november 10.

Yes. I've made it all the way down to the floor.

I began at my desk. Then cycled to my bed. And now here I am, and there is nowhere further down to go. Physically or anything else, quite possibly.

Sitting here with unyielding pages and a slow creeping sense of dread, so I'm trying to practise what I preach about positivity - the end IS in sight. I WILL get this done. It HAS to happen.

So - a reminder to myself that I will most likely end up down here again the next time around.

But it'll be ok.

Because it has to be. Because we are capable of more than what we limit ourselves to be, once we reach that limit and just keep plod-pushing forwards.

And even though this draft may be the most boring thing I've read in my life, even if I do want to lecture myself on all of the things I've missed and how-come-you-didn't-build-in-what-you-planned and how-the-heck-did-you end-up-in-this-place and why-have-you-got-that-line-in-there and what's even going on over here... Even with all of that, there's something to be said for the power of beginnings. Without them, there can be no journey towards an end, or at least a next, and without that, we're stuck in perpetual states of 'maybe' rather than anything that will ever eventuate. We cannot work to salvage what we did not create in the first place.

So - no matter the results. This is the beginning. The rest of the adventure is still to come.

And now I'll get up, even if just to save my gluteus maximus from further pain. Good talk.

october 22.

I retreated to the office today for quiet and focus, figuring that if I stationed myself where I do five days a week, perhaps I'd trick myself into forgetting it was Saturday and keep some momentum. I'm here now, realising I should probably leave now that it's getting dark outside - time seems to evaporate when you're staring at computer screens. This could easily become a habit however - there's something that's very thought-conducive about empty offices. Another plus, desk space for scribbles:

Best investment so far: $3 pack of graphite pencils. No better feeling than smudgy fingers, I think I tell myself every time I use them. Plus, they're good for angry black what-were-you-thinking lines as well - so many benefits from them.

I'm so close and yet so, so far. Our deadline is 23 days away, which is really no time at all when I think about how quickly this year has gone. It's really just in work left that it's far away - all I can do is keep going and trust that, as always, it WILL get done. I'm a terrible deadline pusher. It's like if there's no date looming I will get about 20% done of what I could have otherwise. There's nothing like looming finality to kick you into gear. My problem is that every time I sit down to write I find myself in the middle of one of 'those moments', the ones you can't easily fly through. They're gritty and draining and sometimes I find myself about to lose it because I'm so desperately trying to get in their frame of mind, and it's not always a pretty one.

Which is where the other perk of empty offices come in - dance breaks! I think I can now make a big over-generalisation in that if anyone says they've ever written a film without pausing for some of these, they'd be outright lying.  I'd go so far as to call them essential, even. Granted, my music bill has increased ten-fold with an addiction to new album and iTunes at my fingertips, but I'm putting them down as investments and so far they've proved worthwhile. Recent buys include...

more magic from the masters

ironically named beauty from grouplove

lovely moments from the kooks

and a long-overdue buy from The Middle East. Still so sad they've thrown it in (and being there to witness it has given me the impression that it's a pretty permanent decision, what with the mandolin throwing and et cetera).  I'm starting to think of music and media as a cyclical product (duh) and it's intriguing to wonder which albums and films have been influential in the creation of others. I wish every movie came with the screenwriter's playlist, much the same as novels should include mix CDs from their authors - a nod of appreciation to everything that's been thrown into the mix to spin this new piece, which in turn will find its way into the next person's melting pot. Crazy to think how everything is just begged, borrowed, stolen and then re-interpreted.

Oh, and this clip falls into that notion as well. It's what first sparked a thought that tumbled into a scene that spread itself out into a major piece of the puzzle, and I'll be forever grateful. (Excited to see it in context as well.)

october 11.

I sat down on my back deck with my laptop and good intentions over three hours ago.

Thankfully, it worked.

I'm telling you. This deck is magic. I had to write a story for an assignment when I was thirteen. I sat out here with one strong, resilient candle and by the time I went back inside, fingers cramped from scrawling, the pivotal moment in it, the part around which everything else fell, was finished. First try. Sure, not that cool when you're thirteen - but that story and that moment is haunting me to this day, over five years later, and I know it's ready to be revisited. Taunting me to take it on and bring it into now and write it the way it was designed to be created. This scares me more than it excites me, mainly because the characters scare me in much the same way, but sometimes there's voices in your head you've got no choice of outrunning and I'd say five years is a fairly decent fight. I'll give in when I can. Soon.

