THE STARCHILD--A JOURNEY FROM WRITING INTO SCRIPT

BACK AGAIN AND ADDING WHAT I CAN.

Most scriptwriters spend only a few months on their scripts. Sometimes more.

I prefer to think of my latest attempts as nothing more than "lazy-writing": Just casually writing in what I can on my vacations, and not really worrying about how much I do.

I have roughly about 45 pages done so far on the script, but it's an anime-based one, so I'm having a lot of fun with it.

I posted some of it on my Yahoo! 360 page, and found the response to be more than positive. People actually want to see a movie made--based on The Starchild itself.

But I still have more than 1000 pages to go. This will more than likely take me six years to complete.

More in a bit.

DOUBTFUL ANYTHING SERIOUS WILL GET DONE THIS VACATION.

Aside from a near completion of the third chapter to THE STARCHILD script, I haven't been able to do as much work on it as I thought. I'm not even sure if I'll make a dent in it this week like I had planned.

Just too much chaos going on--from job app problems with the wife to painful tooth aches.

I'll try and squeeze in a few more pages this week, but I doubt anything will seriously get done as I had hoped.

This is--by far--one of the worst vacations I've had in awhile. It's not bad bad, it just didn't allow me much opportunity to get shit done.

Maybe in March (my next one), I might have better luck?

THROUGH THE PROCESS OF ONGOING ELIMINATION...?

Over the past week, I've been trying to get some ideas on what to translate The Starchild into in terms of a script format.

Based on some comments and feedback from a friend and an industry scriptwriter (whose gone off to Ireland to meet the production company interested in his script), I've settled on something new.

Judging on how long scripts are in this day and age, and how much of a headache it is to multi-task so many scenes and so forth, I've taken some inspiration in the script format itself by simply adapting it further from the book through the use of simple chapter headings, and working the script in that new format. (Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and so on.)

I know it's a bit unusual, but it works for me.

In terms of what the script will be turned into, I can forget about the movie and episode idea that I had been playing around in as of late and go for a multiple feature instead--using what I had already completed as a connective medium--and see what happens.

GUESS WE ALL HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE...

In all cases, starting something new and untried requires that we all have to jump in and get our feet wet without thinking too much about the consequences we'll all face at a latter date.

In this instance, I started about 2 weeks ago--when the month of August was still young, and the idea of starting a script based on one monster of a novel--was still fresh in my mind.

Naturally, I had no idea on how restart what began 4 years ago as an experiment, but I didn't care at the time.

I wanted to see what I could do.

And since the Starchild was completed for the most part, I didn't have much to lose by not trying.

Of course, people are still telling me that I should attend some graduated writer's school for scriptwriters, or some posh class with a famous live or dead guy's name attached to it (which they claim will launch my career as a scriptwriter and I'll forever be a household name and all that exciting bullshit), or read sanitized industry how-to guides which have no interest to me--since I've been writing close to 20 years now--and know more about the intricacies of writing than most newbies and "acclaimed" published authors do these days.  (It's sad sometimes, listening and watching these people spew their trademark dialogue on TV or on a video and listen to how amateurish it all sounds. Maybe it's because I've been around the block more than once to realize that when it comes to writing and scriptwriting, it isn't the money or name which will eventually sell either that book or that script, but how well the story is told and what absolute wonders it contains.

For the most part, I've seen the results of such poor scriptwriting and storytelling these days, to see what happens to either the movie produced by such, or the author who just didn't give a shit about his work--that y'know...nothing mattered. No care in the world on whether or not s/he succeeded. Just so long as the book got published. It doesn't create a sense of accomplishment when even the most celebrated writers of our time simply don't care about what they write or produce. After all...writers like me are a dime a dozen, right?)

I have no time to play student to a bunch of weirdos telling me how to write effectively or explain to me that if I don't write it precisely, I'll fail before I even have a chance to shine.

You know what I say to that? Screw it. I have my methods of writing and success. You have yours. Does it matter if our methods don't coincide?

No.

So I start something new. A script which is only 31 pages long. But it is a journey which will most likely take years to complete.

Does it matter?

No.