I Need To Write More

For a while this fall I was really in a groove. I wrote at least an hour a day for several months.

Recently, not so much. At all.

I'm not really sure why. One reason was because I finished the low-budget thriller I was working on, and tried to segue into the script I'm writing with a (long-distance) friend, and that's not clicking all that well (both the script and the writing partnership). Plus the project is really a tough one to crack and figure out the right tone and story, and I think we're just barely starting to get there now. Though we're trying.

So it's inching along, but since the last time I brought it into my screenwriting group (2 weeks ago) I haven't done much work on it.

So when a friend from my screenwriting group called 2 days ago and begged me to take one of her slots last night, I said yes, even though I didn't have anything new to bring in.

So I bravely brought in something from 5 years ago, a script that I liked a lot of, but which never worked. A fantasy-comedy-drama sort of in the genre of the mediocre Nic Cage movie "Family Man" (though I actually thought of this idea first, and it's not THAT similar).

And the reading went well. The actors had a lot of fun with it, and some of the humorous bits played pretty well (I was a lot funnier five years ago). I actually thought that maybe it worked better than I thought.

But then the writers tore it apart.

Bless them, because they were right about the key things that simply don't work. I'm much, much better at seeing the flaws in someone else's work than my own.

But now I think I found a jumping off point to make it work.

But I still want to nail this writing project with the friend.

But time is going to be crunching. Because the building I live in is doing renovations, we're moving at the end of the month. I hate moving.

We found a new place in North Hollywood, which means that we'll actually be living near people. Plus there's better parking, which was a nightmare in Woodland Hills.

So locals can expect more socializing. And poker.

But man, I have to write. An hour a day, every day, even during the move. Today is day 1.

******

The past weekend at the theaters was fairly blandly predictable. ENCHANTED made $16.4 million, and nothing else made more than $8.2 million (BEOWULF). AWAKE did only $5.8 million.

Things should be picking up this weekend; among other things, JUNO opens in limited release. I was interested to see that they turned the Sherman Oaks Galleria multiplex into an Arclight; has anyone been there yet?