This intrigues me for a couple of reasons. A) When I'm battling writer's block, which happens more often than I'd like, I can walk away from the script, jot down a blog entry about the whole thing and automatically feel like less of a loser for not being able to summon my muse at will. B) When I'm a big shot Hollywood scribe, one of my slavishly devoted film geek fans can dig this puppy up and run wild with it. C) I can look back on this year from now and see just how completely ass backwards my process was back in the 'early years'. I thought about just starting an entirely separate blog for this, but to be quite honest, I'm a lazy bastard. So I'll just be peppering this new theme throughout this blog. The MrYoungGun Chronicles is already a hodgepodge of different thoughts, themes, emotions and rants anyway, right? Right!
I won't really go into specifics of the particular details of the script. Not because I'm some paranoid ego-manias, scared someone will steal my ideas, but because I've discovered that talking about an idea too much kind of takes the air out of it, flattens it and automatically gives it less merit. But when I'm done I might let a select few read it, so that you may heap praises upon me. (Kidding! Or am I?!?) I think that's it. So...here we go:
Like 8 or 9 months ago, one of my best friends told me about this short story that her had been writing. It was very...ambitious. Just to give you an idea of what I mean by that, it involved French aristocracy, gamers, American street gangs, political undertones and young woman who was VERY handy with a couple of Glock 17 pistols. It was a lot to take in, but I immediately latched on to one particular element of that story that interested me. As always, he gave me free reign to steal the idea and run with it. So I jotted that little kernel of an idea down in my 'ideas' file (every respectable writer should have one) and totally forgot about.
But the strangest thing happened to me while I was at work the other day. There I am at my desk, listening to a podcast, when suddenly that little puzzle piece of an idea popped in my head, along with all of the potential directions that I could take it. I immediately jotted down a few notes and went back to work. That was about 2 weeks ago. Since then, I've basically just been letting the idea marinate in my head, telling me what it wants to become. It seems to want to become a small, dark, intimate coming-of-age script. I've got the basic structure down, and the characters have revealed themselves to me, and I'm kind of working out the story arc now. Things are falling into place nicely.
I'm excited about this idea. Of course, I'm excited about EVERY idea that I have, so we'll see if this puppy has as much staying power as I think it does. Also, I've decided not to write an outline for this one. Well, not as extensive and outline as I usually write. I usually write a 2-4 page outline, with every scene numbered, and a pretty detailed description of what happens in each scene. But what I've discovered is that I find myself just writing to get to the next scene on the outline, as opposed to taking in the lay of the land and allowing the story to have free reign. It may wok out better, it may blow up in my face. Either way, I'll find out.
To be continued...
HIP HOP LYRIC OF THE DAY:
I always said what the fuck I felt/ go ahead and spit that murder I wrote/I ain't never cared 'bout hat you felt/Fuck you, nigga! I know I'm dope!
-Kanye West, 'Go Hard'
