Unhappy with the size of your....story?

It dawned on me today that Stay Of Exexution could end up being very short. I've always been one for brevity and what have you when it came to writing. One of the reasons I've always done poetry and short stories. I thought Stay could be a novel. Then the more I wrote, the more I thought "hey this would make a great script!" More being a relative term here. As I was writing some today and thinking of where the story was going and where I'm at now, I realized I could almost be done. Usually this is a great place to be. Problem is, I only have 24 pages written. And by written I mean hand written, so I'm figured typed we're talking less. This could end up being more of a short story which is NOT what I wanted. I wanted a novel, a book. And then I revised that to a script. Though I am still writing it in story form. Scripts being one page per minute of screen time, we're talking and hour show with commercials here. Again NOT my idea! I'm gonna keep writing the way I have been on it. I really think I need someone to read it over and tell me what I need though.

Macabre News = Inspiration

Well, for the moment at least, my writer's block is over. I started working on Stay Of Execution again. One of the things that prompted this was a local news story. On Tues. a murderer from Warren was executed, so they had a couple days' write up on the story. Went thru the whole what would happen, the last hours, final meal, statement etc. Plus revisited his crime. He had gone on a killing spree where he had been fired a couple months earlier. Shot and killed one guy, beat a woman to death with a chair and shot and wounded another guy back in 91.

I also fleshed out a couple ideas for the plot and a few twists too. One twist actually spurred another idea completely, so we'll see where that will go. It feels good though knowing I'm progressing here. I have this idea in my head and keep playing it over and over till it's almost taken on a historical value somewhat, yet nobody else on earth has ever seen any of it. Well, I take that back. I let my girlfriend read it a while back.

I still think it would make a great screenplay, but first things first. It needs written first, then we'll see what other forms it goes into.

Damn Facebook and a need for inspiration.

I completely forgot about this site since I've been on Facebook. And it's not like I've really written a ton of intelligent stuff on there. Blurbs mainly. I guess I'm now truly a 21st century guy.

I gotta tell ya, I've been my own worst enemy the last couple of months. I have this whole malaise (malais?) going on where I'm not real happy with my jobs or lot in life in general. I feel like I'm in transition...even though I'm not sure what I'd be transitioning to. I just know it's away from my current situation.

This leads me to the whole writing problem. Which is that I haven't been writing at all. I keep telling myself that the whole artistic, musical, writing side of me is basically a teenage pipe dream. I'm in the whole "why are you wasting your time when you should be out looking for a REAL job" mode.

The sad thing is I know that's not true. Hell people write stuff and become successful on some level all the time. Why can't I be one of those people? How am I any different than any of them? I'm not.

And still the "grow up" voice persists....

This really sucks. I gotta tell ya.

Taylor Swift and the understatement of the year.

I was watching Oprah today because I saw Taylor Swift was gonna be on. This 11 yr. old girl who was part of an earlier Oprah show on talented children was on too because she had interviewed Taylor and they showed the segment today. They were in Taylor's bedroom and she pointed to the spot on the floor where she wrote "Love Story." Then says (brace for understatement here)

"That song changed my life. It was a really productive 20 minutes."

That was followed later by Oprah asking her if she felt her life was normal. I was thinking "Yeah, 19 yr old girl being interviewed by Oprah. That sounds like your typical Wednesday for a 19 yr old." LOL

It's scary how normal this girl is considering how huge she is. I hope that never changes. She should be the hero every girl wants to be like, and we can let all the bipolar addicts fall by the wayside. Which I think they already have. Ahh there is hope yet.

Backstory Done

No, that is not the title of some 70s avant garde film. It's true. I'm practically done with my initial backstory at the beginning of Stay Of Execution.

Now....onward and upward.

