Back in the saddle

I've been a bit of a hypocrite lately.

When Partner and I finished Bamboo Killers I was pretty excited, but wasn't sure what to work on next. I took a week off from writing to relax, then planned to start my Heroes spec. But I could never really finish working out the beats, so I decided to start working on my French biopic. But the research for that is a bit overwhelming, so I was using it as an excuse to do no writing. But the truth is, I wasn't really researching either.

Then I scrapped French biopic when I came up with Zombie story. Zombie story excites me in many ways and is exactly the kind of film I've always wanted to write except I hadn't really anticipated zombies so much as evil henchmen. But either way, here's a story I finally have some major enthusiasm for that won't take years to research, is high concept, and if done right will sell for a zillion dollars.

This is me, the champion of no excuses writing, the nagger of lazy people, the ambitious, busy girl who never turns down an invitation and writes at least a couple of pages a day over lunch time.

Except I didn't. I kept talking about outlining but didn't really get around to outlining at all. And I didn't write anything either.

For a month and a half I haven't written a single page of screenplay. That's unheard of for me.

So today I pulled out my laptop and refused to get up from the computer until I had something on screen. Sometimes just writing a page or two jump starts the rest of the creative process, and I always see my opening scenes very clearly in my head.

So there it is. I wrote two pages. Now I'm not a hypocrite anymore.

Unless I let those two pages sit for another month undeveloped. Then I give everybody permission to berate and beat me over the head.

Watch that progress bar. Don't let me slack off again.