Well......

It could get longer, but I think the plot and character development works fine at the length it is. So... I decided it's done and I FINALLY sent it in.

Holy frickin... Wow.

I got to a part where not much needed to be changed and my progress just skyrocketed. I could have it done "tonight." And yes, the quotes are because my definition of tonight doesn't end until 3 AM, sometimes later. That would be nice, to have it done with a few hours tomorrow for clean-up with my mom, who used to do desktop publishing. I'm kind of exacting about proofreading, because Abrams is awesome and my mom used to pay us to help her proofread when she had a home business.

feed the writing machine

Unfortunately, going on Pepsi and Doritos and Lunchables for 48 hours may mean you feel like passing out in the 49th hour.

Big giant confession about procrastination...

So... we all know that I suddenly started to pretty much ignore the deadlines from halfway through the term  and on... I have concluded that part of this is because my rewrite thus far is about 90% completely new material. I'm not really doing a revision here, in my opinion, I am writing a completely new script that just happens to have lots of similarities to the old one. That said, now that I'm eating junk food, guzzling Pepsi like it's water, and my primary emotion is being upset with my mother instead of all mopey and trying not to cry, progress is going MUCH better than it has been. In the past two or three days I have doubled the material I've written for this draft. Unfortunately, it's not long enough to pretend it's finished yet. I am rapidly fixing that, but I ran out of Doritos tonight, and the my ideas ran dry, and even placebo is enough to connect the two, so I'm buying more chips tomorrow and writing the entire time I'm not driving to/from or taking my Philosophy exam. I'm really glad the exam is open note and book, otherwise I'd have lost writing time reviewing the major names and stuff like that. Anyway, goodnight.

Junk Food

I don't know if it's just that I work better under intense pressure, or that I bought a bag of Doritos tonight. I have been trying to avoid junk food most of this term, at least, at night in my apartment. I mean, I can't always find time for decent food when I'm catching a quick lunch between classes. Anyway, I brought Doritos and Pepsi back to my life, although Pepsi never really left... Under the influence of my favorite salty junk food indulgence and my sugary, caffeinated best friend beverage of choice, I've set a new "most progress in one sitting" for this quarter. However, it's going to take some serious junk food binging and crazy sleep hours to make up for the damage I've done to my timeline. I'm sorry. And I vow never to try to eat better at the same time as trying to write something well ever again. (Probably a lie, but I like the dramatic sound of it.)

This is not working for me.

I seem to be spending most of my time alone crying or trying not to cry (and who can write with people all around?). And I don't think that it's necessarily a closeness to my script that puts my mood in the way of working on it. It's just not easy to think and write funny when one is close to crying most of the time. The script is plenty different from the self kernel I made it out of, and it doesn't feel like it's my arm or leg or anything like that. It's just not self-propelling enough to only be possible as one genre, the rom com I want. I'm very good at making people think I'm happy or content in-person. Perhaps what I need is someone in the room with me while I write whom I feel compelled to act happy for. Maybe if I could put on my happy act while I write, I could keep it aimed at the genre I want.

*Ahem*

Obviously, progress is not what it should be. I have concluded that I think my stories chronologically, which is why I get into trouble trying to skip around to the easy writing parts and fill in the stuff that requires effort later. This would probably be okay if I was writing prose and could use freeform structure. But I'm not, so it's probably a big setback. And through the course of all my screenwriting classes, I have noticed that I suck at features and my really great ideas work best as shorts. So basically, though taking this class is necessary and really important for me...it's kind of like getting my wisdom teeth out. And I mean that in a specific way, because mine were not going to be impacted, but they had weak mottled enamel and would be a problem later on, and my mouth hurt for two weeks, even with Percocet and 800 mg Motrin at the same time. So, this class is important, and screenwriting in general is a huge deal to me, because if I hadn't picked something usually fun, my dad would have made me study some kind of engineering thing, but the class is also something that has become not fun.

And have I mentioned I wasn't even good at revising term papers in high school?

Valentine's Day is crap. I hate it. It needs to die in a fire.

Having just thought about what Monday is, and what I hoped it would be just over a year and week ago, I just screwed over my ability to finish my revisions by the deadline. There is no way that I can work on a romantic comedy and have it turn out okay when I'm suddenly dissolving into a crying quivering puddle of goo or something. Trust me, I tried it last year, one of characters nearly got raped. Go ask Prof Cohen.

I don't think I have issues with writing at any time of day. I have issues with keeping my emotional state aligned to how I want the scenes and the entire screenplay to turn out. So far, I've been content enough in my daily activities to write something that just needs to be straightened out a little to become a decent rom-com. Now I'm all sad and lonely and crap because two years ago, I was asked out on V-day and managed to be confident I was in love within the following week; and one year ago, he broke up with me on the 3rd, while I was shopping for a $200 round-trip train ticket down to Springfield, Virginia to see him for the double romantic holiday a little early because I was supposed to work on a film shoot the real weekend. This is not a mood for trying to work on a romantic comedy. Last year, I wanted to just kill everyone in my script because I was very pessimistic about Love. This year, I don't know what might happen to the characters, and I don't want to do extra plot rewrites because I was sucked back into my own heartbreak and did damage to my intended plot.