Cellulitis and Levaquin Dreams

Well I had a great beginning of the month. By the way, this is an old story, meaning beginning of Sept. I woke up Wed Sept. 2 sick as a dog. My entire body ached BAD and I was freezing so bad my arms and legs were shaking. I should have gone to the hospital, but knew I wouldn't be able to drive and didn't want to call an ambulance. The next day I was a bit better but noticed the red sploches on my right shin and calf. Well I had cellulitis last year so I knew that's what it was. I also knew I had to go to get it fixed fast because cellulitis literally gets worse by the hour. So I worked midnite Thurs and called my doctor Friday morning. They said they couldn't take me till the 25th. Sorry, that ain't gonna happen. I'd be lucky to still have a leg by then lol. So I went to bed (I'd just got off a double) and went to the ER Friday evening. It's funny because I was thinking I could go in, get a scrip, get it filled and go eat. Nope. And by the way, unless you want to not go anywhere for a long time, NEVER tell a triage nurse at an ER that you have pain in your chest. I told him that when I took a deep breath it hurt. They went nuts. Did an EKG. Wanted to test me to see if I had a blood clot since the cellulitis was in 3 different spots and they were worried I might have one that was moving to my lung. So they admitted me to give me IV antibiotics. THEN they tell me there is a glitch on my EKG that could have meant I had heart damage possibly from a prior heart attack. That lead to a great moment when I talked to this cardiologist. He asked me "So how long ago did you have a heart attack?" My response: "Well until yesterday when I heard there was something wrong with my EKG, I never knew anything could be wrong with my heart." Got a REAL interesting look from that lol. So they did an Echo cardiagram and a stress and found nothing wrong. THANK GOD!. So my quick trip to the ER ended up with a 3 day stay. I finally got released Monday afternoon.

Then the IV they gave me was Levaquin. Which worked great I might add. But Levaquin can cause nitemares and hallucinations in less than 1% of people taking it. Guess who was in that less than 1%? The entire time I was there I kept hearing this constant primal screaming in my head. Every time I'd close my eyes or fall asleep I'd see these scenes where people in other rooms were being slaughtered. Or I'd see another bed in my room where someone was getting killed. It was like that point where you had just fallen asleep and have a whacked dream but you are kinda floating between being asleep and awake. Three days straight of this! It was driving me crazy lol. Pun intended. The upside to that is that I have this great image of this dead decaying lady getting pulled out of her bed by a demon. I'm gonna try to draw/paint that one. If it comes out even close to what I'd seen, it's gonna be a real trip.

Buckling Down a.k.a Writing is like moving.

I think I spelled that wrong. Whatever the -ing version of buckle is. I need to do it. I have 4 or 5 stories I've NOT been working on. Weird thing is, I have them completely thought out from beginning to end in my head. I only have the beginnings of them actually written down though.

There are a couple reasons for this:
1. the whole 2 jobs thing.
2. I'm now dating someone so my spare time has been spent "not writing." lol.
3. I'm lazy. and the most important and problematic reason
4. I have this "why bother? this is all pipe dream stuff, you should just try to do a REAL job instead of this dreaming."

That last one really bothers me. I keep telling myself that I should just do writing as a hobby instead of actually trying to pursue anything. Then I think that if it is just a hobby, I can put it off and do it at my leisure. THEN I never have any real leisure time, so I never do anything with it. Then....then....you get the point. I don't know. Not sure how that's gonna resolve itself. I guess I need to know it's worth it when deep down I know it can be. I need to know it on the surface too so I actually do something about it instead of just thinking ideas and never doing anything about them.

This gets to the whole "writing is like moving." That's a Dave Zarlengo original by the way. I'll explain. When you decide you want to move it sounds great in theory. Going somewhere better, moving on with your life etc. Then there is the actual "moving" part. The actual grabbing every single piece of stuff in your place, packing it, carrying it to the car or moving van, unpacking every single piece and putting every single piece in the new place.

Writing is exactly the same. You come up with an idea. You're excited. Have the entire thing thought out. But you have to actually WRITE it. Every single word, sentence, paragraph etc from beginning to end. It's a lot like cleaning out a closet and packing all the stuff in it one at a time. Real easy to get bogged down in the particulars.

Oh well, I'm losing my train of thought here. I'm at work and have been here since 4pm. (It's now 12:45am and I'll be here till 8.) And I'm the staff lol.