Tag: scriptwriting

October

…and the fields are stripped bare of all they wear.

“October” October–U2 1981.

I’m not much of a fan of the more recent U2 albums, but I do like their first five albums, from Boy through The Joshua Tree. After that, not so much. Rattle and Hum was their sixth album, and it felt like to me that they lost their raw, earnest soul from that point on. It’s hard to say exactly what happened. Perhaps a mixture of the more poisonous effects of extreme success combined with a change of perspective about God?

Pure conjecture on my part, of course. None of us have the ability to peer into someone else’s soul and definitely diagnose what’s happening within. True, you can make some pretty safe assumptions based on an individual’s fruit. “By their fruit you shall know them,” and all that sort of thing. On the extreme end of behavior, if someone is rushing about beheading people in the name of their religion, you can probably make a fairly dependable diagnosis of the state of their soul and where they’re ultimately heading if they don’t make an abrupt u-turn.

However, most people don’t behave in ways that, from the vantage point of others, precisely and irrefutably correlate to the state of their soul.

Frankly, I’m relieved that I’m not the Judge.

I’m just an aspiring writer with very little time to write. And getting older. It feels like I’m in the October of my earthly existence. If one believes in eternity–and I do–then the earthly stretch of years is quite short, and there’s really not much of a difference between January and October, let alone December. But, while we’re here on Earth, the months feel heavy and valuable with potential. Time feels important, as if there are many things that still can be done and should be done.

Speaking of that, a few writing updates.

I’m almost done with my six-year-long book project. Actually, I might’ve started it seven years ago. I can’t exactly remember. It’s basically done and I’m avoiding publishing it by spending some of that precious time fiddling with characters and details and trying to settle on a map that shows just enough but not too much.

This one is another epic fantasy. Not as serious and as deliberate as The Hawk and His Boy trilogy, but definitely not as madcap as The Fury Clock, though there is a slight bit of cross-over with The Fury Clock in terms of some similar geographical locations, a few very quick references to several characters, and some threads of shared history.

Average Hollywood Executive

I also recently finished a job for an NBC/Universal project. A film script co-written with a small team for a pre-existing Universal property. We were paid for the project (always nice) but the powers that be ultimately decided to kill the project. I’ve been told that this is quite common in Hollywood. Studios will happily throw money around commissioning scripts and then just as happily kill those same scripts when finished.

I suppose there are many reasons for that, ranging from script quality to mental health issues on the part of studio executives, etc, but let me quite humbly say that script quality was not the issue with our particular project. No. I think the reason why they killed it was more off in the realm of the Bermuda Triangle, belief in a flat Earth, too much soy in one’s diet, and/or having had one’s brain harvested by space aliens.

Happily, I’ve been pulled back into another script project, so that’s good. What’s not good is that this means I have less time for my own projects, compounded by the fact that I’m still working a full-time job (feel free to ask me about California water policy and regulations and I will bore you to recyclable tears that must be first cleaned to drinking water quality standards before being injected into an aquifer that has any nexus with potable water supply).

 

The Script of our Life

I find myself returning to the question of free will versus predestination, or, if you must be theatrical about it, is the script of our life written by us or Someone else? That begs the subsequent question: if our script is written for us, do we have to perform it as written?

The fires down in Pacific Palisades and other parts of the Los Angeles area certainly weren’t imagined by anyone, other than the gloomy forecasters working for Cal Fire or various insurance companies or whichever crystal ball company out there that spends a little money on R&D or product testing. I mean, who would’ve written a script like that if you’re writing your own script?

I was recently discussing the fires with a co-worker who used to belong to a local volunteer fire company. He said that, when you enter a house fire, it is so unbelievably hot that all of your mind and body bands together and shouts “Run!” But, he went on to say, if you’re part of a team, the psychology of the team effect overpowers that voice and you soldier on.

That’s an interesting metaphor for life. Life isn’t usually as crazy and intense as a whatever-degree fire blowing up in your face. However, the net effect of life can sneak up on you and, before you know it, your body and mind are advising you to run. A strong marriage combined with a healthy relationship with God are your team in that scenario; that’s usually enough to overpower the advice to run.

