Zombie script is like good porn

When I was on the plane to LA two days ago I sat next to another screenwriter / director. I mentioned that I had the black list scripts on a disk and he asked to get them from me. The disk also had copies of several produced scripts and a folder with every single script I've written in the past three years on it.

I knew I was getting a laptop for Christmas so I put all my scripts on the disk to transfer to my new computer, see.

So when he went to transfer all the blacklist scripts he also slid my script file over onto his computer. I quickly told him he didn't want all that - it was my work.

"Oh I see," he said with a smile. "You heard I was a director and you 'accidentally' gave me your scripts."

Oh dear God no. Most of the stuff on there should never see the light of day in its current form. It's like somebody stumbling on your porn stash. Some of it's high class material, some of it's obese geriatric women with facial hair.

My bad scripts all tend to have the same problem and I've written about it before. I like to write action but I'm not a Navy Seal so I tend to write situations I have absolutely not experience in.

Ever since I started kickboxing that's gotten better because I now know how fight scenes work, but I still have difficulty with some of the more complex plot elements.

Inevitably there comes a moment in each script where I have to carefully stage a series of events that I'm unsure about, and that ends in one of two ways: I either stop writing under the misguided assumption that I will get back to it as soon as I figure it out, or I bullshit the events and hope nobody notices.

For instance, I wrote a script years ago where some characters spend a night walking from Downtown to Hollywood. I got a little mixed up trying to figure out the route they would take and what kind of things would happen along the way, but instead of getting my lazy ass in my car and driving the route I used the Thomas Guide to make some crap up.

And so I end up with plump old ladies.

For the past month that's where I've been on this zombie project for which I still have no title. The progress bar has gone nowhere because I stopped writing to figure out how to get past a big set piece I have never seen and know very little about. And even after I met with Ex-Boyfriend who knows a few things and talked to a few people and did lots of research on the internets, I still wasn't completely sure about it. I found reasons not to work on the script because I wasn't sure I could get over the hurdle. I had psychological impotence.

Then yesterday I said to myself "Self!" I said, "You know this. Now write the damn thing."

And I sat down and closed my eyes and imagined the scene and started typing. And I got through the scene. And it's believable. And it's a hot chick with big boobies banging a studly man with sixpack abs.

I fear I have lost my more wholesome readership with this metaphor. I also think I'll be getting some weird Google searches for a while. Whatever. This is my metaphor and I'm sticking with it.

So now the hard part is over. The next part is the big final climactic battle, where my biggest decision is how I'm going to use the flamethrower to blow stuff up. I've been carrying that flamethrower around for months waiting to use it.

So I have a lot of crappy scripts in my collection but I don't think Zombies will be one of them.

And thanks to some help from a member over at Fark.com, I now have a title for the script: Not Dead Yet.

I guess tomorrow I have to do some kind of obligatory year-end post.