The Lesser of two Cliched Evils

While I may have failed in having my motivation sparked in blogging every day (here anyways), I come with the excuse that life has unfortunately gotten in the way via equestrian activities, and the impending doom (ha ha, not really...I love the company I will be working for, I just wish I was still working for them back in Vancouver and on set instead of in the office) of starting up work again. The one thing that I am pleased to have regained my motivation for is working and actually finishing a script idea. 

It would seem, for the moment, that committing to the ambition of actually entering my work in a contest or two...or three possibly has coerced my muse to come back home and alleviate me of the pain and longing she causes when she skips town for horrifically lengthy periods of time. I'm currently still in the R & D phase of things but I have given myself the deadline of June first to actually start laying fingers to keyboard and as such I will still have a month and a half to write and a month and a half to perfect; possibly even later if I consider some different contests but I've honed in on the ones that are focused strictly towards horror as after all,  I have a strong, deep seeded, almost pathological desire to make and watch nothing but horror films; the more gore, the better is what I always say, I don't care how bad the plot is...I love gore flicks for the jaw dropping, teeth clenching, squeal inducing disgusting delights just the same as I love actual honest to goodness films that indeed frighten me (Rec. anyone?); I just love horror. 

As being in the throes of R & D purgatory, I have hit several agonizing rough patches. One of these will effect nothing of my script in the long run and is more or less just ridiculously frustrating to myself personally as I gear up to actually writing the thing, but the other is more or less a question of cliche. 

I know that there is literally no original creation left under the sun and there are cliches abound in just about every film in the sun, but I must admit it annoys me slightly to have to decide between the lesser of two evils. Where as one has been done to death, it would ultimately make for a scarier end product (if not scarier, definitely creepier), the other would smack less of cliched and somewhat predictable plot device, but may not lend itself quite as well to the scare/creep out factor. 

Which is the factor to sacrifice? Do I relent a little on the creative aspect and keep the scares or do I relent on the scares and keep the creativity?

Perhaps I should just venture down the route not yet mentioned and find some other initiating incident that would work. When I consider this, though, I think of all the ways the initiating incident I have already planned out snaps into place with minute details of plot and the fact that it does is what at present is making me so excited about this idea.

Decisions, decisions. 

I find myself at an impasse for the night, and will more than likely drive myself nuts going over the pros and cons of using either of these things that are pretty predictable. When it boils down to it I'm of the mind that the rest of the script will make up for a cliche here and there; at least I hope it will, I personally think it's  a down right genius idea that I have yet to discover has been done, similar films made...possibly but not similar enough to warrant me scrapping it all and coming up with a new and less "done to death" idea; I don't think anyways...though if it comes down to that I guess it will just come down to a matter of superior writing and dialogue; not to toot my own horn so to speak but when motivated I can write dialogue pretty damn well if I do say so myself.

One last musing when considering cliches...

Is there such a thing as a good cliche? Is there a difference between a "good" cliche and a "bad" cliche?

If answered with yes, what makes a cliche "good"? What makes one "bad"?

In regards to a "bad" cliche...what makes it so bad? What is bad about a bad cliche?

Oy. Too many questions for one night. 

*Subject Line is Currently Away Due to Introspection*

Sometimes I can’t help but question my relevance.  I often lament and wonder if I chose to get into the right field of work; though I’m not really good at much else that you can make a living off of, I don’t even really know how good I am at writing. I lament the fact that I put myself in $50,000 worth of student loan debt to spend two years at school and basically land in a go fer job that I more than likely would have been able to get without shelling out a dime. I lament a lot of things about the way things have gone career wise this past year and a bit. Of course there have been high points (set work on Supernatural and and a cushy production office job starting up in June) and extremely low points (editing an independent horror film so absolutely bad that it will never ever sell and I will never ever get the other half of the money I am owed) but really, there is nothing that has happened thus far that convinces me that relevance is something that will ever be within my grasp and as far as I and see, there is nothing in the near future that hints at this either.  I can enter contests until I am blue in the face; I can struggle and toil and manage to actually have something to show my agent and have something for her to shop around; I can do all of these things, but what are the chances, really?

For all I know, I'm just a really big hack with no one around with the decency to tell me I suck. 