It's going to be a few days late while I try to compartmentalize this crap so I can write what I want to and not what I'm feeling. Because otherwise, I might screw it all up by letting the douchy crush from high school pressure innocent Elizabeth of the delicate emotional balance into having sex, and i'd probably make it her first time even though she's past the crazy college years when everyone else who didn't lose it in high school loses it, she'll turn to the craft knife deeper than usual, and then I've got one major character dead, two depressed that she's dead, one whoring it up because her fiancée left her, and the last douchily saunters off into oblivion. That's not what I want. I want one super happy couple, one repairing/starting over couple, and the fifth wheel not being a fifth wheel because of meeting someone with potential at the end.

I think Elizabeth hates me back.

With the major changes planned for my script, I thought it might be best to write a full short story version of my script, something around 20 pages maybe. I've decided Elizabeth hates me back because every time I sit down with a notebook or computer to work on her story, it's so hard to nail her down. She's slippery, and she's reserved so she doesn't even want me understanding her, but I keep trying. She's stealing my pens.

Jennelle's pretty easy to work with because I hadn't fleshed her out that well in the first draft. Hannah's at least fun, if a little crazy. Of the two main guys, Marco already has more behind his actions, and I'm a little iffy on what's inside Davin's head. I don't really know any guys who would have or would admit to having a secret desire to break things off with a gorgeous woman for a plainer woman with a more interesting mind. Okay, I know one who would say that; he dumped me a year ago and is currently seeking out NSA sex with the hottest girls who will sleep with him, which has apparently been a fair number despite the fact he's overweight and his an inflated esteem for his own intelligence and opinions. I don't think I can fill out Davin's personality based on my ex, because that would change his character way too much.

So, Elizabeth doesn't want to be understood, and I have little basis for trying to understand Davin either. At least I have a few people to think of as piecemeal models for Elizabeth.

I'm beginning to think that psychology would be the best thing to have minored in while in a screenwriting program.

If I had a therapist, would I maybe not have this particular problem?

I have come to hate Elizabeth. I would much rather write short stories about her sister, Hannah, and piece together a vignette-y indie-feeling feature. I don't want to spend one more second writing about Elizabeth. Unfortunately, that means that each of these last handful of pages is taking progressively longer and longer to write, because I dislike her so much right now. If I liked her, I could probably finish in under three hours.

When I started into the second half, near the beginning of break, it was easy. I was only starting to get fed up with Elizabeth. Although "exponential" typical refers to increasing values, I would like to say that my writing speed has decreased at an exponential rate. And I want to just get this goddamn thing done, but I can't because hating her makes me write it slower and slower. And the fact that it's taking so much time makes me hate it more. It's a vicious cycle. If I can just make it to an ending, I'm going to not think about her at all for at least 24 hours. Maybe if I can manage a break, then when I come back to start revising, I won't hate her as much and it won't be as hard to do the work.

Possible explanation for hating Elizabeth: she is a lenses turned on the things I consider my personality faults, and because I don't like them in myself, I hate them in her. I feel like maybe this is a reason there's a stereotype that all successful creative people wind up with psychologists, that working through their issues like that keeps them from having this kind of problem with a character or something and then their work doesn't become a horrendous chore. I don't like that writing about Elizabeth feels like punishment, and I know that writing about almost anything else would feel fun again. But... Elizabeth's story has to get finished before I will allow myself to write anything just for fun.

My alter egos

I had this random thought while writing this morning: Elizabeth and Hannah are my alter egos, and foils for each other. So what does that say about me, that I'm minorly bi-polar? Elizabeth is mostly my shy and easily depressed side, while Hannah is my more outgoing, loud, crazy, easily pleased and amused side. I can actually picture myself doing almost anything either of them does in my screenplay. Particularly, Hannah has been communicating with Marco by sneaking into the office with her sister and rolling around the cubicle aisles humming spy themes like she's in Mission: Impossible or something. This is the kind of thing I find myself thinking "I would totally do that, well, except that my Elizabeth side would stop me, but I'd still want to do that!"

Okay, so yeah, Elizabeth is my main character, but currently, my reason for writing is Hannah. I want to get more in touch with my inner Hannah.

The genre is mud, figuratively.

I've been doing much thinking about Elizabeth and the story as I've written it up to now. I've probably been thinking because I'm a little fed up with her and don't really want to work on the screenplay to finish it. Anyway, I think I might be partly annoyed because I can see potential for this to be a romantic comedy that just happens to have a girl who starts out cutting, or it could be much darker and focus on the issues behind the cutting and let the potential romance fall by the wayside.

I feel like I've been toeing the line a little, and that's going to make it similar to "Morning Glory," in that, the romance on the side will seem like it needed to be cut, or maybe take more of the focus.

So I guess what I need to know is does it seem like a good idea to tailor the screenplay more into the romantic comedy part of its potential? Elizabeth is still going to be a shy, reserved girl who cuts; and her sister Hannah can take a better role in egging on the wacky rom com hijinks if I aim for a more solid rom com genre footing.