I've spent the last week stuck in this one conversation, lying down on her kitchen floor over and over again, writing and deleting and rewriting and deleting again until I was ready to scream or cry and give up (sound familiar?). And then, sitting out here tonight, a blanket wrapped around me in this half-spring, there was a moment through all of the pushing where something clicked inside me and I quite literally started crying and I knew, I knew, I knew why this was so difficult to write, couldn't believe how long it took me to catch on in the first place. You know what scares me, about all of this? You really do write what you know, but you do it without knowing you know it. You create these people and situations and pains and triumphs and as you chisel away at it line by line there's certain moments where you take a step back and get blown away by who you suddenly see emerging in them. The moments from your own life that slipped themselves in, taking on a new form but retaining their power. I don't know how to explain it and it was honestly like a revelation before when I realised. It's not a cliche or a lie made up to tease us. These words and pages become outpourings, whether we invite them in or not.

But now. Now I'm up off the floor. I haven't sent this version of the conversation (8.34923232 or whatever it's up to by now) to the scratchpad (yet... Oh, please, I hope not). And, once again, I have this sanctuary to thank for it. I know it won't be mine for much longer but I know it'll continue to serve its inhabitants, giving whatever they need to take from it.

october 10.

Getting to know Feist's new album 'Metals' while pondering the mountains ahead and, surprisingly, taking my own advice about not getting stressed. There's a simple fact I'm quick to forget so often, but it would save me a whole lot of nail-biting - things always end. No matter how far away it feels or how impossible that goal seems from where you're sitting, if you're like me, it'll get done, and everything really will be ok.

Oh my word. She's beautiful. Every time.

So, interesting case study. I heard Feist (Leslie Feist, in the real world) talking away on the radio on my drive home from work tonight and for a woman whose songs lilt and float the way they do, she's got this incredible strength. She doesn't sound like she's made out of china, even though you almost get that impression through her music. (Tough china, mind you, but china nonetheless.) But no. She's funny, and raw, and can talk about mating sheep just like the best of them. She's not isolated in the worlds she creates. For some reason, it was so refreshing to hear her talk and chat just like any one of us. People who create & define our perception of what's beautiful can seem untouchable. Otherworldly. Hearing them just as present in the same universe as myself - it gives me hope for reaching similar levels of creation. Feet firmly on the ground and head off in the clouds.

Oh, what a find! The perfect illustration. I downloaded the album yesterday and chose the (slightly more expensive) iTunes LP version, and I've never seen how one of those works before now. Once you open it, there's all kinds of goodies... like this behind the scenes Metals Microfilm... there's a moment in this that feels like you're watching dancing lomography in film form. It's stunning.

Later.

'Of the light, you were the strongest follower.'

Oh, how envious I get of these musicians. The power they have in these lines. To take a whirlwind of thought and moment and sum it up in minimal syllables is a talent I'll never stop letting myself be in awe of. And I think, actually, that it's more intrinsically linked to all of the rest than most people stop to continue. Story is story, no matter the form, and if you can write with such force and eloquence in so little words, you shouldn't have any problems when you've got mountainous paragraphs at your disposal. It's something I constantly use to challenge myself with - how would I have said this if it were in lyrical form? Considering I want to write stories that soar and plummet and ebb and pull and roar and lull, with all of the beauty & mire & profound & simplistic attached to that, what better way to learn just how that looks than to sit yourself down for 3 minutes, 30 seconds and experience the same rushes other people take ninety minutes to build up to?

Ugh. Time for bed, not for expansion, unfortunately.

october 3.

Fresh rain scent drifting in through open windows and soft shadows locking me in sleepiness. Nothing could be more beautiful than that smell right now. Smells like newness. Very much, I imagine, like what hope would smell like if it could transcend into tangibility. (Who's to say it can't, though? And doesn't?)

