Still here.

I feel like I'm gonna throw up.

Page count update [Re: The Trendsetter] is at 48 in the proper-sized font.

My absence from the blog has been due to a number of things [I know I actually only missed a day or so]. I have been working, but have been tossing out a great deal of what I've been writing. I think as far as this idea and I am concerned, we're finally on the outs. I really am starting to believe I've done a horrible job at translating what is a very natural and possibly even commercial idea and turned it instead into utter garbage.

My idea was simple enough. Take the premise, and apply it to a guy who's lost everything. Show him with his back against the wall, with nowhere to turn -- and then, show him take his one last, great stab at killing the problem. Then, fast forward one year, and show how he's made an indelible mark on the world around him, and yet, his life has not improved. From there, make each scene like a boxer in a boxing match, blow after blow after blow, and with each one, have the audience ask the question not if he'll make it through this, but what will put him down. And in the end, give them hope.

And here I am two [actually three, technically four, but one is just a hallway shot and a callback to something earlier, so three] scenes from being finished, and I can't help but feel I've fucked the whole thing up in the worst possible way. And I'm going to finish, of course, I am 50 pages in, with probably just a little over 20 to go, and I know exactly what are in these last pages, if the execution isn't entirely clear yet, and it will be done.

And it's not the end of the world, because Kyle still gets a stab at a draft or six, and I am sure I'll show it to people who will help, but I just can't begin to explain how utterly discouraged I am with it right now -- as I can't begin to show, even with what I've written here, how many times I've looked at my notes and my outline and thought that this was a story that was whole and needed to be told. I just wanted it to have that spark that a first draft should have. That "this is terrible, but its perfect" feeling, that "this is god awful, but the potential is limitless." And I don't have that with this.

I don't even know if the characters are there. I see them. So much feels so nuanced, I can't imagine anyone can read this and see what I see. God dammit.

The rest of the past several days have went to not sleeping at night, catching naps during the day, and watching "Breaking Bad." Now there is a TV show that knew exactly what I was doing. The problem was, in my script, I didn't want my guy to punch back.

Because isn't that the way it really works? Most people don't take it, and take it, and take it, until they can't take it anymore. Most take it until it devours them, until its too late to strike back. Isn't that interesting?

Or can I just not make it interesting?

This is probably less serious than I'm making it. And I've already got some notes to go back on, to try and put the script upright again.

I think a lot about what others will say. About how nothing in it really happens. Maybe I need the longevity to be a novel writer instead. I can't ever see that, though.

Went back in the blog today. Kyle gave me the proposal idea for "The Trendsetter" roughly four months ago. I had, at the time, assured him I could have it done in roughly a month a half. You notice I say in my post I might have a draft is a couple of days. What the hell was I thinking?

Timing is everything in this line of work. In school, I finished feature screenplays, each around 100-120 pages, in about four and half months. This was supposed to be a short, and it's taken me almost that amount of time to get the gluttonous 50 I have tonight. Take in to consideration I also had the first draft on "The Familiar" done in about two weeks time. That's makes the time it took to do this deplorable.

On the other hand, Bennington's screenwriting class had us on a break-neck semester-long pacing, and I had two classes a week in which to talk and think about screenplays. A friend in film school tells me it is not unreasonable for it to take nine months to a year to finish a movie. By those standards, it's less terrible the time it's taken me to do this. Add in that, even though it took only four months to finish "Un-filmable," I didn't get what I'd call "Final draft" on it until Anna looked at it less than a couple months ago. "Beatnik Grunge" was so terrible that I abandoned it completely, and "The Familiar" is still in its infancy... I may not get back to it for another couple of years.

But then you look at that, and realize in the time since I learned screenwriting [second year of college], I've only made it to [THE END] of a screenplay three times. That's been over four years. I suck.

Then again, during that time, I also had other classes, and have worked extensively on comic books. I've only produced produced one [working on number two], but still, there's been about twenty scripts there, each about a half a movie long. Plus other things I've started, stopped, might pick up later.

And when I did those other films, I had Sam, Ian, Julia, Casey, and Anna all helping me. All getting me through the manic bits and the fear and loathing. And I had things to do, and I was unhappy, but I wasn't as ungodly miserable as I am now. There were regular distractions. I had more people on hand. Sex was more readily available, as was pizza.

I don't know. Even with all that, it doesn't seem good enough. Why do I have an ego at all?

It's 7:00 o'clock in the a.m. as I'm typing this, or roundabout then. Too late to go to sleep, I think, but I don't know if I have it in me to write more this morning. I think the seven pages I got that I'm keeping [for now] have been a blessing.

Did I mention I missed a whole scene? Skipped, actually, so unlike me. Logistically, it doesn't matter much, I mean, the script moves fine without it, but I really needed one more straw, you know? So when the camel's back breaks, it doesn't seem to come out of nowhere. I should have had the protagonist just not go to sleep. Then it wouldn't seem so terrible for him to start the day more miserably than the night before. I'd change it, but be damned, I just don't think there's any non-schlock way to show such a thing.

I will likely finish without it, and see what others have to suggest. I know what I want there. I just can't put it together.

More later. Hopefully soon.