INT. SMART ROOM

My roommates and I have this room in our apartment… we call it the “smart room.” It’s where we keep all – yes, ALL – of our books. Sadly, we rarely go into the smart room. In fact, right now is the first time I have been in here for an extended period of time in over a year. Its pathetic, really.

It was this realization that reminded me of how much I like to write, and that taking it up again would allow me to, once again, sit in the smart room. Now that I’m here I realize that I just needed an excuse to write.

So here I am.

I open Microsoft Word. Blank page. Damn. Ok, how can I motivate myself?

Just get it down. Distracted. 15 minutes until Monday Night Football. Fuck Monday night football! I have an idea in my head that is completely, utterly unique. No one else in the world can express exactly what I have to say. Distracted.

Play music. Wilco, Sigur Ros, My Morning Jacket, M. Ward.. 8 songs and 35 minutes later (mostly due to Virar vel til loftárása), all I have to show for myself is a new facebook picture and an organized inbox (this blog entry came about an hour later).

Read inspirational material. The magazines SCRIPT, Creative Screenwriting, Secrets of Film Writing, Story, Emotional Structure, How to Write a Selling Screenplay, Accidental Genius, Screenplay: Writing The Picture, Crafty Screenwriting, and so so many more. Inspired? Yes. Motivated? Not quite.

I am procrastinating right now, I know, and it sucks. But I think procrastination is entirely necessary. I am writing all day in my head; sometimes it is all I can think about it. At least this way I am getting SOMETHING on paper. Right?

Actually, I am here blogging, doing something I’ve barely respected in the past and never thought I’d ever do myself, as my last attempt at motivating myself. This will be hard to believe, but if you are one of those poor souls who has googled (I still can’t believe this is officially a word) “screenwriting blog”, or anything of the sort, you have come to the right place.

I have an idea. A great idea that is not yet on paper or in any office. I am going to finally write it, and I am going to document the entire thing. I encourage you to follow along at my pace with your own idea. We can all motivate each other.

I will post quotes from any of the above magazines and books, musings on the process, frustrations, excitement, joy, elation, anything and everything, as long as it gets me to write. I am doing this for several reasons:

1 – It forces me to sit down in the smart room and actually type something. I’m sure there will be days when I am stuck. This will force me to think about it, and never give up.

2 – it will teach me, you will teach me, we will teach each other. It will force me to peruse the books and remind myself every day of why I can’t get this idea off of my mind, and I will share those thoughts that seem to help.

3 – For support. If anyone out there actually finds this blog, leave comments, give me words of encouragement. I know there are a bunch of blogs out there already, but they’re out there for a reason. I will do my best to entertain you.

4 – To put pressure on myself. I will publically declare goals.. Numbers of pages, or periods of time that I intend to write, anything. I will document what works and what doesn’t work as far as the process goes. The more people you tell the more people you have behind you, and the bigger the moron you become if you let yourself fail because of laziness. I’m tired of procrastinating. It’s like trying to quit smoking. I’ve never smoked, but this is my attempt at quitting cold turkey.

5 – Self promotion. I am getting way ahead of myself, but just like everything else in life, who the hell knows. I am way too timid and introverted to brag by any other means. That being said, I am sure I won’t do any of it here, either.

6 – To get away. I love to write, and the screenplay will surely take me away from my normal every day annoyances. 120pages, therefore will then take me away from the perils of writing the screenplay.

7 – To express myself, completely anonymously (at least for now), and to let out anything creative. I do schizophrenia research in Cambridge, Ma. I need to fucking express myself creatively. Enough said.

8 – For the story within the story. Writing a screenplay is a journey in itself. I am starting from only an idea and will document the entire process all the way through to the last period on page 120. You can follow me and share the feelings that are inherent in the endeavor. The climax, I hope, will be the entry of my screenplay into the contest circuit and to agents, triggertreet.com, etc…

9 – To have fun. I have heard all the horror stories, but I don’t care. I have decided to go into this with an excess of manufactured naivety. This blog will help me keep things in perspective and will help me laugh at myself when things get tough, whether it is in real life or on the page.

10 – To hear from you. I want this to be a forum with back and forth discussion. If I enjoy it enough maybe I’ll even upgrade to a real site.

This will undoubtedly be my longest entry. Actually, this is absurdly long. I am sorry for that, but if you’ve hung with me this long, perhaps you’re exactly the kind of person that should be here. From here on out I will focus most of my energy on the script, but I will make updates to the blog with quotes, motivational stuff, pictures, etc.. and “lessons” on the step of the process I am on at the time, if there are any true steps. Basically, it will be a lot more interesting, with, you know, that suff some might call real content.

This may be a disaster, but lets finally give it a shot. Maybe the smart room will finally earn it’s name.