Mm. In that little moment of distraction (which was actually a hugely helpful one - I've stumbled across a website I'm saving for exploring later, it looks really useful) I decided to hold myself back from placing one large, expensive bookdepository order and load up on books I've been meaning to all year over in New York. Genius, right? Ones I've needed anyway (screenwriting basics and the like... probably should have read them all before beginning...) and also, the thrill of hunting for them over there. If I'm lucky I'll find most second-hand, with someone else's scrawls and thoughts already seasoning the pages for me. Books really should never come entirely clean. Or, at least, shouldn't finish with you the same way they started. I have one book I've lent to people over and over throughout the years and now when I pull it out the spine falls open without argument, worn down to softness from so many immersions. It makes me even happier knowing it's been in so many hands (many of these hands over and over as well).

The rain's kicked in with commitment now. Bliss. Pair that with Alexander's gusto (not the first time I'll link to this and by the looks of it most definitely not the last),  a bed so warm you can't help but push your feet around a little and last night's all-night-drive still bringing the drowsiness, and I'm just a little bit content.

There's some nice moments in the mix of this. Where self-loathing disgust at any word you've written down falls away, and you can look at something you've just created without judgment or perfectionist critique. You read something you worked on a little while ago and for one blessing of a moment it rings true. It's not contrite or bland. You recognise now the feeling you aimed to capture, which is more important than it seems. When you're in the middle of writing it, it's easy to know what's going on. You're there, right down to the hand waves and gesturing (a good reason writing should be done in solitude. It can get embarrassing). But when you can look back and instantly acknowledge what that same feeling is - for a minute, it's a little bit overwhelming. At the very least, it's something to return to in the midst of absolute frustrations, when dialogue comes out sounding like it'd be better off left with the five year olds for Barbie play time. Yeah, those moments happen a lot as well.

-- Whoops. Got so distracted it's now tomorrow. It happens.

september 29.

Oh, head full of thoughts and unstoppable scrawls - come back. Don't love me and then leave me in a mundane headspace. Not. Cool.

In an effort to fight it... This album.

Sounds like this and this. And a little of this too. Oh. Plus these ones (holy flip and maybe this as well.)

I don't believe in stealing. At least, not gum. Or banks. (As in from the banks. Not trying to cart off the ugly brick building itself in the quiet of night. It's been far too long since regular exercise for that kind of scheming.) However, I'm beginning to think that if stealing thoughts and perspectives, 'borrowing' the way someone can take an image or experience or moment and change it into something so sweet, so thick and so enticingly vivid - yeah, I'd take a crack at robbing that. I'd even spring for the balaclava if it was going to give me a higher success rate.

(Ok, even if you're too lazy to work your way through the 'this'es, make sure you at least listen to 'City Girl'. It's not instantly beautiful but has incredible longevity and the more you listen to it, the harder it is to stop. There's a story buried in here that's intriguing, and a feisty power when the chorus quite literally seems to kick in. And the lyrics.... ugh. No words. No words of my own, unfortunately.)

((Changed my mind. 'Horsehead' is the necessity.))

(((Or make my life a heck of a lot easier and just listen through. Everyone's so slack these days.)))

So, I feel like I'm beginning again. Or at least like I should be. It's been a solid ten months now since some of these people's whims walked into my head, sat down and propped up their feet, watching me with expectant, waiting eyes. And today was one of those times (that have happened before and will happen again, and again, and again and again and again) where all I want to do is find the most dramatic way possible to delete and then escape into already created worlds, taking solitude in the fact that someone else did it, so I don't have to. All I wanted was to curl up on the couch with a family size chocolate slab and the best season of Grey's, forgetting about anything else.

But. The almighty 'and then'.

I'll censor it for civil purposes, but in the words of an unexpected source, '**** Greys.' And then he proceeded to tell me that nothing that comes to us easy is of any worth. Nothing that comes without a fight is held close. Nothing we value comes without challenges.

How can I forget that so easily? How can I learn it over and over again and then be so quick to just be ready to be done with it (at least temporarily) the minute it wasn't 'flowing' and it needs work and logic and consideration and time?

This isn't just this one script. This isn't the one story. This is life. This is one in a series of events and choices and opportunities and moments. We take them or we leave them. We choose to engage or we choose to remain apathetic. Everything comes down to choice and choice is in turn defined by attitude and attitude, then, is the result of what we're living for.

