for so long, that I want and need to go back and re-read it all for myself. The only issue with that being: I'm finding ALL of the grammatical errors and things that I would be wanting this "editor" to find for me. So, instead of being able to read my novel and get deep into it again, I find myself re-writing the entire chapter. I want to reword this sentence, or I can say that in fewer words. Oh, I know where this is going now, I can do some more ominous foreshadowing with this character's dialogue... I remember a while ago (well over a year) I told Claire that I was going to get back to work on the novel. In the first week that I re-worked on it, all I got done was re-writing the first three chapters - and I'm afraid of what's going to happen when I start again. More changes, more edits. Yet, that's still more writing. That's still using words to tell my story, even if it's just altering the story that I've already been telling. So, I hope that one day I can find that person who just drives me to want to deliver my work to them, while they also help to motivate me with their attempts to making my work better. I'm sure it will happen someday, but until then, I have to make sure I can build up the desire in myself to do it for me.
I also had a really good conversation with Jason tonight - because I've been looking into some DSLRs and other higher-end camcorders with the intent of attempting to shoot some stuff in the near future. I told him that I'd like to complete a few short seven-to-ten page scripts that could be filmed with minimal actors and in very short periods of time (one or two days). Nothing difficult, nothing complex, just some simple stories that will hopefully be we written and we can get some talented people to deliver those words. Quick projects that I can edit myself and toss up on YouTube. I'm starting to kick around a few ideas for those. And knowing me, I'll probably do something that involves a bigger pictures that each short is just a cog in this larger puzzle of a connected world. Make one characters actions in one story somehow directly (or indirectly I suppose) affect what a character does in a different story. I tend to try to interweave stories a lot. Hence, most of scripts/stories always contain a character with the last name of McKenzie.
So, yeah. I've been failing at writing on here everyday, but that doesn't mean that the creative juices are not still flowing. I'm still trying to put my brainwaves back on the good path to being productive towards my dreams and not destructive towards my desires. I will right this mental ship sooner than later.
Talking about writing gets me excited about writing.
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