Hang in there. Keep reading the script, because it’ll end well, particularly if you’ve got your eyes on God. Despite how dark or fiery it might be at the moment.

Speaking of scripts, I’m knee-deep in my secret script project. We’ve been working on this since around March/April of 2024. I’m not allowed to say what it is and who it’s for, but it should hopefully see the green-light of production day sometime in 2025. Hopefully. And then I’ll be free to talk about it. Fantastic project, but it is soaking up most of my limited free time that could be going to other writing projects (notably, a very light-hearted epic fantasy that I’ve been fiddling with for the last five years–almost done, but still needs some work; a humorous series of children’s stories set in modern America [inspired by Daniel Pinkwater’s writing]; a novella set in Tormay, post-Hawk and featuring one of the minor characters from that trilogy-this one’s probably about halfway finished).

What I am free to talk about, though, is Son #2’s music. His latest songs (written and recorded with JB Proof as his nom de guerre) are called Ever After and Leaving. They’re available mostly wherever music is available these days, but you can listen to them for free on Youtube. Pretty darn cool for a 15-year-old! He has about twenty songs out so far, and I’m fascinated by how his songwriting is evolving in terms of arrangement and structure.

Rambling and Rumbling

Rambling is something we all do, in long ways or short ways, and rumbling is either what’s going on in your stomach or your mind or past the horizon as we hear rumors of war, earthquake, famine and the four horsepeople of the apocalypse.

I’ll use my particular rambling and rumbling to catch up on things, though that should be “things” with a capital T.

First off, in no particular order of important, some of the homeless here in California (and there are a LOT of homeless, as, among other things, they tend to move here from other states due to weather, benefits, the degree of law enforcement or lack thereof, etc) are starting to build tiny houses in various spots with greater and greater degree of utilities: power, water and sewer. This tends to happen in the public right of way, such as this story about a homeless community along the 110 Freeway in southern California. Light, water, a fridge, a tiny home on public land.

This sort of thing is starting to make me think of the pioneers homesteading in the American West, back in the 1700s and 1800s. History is repeating itself, but with a tinge of Mad Max.

Speaking of movies… I’ve been hired to —— for an ——– for a ——–. More news coming out on that later. I’m not allowed to say much about it, so I need to confirm (and then reconfirm) the restrictions of the non-disclosure agreement. NDAs make a little paranoid, so I’d rather be ultra-safe than just safe.

Needless to say, this new job is on top of my pre-existing job working in land use, policy and land management here in central coast California, so that means finding hours and half hours early in the morning, in the evening, during lunchtimes and on the weekends. Not a problem, because I enjoy creative writing, particularly when it’s not post-modern nihilist nonsense.

I recently learned that Greenland has only three stoplights. This is sobering news. I think we all take stoplights for granted. Stop and reflect on the sheer plethora of stoplights that exist in your life. You are blessed with stoplights. Don’t take them for granted. Remember the poor people of Greenland who must only make do with three stoplights between all of them and the seals, musk oxen, polar bears etc who also make their home there.

Sad.

In other news, the homeschool year is about to come to an end in several weeks. The children’s minds are brimming with Latin, logic, literature and many, many other things that start with L but that I can’t recall off the top of my head (really, that phrase should use a different preposition). They can’t wait for non-school days so they can busily jettison all that knowledge to the best of their abilities and industriously use their synapses in other pursuits. Worthy pursuits, I’m sure, that don’t involve video games.

Speaking of throwing words around (and that’s exactly what we’re doing here), I just finished reading Dean Koontz’ newest book, The Bad Weather Friend, and I have to say–he really throws his words around in a delightful manner, even when he’s writing about somewhat disturbing topics. May Dean Koontz live long and prosper, and may he write many more books. One of the interesting things I find about him is that he writes from an absolutist moral order of the universe, that Man does not define meaning, but that Truth (with a capital T) exists outside of Man and it (and the founder of that truth) is what defines Man. This approach creates the perfect philosophical framework for writing proper suspense and horror. After all, of what worth is a horror story if the author (and the reader) don’t believe in the absolute concepts of good and evil? If you don’t believe in that, you can’t have a genuine horror story. All you can have is a dreary piece of nihilist gore with nothing at stake.