And it's that simple. That simple and at the same time, an idea that I'm sure will take my entire length of existence here to begin to understand.

And so. I sit here. Tired and doubtful and still trying to ignore that little whisper going 'no DON'T **** Grey's. It's much, much easier'. Yes, all of that.

But I'm present. And sometimes, I think that's all we're expected to be. (And then there's space for the 'and then', so incredibly beyond anything we could hope for ourselves.)

september 27.

Tonight - something new! I need to get into some script work soon, but first up is something that's still bringing a rush to me every time I think about it. After spending the weekend entrenched in planning mode, this week's one of the first times that this new team - our name still something I'm savouring and welcoming into my heart and headspace, excitedly and absolutely - has got some solid priorities down on paper, some 'to dos' down before we next meet. So tonight, I get the fun jobs. Playing with fonts, getting used to the feel of these words - this word with such force and focus and potential and ambition - on paper and letting them take on their own integral shape and form. Working on some website priorities, knocking out what we need to be thinking about and the kind of shape and format we want to work towards. Soaking up the words of others in preparation for taking on their story, and maybe, possibly even getting to spend some time dreaming in words and colours and images... there's so much coming up but this teaser concept, it's giving me goose bumps. So. Excited.

Update: Just got info for accessing the new email addresses sent through. Love knowing that as I'm working on one thing, the others are doing the same in another area. It's such a great feeling of productivity - one heart, so many hands! (So much to do, though, to keep those hands busy. Thankfully.)

I'm currently sharing my house with only a mouse. I just sat down at the table with a cup of tea and saw a shadow flit past in the window reflection. I don't mind it tonight. It can have a grace period. Tomorrow, when the house is once again filled with footsteps and voices and activity, it'll have to return back to furtive ventures out when there's no light and no excitement. This must be a little thrill for it. It probably rejoices in the quiet of home-aloneness just as much as I do - if so, I'm happy to oblige.

Mm, floating in music possibility. I always find it amazing to watch things play out. We're all given skill sets and abilities but we're also all quite deficient in other areas. When you trust in your worth for the area you ARE gifted in, it's incredible to watch the other areas fall together. People cross your paths or you're struck with ideas for fresh solutions and suddenly it's no longer an impossibility. That's how I feel when it comes to the musical side of these pieces - no matter how much music I consume, that'll never be an ability I possess. But others keep crossing our paths and options are arising, and I'm glad to be able to watch the pieces fall into place even just at this potential idea stage. It all begins with a seed of a thought, and we're being blessed with a few different seeds right now. Trusting for the right ones to take root.

Later. Mouse is loud. Back to predatory instincts. If I wasn't so afraid of them, I'd set up a trap. Knowing I'd just end up catching myself and I'm already sporting a band-aid (apparently being 18 doesn't mean you can automatically safely chop vegetables), I think I'll just put up with it.

I'm commenting on someone else's work at the moment and this is also such an interesting part of the process. Having some input and the freedom to comment on others' progress, as well as seeing how each of us respond to similar guidelines for layouts and structures and outlines, is a real eye opener. There's so many different styles out there and these are the kind of stories I would never in a lifetime have come up with, but it comes so naturally to someone else. I really love that about stories. Who would have thought two syllables, one word, could lead to countless lifetimes of thirsty pursuit of the ultimatum - holding the finished weight in your hands, feeling the words and the hours and the characters and seeing the simple black font on white paper as your outcome? Whatever the form - book, film, poem, song, campfire yarn - we're captivated and enthralled, unable to satiate our desire. I guess that classic childhood request of 'just one more story dad' right before bed isn't something you lose with your teeth or anything like that. We're never satisfied. It's like we're aware there's just so many to be told and so much to be learnt through their telling.

september 22.

I've missed a few, but that's ok. Time is precious and sometimes blogging just isn't the best use of it (case in point: right now. That's ok).

I've just watched this again, for who knows how what time it's up to by now.

The Green Book Materials.

Which has now led to listening to this.

34 Ghosts IV

Which, indirectly, has brought me to this place, a place I only just realised that I've been to before. The Sydney Opera House - smaller than I anticipated, but majestic nonetheless.