I'm starting to find truth in the saying that to be a writer is to be a masochist

Motivation Situation

Motivation is a fleeting thing for me of late.

Maybe I shouldn't say motivation, maybe I should just lable it as pure and simple inspiration, I'm not exactly sure. What I am sure of, unfortunatley, is that today of all days I was given ample oppurtunity to sit and write endlessly and yet, hour upon hour was wasted away as I sat and languished in a ridiculous pair of flimsy yoga pants and an absconded and equally as flimsy t-shirt and did absolutely nothing. I wish I could say this isn't a common occurence but it happens to me all the time and it's downright sickening.

Why does it happen, what is the root cause of this situation? I know what I want to do with my life; I know what, on a good day, I feel driven to do with my life so why is it more often than is encouraging this kind of thing happens?

Is it because I fill my proverbial plate with far too much and when push comes to shove I lack the energy to sit and hash out an idea into something that has even an ounce of promise?

Is it because I subconsciously feel inadequate?

Is it because I've settled into, and become too comfortable with just working on other people's productions?

Is it because somehow, in some way churning out log lines and ideas a plenty is hindering me from focussing on one solid idea and seeing it to fruition?

Whatever the cause it's an uncomfortable feeling and I don't like it one little bit. 

I've been researching a bunch of different screenwriting contests to enter in the next couple of months. Some have the ability to dazzle more than others with larger sums of prize money and greater aspects of achieving the "big break" but I think the most important thing is that I start to enter at least a few. Even if the prize money is small, even if I don't win jack squat...maybe this is the route to take to get myself back on the path that I set myself out on after graduation.

I need to take a leap of faith, enter something with a respectable deadline and just put my nose to the grindstone, get the work done, and hope for the best. At times the task seems daunting but I cannot continue this way. I have to revert back to the concept of writing every day, working on a script every day or this squicky, gross, unsatisfied feeling is only going to worsen, and then what.

As of tonight I have seventy five days to churn out a script no longer than 135 pages; horror in genre to be exact. This is kind of an intimidating thought after such a long time passed with little productivity, but I can feel the faint stirring of actual motivation here; then again, maybe that's just impending insomnia, though they do say the only cure for writer's block is insomnia so if the fates align and the fickle bitch that is my muse shines fortune down upon me, it'll work in my favor. 

Who knows?

Ideas for the Road

I originally wrote this at an hour of the morning in which it was unnatural for me to be up when technically I didn't have to be. The house was entirely still, a soft and deceivingly cool morning breeze was drifting through the open balcony door, the dogs, cats, rats, baby and man were still all sleeping blissfully and yet my brain decided to be wakeful. 

Charming. 

I'm not quite sure how well these ideas will translate because at the given time that I was attempting to come up with something to scrawl down and post here, clarity was defiantly an issue with my brain so, hopefully they don't sound too too entirely stupid. If they do, hell...that's okay too, why not?

 On a side note, I need to become much better at thinking up titles and/or for prospective ideas. I really draw a blank most of the time when it comes to this. I know at  least one of these I have put up before and discussed with people but I'm revisiting the idea so therefore I would like to pretend like its a new idea (ha ha, yeah I don't know either).

Anywhody...

1. "The Loudmouth" ~ Gary is an obnoxious, hypercritical former athlete and much maligned sports radio host who's most beloved target for abuse is his home town, "down on their luck" hockey team and their coaching staff. Even when the team puts forth an astounding effort and manages to squeak into the post season, they cannot escape Gary's blatant hateful trash talk. Things become interesting when a wager is made on the air between Gary and the team's general manager. If Gary can coach the team through a successful playoff run, he will be offered his dream job; a permanent coaching position on a professional team. It's put up or shut up time, and the team's biggest critic now must become their biggest supporter in order to make his life long ambition come to fruition. 

2. "Virus" ~ For the Hailey's  family vacation time without their dog Max. When Max jumps overboard in the middle  of the night during a tropical sailing vacation, the family fears the worse; their beloved pet has been lost to the deep. Broken hearted they return home a couple weeks later only to learn that miraculously Max has been rescued by a passing cargo ship and will soon be safe and sound at home with them. When Max returns home, however, something is not right; over the course of his ordeal, Max has been infected by an unknown virus. Mild changes in temperament soon escalate into full blown terrifying aggression. The situation becomes more dire for the family, and the neighborhood alike, when it becomes clear that the virus Max is carrying is transmissible to humans.

