Scratching My Itch
So I've been so busy with work over the past few months that I hadn't written a word of my own stuff.
Which is always worrisome. There's always the niggling fear that if not-writing goes on too long, it'll turn into never-writing-again. Which I didn't want.
But I just didn't have the time... or when I did, I was just too brain-drained from other people's scripts to focus on my own.
Still, I had an idea in my head for a script, that I'd been thinking about for months.
Unlike most of the things I write, it didn't have a supernatural element. It was just a thriller. A nasty, violent, high-concept thriller.
I pitched it to my wife on the drive down to the shore 3 weeks ago, and not only did she like it, she brainstormed it in darker directions.
That's my girl.
Still, other than jotting down a few handfuls of notes (and pretty much figuring out the whole structure of the script in my head). I hadn't written word one.
I was ripe to bursting with words. I had blue balls of the brain. But the time wasn't there.
Last Thursday, the woman who ran my writing group called with word that a slot for Monday (last night) had opened up, and did I want it. I said no... and then I said yes. Because I wanted to push myself, to write at least 10 pages over the weekend.
I wrote 19.
They are rough, the characters need development, and when I brought it in last night I wasn't sure what the writers/actors would make of it. They're a tough crowd.
But they loved it. I've got something by the tail, and now I just have to write it.
Time will be made. The brain balls will not get blue again.
******
Tropic Thunder beat out Dark Knight over the weekend, making a very solid $25.8 million. Though this seems to be one of those odd comedies that seems to be scoring a little better with critics than audiences.
Star Wars did $14.6, so I was really close on one guess. Mirrors did $11.1; I'm not sure where the horror/thriller audience has gone.
Vicly Christina Barcelona did $3.7 million. Fly Me To The Moon only did $1.9. Henry Poole did only $805,000, which for 527 theaters is pretty bad.
posted by Scott the Reader @ 8:53 AM
5 Comments:
Mind to find out a good title for your HC-Thriller.
As someone reported in an interview at "Two Adverbs":
"A good title is 50% of the battle."
M.
I get a somewhat different media stream from you folks, being up here in Canada, but I've been surprised by the relative lack of promotion for some of these late-summer releases. I'd come across promo for FLY ME TO THE MOON and MIRRORS exactly *once* prior to this Friday.
Now, I don't know whether that represents fatigue on the part of the respective marketing departments, or budget constraints from distributors that blew their promotional loads earlier in the summer, or just a peculiar bubble I've been living in the last few weeks.
I'm curious to know if anyone else has had the same experience.
Scott, congradulations on writing 19 pages this weekend. What a stud! And you're even getting your wife involved. Even better!!
Lately I've been bouncing new ideas off my aunt for a cartoon feature I think I'm going to write next after the script I'm currently working on. I LOVE including others in the creative flow, but I've found is many people I have availible to me aren't very helpfull.
- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA
the Tropic take would have been higher if they included Wed & Thursdays box though right? that was just for the weekend?
Yeah, Tropic was just for the weekend. I think it did almost $40 million first 5 days.
I saw a lot of commercials for Mirrors and Fly Me To The Moon down here in the LA area, and I don't watch all that much TV.
Post a Comment
<< Home