Listening to pieces like this help as well and for a moment, if you close your eyes, dream big and realise small - you can almost be in the moment. A moment, mind you, that exists more perfectly in my head than I'm sure reality could re-create, but I'd be willing to give it a try.

Later.

Oh, how I love these people. How I love picking up pages I know represent their story from beginning to end with all of the glorious and the ugly in between. The ugly is important because it's only when we have pain and loss and mourning and despair that Annie's wisdom is truly applicable. There can be no recognition of sun and light without the dark. When you're writing light, it needs to burst with its force and the same needs to be true of the flip side - when you're in those dark moments, if you can't catch on to what the cry of the character's heart is in that moment, then no word written will ever have any truth to it at all. And it's hard, because you feel it. You feel the ferocity and the sadness and the longing of those empty times, because you're creating them. But then. But then. The pay-off. The overwhelming reward. The joy you get to shape - it's expansive. It's incredible. It's addictive, that's for sure.


Ok. Just finished sequence 3 and clocked in at 89 pages. Ohhhh. This is not, in any way, shape or form, a good sign.

september 15.

Oh, goodness. In moods like these, all I want to do is crawl into a welcoming bed with the words of others, not try to pull out my own.

I searched for this song just for the music and was surprisingly drawn in by the images. Yes, it's nothing new, for music video fare, but there's something about the freedom and light and vibrancy that right now, I'd like to swim in for a little.  (Link here.)

Later, again. I just checked how many pages this thing has so far and it's by far more than it should for the stage it's at. There's a difference between writing lots and writing substance, and I have a feeling it's going to be a long journey towards the latter. If anything, most of it needs to be done again. And will be. Numerous times. I'm beginning to see how this is the process it is - the first seed of a thought rarely ends up mirrored in its end creation. Still, the ones that survive - the tiny, haphazardly fragile moments of possibility in which people and places come together and it's placed in your head, so full of substance it's inarguable - they're the ones I'm beginning to love the most, because they just 'were'. Almost like gifts, encouraging you through the pieces that aren't quite so easy to see the end of, goading you on to the next 'is', the part that's already written for you.

Time for the weekend, for refuelling, refreshing and more pages... or, hopefully, less.

september 7.

So far.

Googled 'eight year old drawings'. Decided eight year olds have immeasurable skill anyway, so I'll make up what I like.

Then got taken aback - I didn't give said eight year olds enough credit.

Who knew they were capable of trees that weren't green? My perspective has been re-adjusted. I'll doubt no longer. Wherever 'Chloe Age 8' is right now, I'm indebted to her.

Next - my goodness. Did anyone else know this existed? There's something that happens when a song comes on you've been gifted with and you didn't know to expect. Your heart contracts and expands all in those first few chords with the knowledge that the person on the other end of the exchange knows you and this moment well enough to know that that song would be the perfect melody for it. These are the kind of friends - family - I'm blessed with. If this script ever gets finished, it will be hugely due to them. So much love. (Van Morrison AND The Beatles? In one song?!)

It's later. It's peaceful. Mazzy Star is easing me onwards and one long scene has come to a close. Time for warm, welcoming bed and novels sent from authors whose words fuel your own. (Two days ago I received a package from my favourite author, who'd sent her new book. It's so hard not to get so caught up in the intricate people she creates that you're unable to focus on your own. I can't help myself, though. They're too decadent. It's people like those that we each need to find, those individuals whose talent and voice resonates in a way that your own is encouraged.)

Oh, Mazzy. Too many beautiful moments in one night. You're the perfect 'after'.

september 4.

It's an unusual time for me to be working, since generally by this point of the day I've already spent half the day working on this and have moved on. The light feels wrong, but that's ok. There's something to learn in being able to work regardless of environment, and I'm much too fussy already with the 'mood' - this is good for me.

My driving factor right now is, strangely enough, the next story. I have images attaching themself to my thoughts like a cluttered pin board, moments and scenes - the girl in a dusty cathedral & a boy with clammy palms, one person's loss another's gain, dingy happy music and sterile silence - interrupting the moments and scenes I really should be focusing on NOW. It's great motivation, though, to tell this story to the best of my ability with the anticipation of the next.

Mind food right now...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEVa3jAaweE - infectious music does powerful things. Actually, loving it in its entirety:

When stuck at desk, always move to floor. One principle I've learnt this year that's stuck, and though these are ugly, they're mighty effective for messy scrawls while avoiding a demanding computer screen.