3. "The Money Grab" ~ Harrison Winterhaven is a down to earth, average Joe, who just happens to have been born into a great deal of money. Exhausted by his friends' constantly two timing and backstabbing each other to get into his good books for their own selfish needs, Harrison informs them all via video taped message that he needs a break from his social circle and will taking an extended vacation. He also informs them that he has arranged a challenge for them before leaving town; at five secret locations, he has planted a bank note valued at one million dollars a piece. The group of friends must work as a team without sabotage lest they want any and all money they happen to find be forfeit. Will they be able to set aside their selfishness, or will Harrison's test prove too be a little too much for the gang of money hungry leeches?

4. "OMG Stuck!" ~ Jillian is stuck in a life, or lack there of, she cannot stand. Crippled with social ineptitude and a paralyzing fear of rejection, day by day she watches the world pass her by from her near constant perch behind a computer screen as she continuously creates fraudulent personas and virtual lives on social networking websites. When her secret "life" is discovered by anonymous contact via instant messenger, Jillian is consumed with uncovering the source that is threatening her lively hood. Can this seemingly mysterious new "friend" give Jillian the push she needs to kick start her real life, or is she just a lost cause. 

Tabula Rasa...Kind Of

I like fresh starts.

Sometimes.

Maybe.

Whatever.

Anyways whether I like fresh starts or not, it's not the point at all. The point is, if you have yet to notice I've deleted all posts prior to this one in an attempt to sort of motivate myself to write every day. I write in my other blog pretty much every day so by theory I should be able to write here everyday. Now, if only I can take this theory and wrangle it in to reality that would be great. It would seem, for now anyways, that whenever I try to write here I am most often really quite blocked...which seems to be a theme for most of my writing lately. The other blog is no problem, I don't write anything deeply meaningful there or attempt to have a focus with it. For the most part it's all pointlessness, pictures of animals or my rapidly growing-nearly one year old son, too much information about just about every aspect of my life, coercive love letters to excessively attractive actors/musicians and retarded conversations between myself and my charming male recounted for entertainment purposes; nothing of significant substance. My goal I started this blog, however, was a theme of my writing/screen writing ambitions and outcomes really; and all the woes that I face on a daily basis in relation to such. Somewhere along the tracks though, things have gone off course.

I like to blame work for blocking my writing, it is the most handy after all. For almost a year now I've been a general slave in a job that I cannot stand. I've been working for a small production and post company (which I will not drop the name here because that's rude) as a transcription clerk, and a freelance junior editor. To this day, I'm not even really sure why I took the job in the first place and what's more is I'm not really sure why I hadn't quit long,long, looooooooooooooong before now. Working in a place in which no one seems to have quite the level of accountability you would expect at a professional level is a lot like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole; frustrating, impossible, infuriating ect. ect. ect. and yet some how you keep trying because you figure "Well eventually it's got to snap into place."
For months I was begged to take on everything that anyone else had dropped at the last second. For months I worked with people who could not meet deadline to save their lives. For months I tried to fit that peg in that hole to no avail.

I picked up countless hours of dropped work, saved numerous peoples' asses from the proverbial firing squad, beat my head against the wall on account of dealing with the world's most irritating "boss" and all the while I kept a smile on my face through most of the frustration because:

A. I was working from home most of the time.

B. When I wasn't working from home I had my own office in a really swank, really amazingly decorated loft in West Hollywood.

C. I would only work for a few hours a day, three days to four days a week which in my mind I kept telling myself was perfect for my writing because I would get work done early and have my late afternoon/evening and weekends free to write.

Only, I haven't been writing much at all and it's killing me.

Thankfully, as of yesterday afternoon at 2:30 PM I officially finished and had approved my last job at work and am technically no longer an employee. As of Friday I'll be 100% no longer an employee but that's beside the point.

I.am.free.

I am free from the oppressive workplace environment that made me want to gouge my eyes out with a dirty plastic spoon so now FINALLY I can refocus the drive to write I once possessed before starting this job.

This blog seems as good as any place to start. Hopefully I can follow through this time.