I suddenly feel as though I suck as a writer.

I have written a screenplay before. Well, sort of. My sophomore year of college, I wrote a story called “Makes You Do Crazy Things.” Almost 3 years later, I had a video class team who needed a final project idea and we really didn’t have the time (or the talent) to make a decent script in the allotted amount of time. So I pulled out “Makes You Do Crazy Things” (published in Nota Bene Honor’s society Literary Magazine for Phi Theta Kappa, 2nd place in Fiction category, thank you) and pitched it to my group. I’m not sure if they loved it or if they were just relieved that we had an idea that had a definite beginning, middle and end. Either way, I went on making this story a script. I had no idea how to formally format a script or even what items needed to be included. I don’t remember what came out exactly, but I do remember that the script was also a list of shots, a storyboard, a cast note taking page and anything and everything else you would want to take note of during the shoot, preproduction and post production. It was a nightmare, but we were able to get a halfway decent 15 minute short film called “I Love You” and it only took us about 2 weeks if I remember correctly from beginning to end. Our teacher focused on the wrong part of the story several times, missed our best shots and edits and gave us an A even though we would have gotten an A had we not even done the final project in the first place.

Fast forward a few years and here I am again, working on a screenplay. Only this time, it’s for real. This time it’s meant for someone else’s eyes aside from my own and my group’s. I’ve learned the formatting of a script, what is trash and what needs to be kept, what needs to happen on certain pages or by a certain page and all of the other bells, whistles and other fancy pants stuff that makes my story look good on paper. I started out doing this “Write a Movie in 21 Days” project with a lot of positive thinking and with no idea whatsoever what I was going to write about. I made up an idea on the fly, semi-spelled out what a movie would consist of with this idea and even went along with all of the little exorcises and writing assignments that were given to me prior to the actual 21 days starting.

As the actual 21 days began, I developed some other ideas of where the story would go to make it a little more interesting, more visual, a little more original and much easier for me to write. I kept the same characters and the main central theme, but it’s all being spelled out much differently from what I first envisioned. It was a really cool thing. I started writing on Friday and began writing every day according to the assignments that were given to me. The book wants me to write a 120 page screenplay (a 120 minute movie) but I am shooting for 90 minutes. Very cool, I think, only…It’s Monday, and I’m supposed to be at page 60 by the end of the day…and I’m at 45.

This isn’t a huge deal, because one day will be axed technically since it will be taking me past the page 90 mark, but seriously, only page 45? I am 15 pages behind and it isn’t because I’m lazy, it’s because I’m out of things to write about. I’m not to the end of my story, but if I progress my characters any further, my story will have ended by page 55 or 60. That’s not cool…Do I suck as a writer? Maybe…However, work does start back tomorrow :-)

Eat this up, it’s the trailer for that movie I told you about:

Enjoy today’s haiku:

Hose and Raid and Rake
Blower, mulch and weed killer
Well deserved Yuengling!