An hour and a half later and one problematic scene, the thorn in my side when tone and intended meaning collide and cause a fall-out, has been beaten (for now. Until tomorrow, when it needs beating again). There's a certain satisfaction in achieving something you thought impossible, and I need to learn that there's ALWAYS going to be those moments, those times of wanting to give up, give in, let go and go have a long indignant bath instead of trying (and yes, this won't be the first afternoon you consider quitting the course. You'll probably have the same brilliant idea next week. And the week after.)

The key for around 98% of people who put themselves through this exact same process, I'm beginning to learn, is not the posession of genius IQ points or some freak-of-nature knack for the elements of story (although that's definitely the case for some). It's persistence. Persisting through those moments of self-loathing despair, when all you're wishing is that these pages were in hard copy instead of digital format so the destruction process could be much more ferocious and send shreds of paper in every which direction. And more than that, it's persisting for the purpose. The love. The rush. The exhilaration of taking fragments of one mind and breaking them down and teasing them out into these people, who have their own voices, their own stories, their own struggles and their own joys. It's the love of the limitless possibility, the joy of taking one floating thought from a single moment in your day and expanding it into something that previously didn't exist. THAT'S what pushes you through when you're writing the same piece of dialogue for the fifteenth time, or when you delete three hours worth of work.

Now, just to remember that.

august 29.

It's happening again.

The clocks ticks past 10 and my head kicks into gear, welcoming the night and its (in)finite possibility. No similar magic happens when the clock pushes past 8. No, it's too early, too convenient, too sensible. It's only when it's really time to start to settle and slow down and pull all the threads of thought into a neat, convenient bundle for unpacking on the morrow that my head screws me over like this, fighting time in an effort to get as much done in a five minute space as possible.

Tonight's been spent at my desk, soft lamp light and helpful laptop my company. Once again, it's been spent in a world that's not my own but so far belongs to no one else. I've been working on some scenes, a process that looks a lot like this...

'Process' is probably the wrong word there. That'd suggest some reasoning behind it all, as opposed to the jumping-from-one-to-the-next game I find myself playing, barely finishing on one thought/song before moving onto the next.

First, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. There's bands you discover and then there's bands you return to. The returning ones really show their worthiness in a library. They're around for the long haul. I've recently found myself in blissful awe of their frontman, Alexander, and delving into his solo project has brought me back to the team effort. What's not to love about songs that broach topics that have been done to death with a life and whimsy that brings such joy? '40 Day Dream' in particular has put itself on repeat in my head. You can almost hear the smile in his voice when he kicks in at the beginning.

The words. When writing, I find myself constantly pulling up a new tab and typing in 'define x'. A word will come that I want to use, but then I read the sentence it's in back to myself and realise my use of the word doesn't match everyone else's use of it. Words that to me fit absolutely intuitively, words that bring out the colour (or lack of) and the tone of the moment I'm working at without further deliberation, aren't necessarily going to bring the same connotations to the mind of someone else. That haunts me to no avail, and I figure Google's a good place for general popular opinion, so tab after tab, my use of these is refined and whittled away at until, holding my breath, I move on to sentence two (and a whole new string of tabs to follow).

Jam. It's surprising how hard it is to think up multiple flavours on demand. Strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, blueberry, yes... Apricot, even... but where's the exotic flavour? I'm sure there's an abundance of smushed fruit in jars and I'm really in need of the names of some. Google's failing me this time around, and even Wikipedia isn't in too much of a hurry to serve at my beck and call. There's some things you've just got to do the old fashioned way, so I guess I'm off to Aisle 4 for some reconnaissance.

Oh, Lykke. You haven't failed me yet.

I cheated when the clock hit 10. I broke the chronological flow and cracked open the words in my head, letting them form with the aid of Raiders. Such cheek and such a lovely/hateful joy in both that created moment and that bridge - it's a rare moment to find such perfect integration.

And now, with 10.34 looming, I'm off to try and quiet the cacophony, to try and bottle and preserve the images and music and melodies and moments colliding and clamouring for attention. (Bottling. Preserving. Potentially  a new jam recipe on the horizon after all.)