2005

Happy New Year, Internets.

I’m excited to put 2005 behind us; a year of tsunami’s, hurricanes, torture scandals, intelligence scandals, record oil prices, terrible blockbusters, the maddening national conversation on “intelligent (sic) design: and of course, the pregnancy of Katie Holmes. Not really a banner year for humanity, but perhaps our collective disappointment with our current state of affairs will inspire us to do something about it. Either that or maybe we’ll all learn to stop worrying and learn to love our new fascist overlords.

Every year, I come up with a list of New Year’s resolutions and I’m sharing then with you now*. They aren’t really the usual “get really buff” or “stop smoking entirely” kind of resolutions (though I’d like to do both of those things this year), but really a plan for what I want to accomplish this year. I never actually complete all these things and many of them change en route to completion, but by sharing them with the world, I am that much more obligated to put in the effort, because you’ll all get to call me on it if I don’t.

Enough chatting, here goes:

• #1 Priority (Do this before all others): New Spec Scripts
  2 TV Scripts
  2 Screenplays
  Push yourself. Not masterpieces of the human condition, just dramatically engaging and commercially viable.

  TV Scripts: One drama, one comedy. Drama: Commander-In-Chief, Comedy: ?? Earl? How I Met Your Mother? Suggestions?

  Screenplays
  - Horror/ Suspense Movie- low budget, just go for a pure plot Hitchcockian kind of thing. Just to prove you can actually do it. Orpheus horror story set in the Valley?
  - The Canyon Script. ( It’s a coming-of-age tale set in the modern West)

• Save up enough money for an iMac. It’s ridiculous that you always have to go edit on someone else’s machine and keeps you from doing more projects/ getting more freelance editing work. No spending until iMac. No going out, No iTunes music (sorry Apple!), No three dollar pomegranate juice.
• Re-cut Highway Pilgrim ( a religious roadside attraction documentary I shot two (!) years ago) for video podcast as a series of ten minute episodes. Write outline of new HP. Write script.
• Get people to commit their short films, videos, etc.. to be part of video podcast channel that you will produce. Consider how to market this. Find people who are interested in making ultra-low-budget shorts and series.
• Hugger (my NaNoWriMo novel, not completed). Just keep at it.
• Start writing more “showpiece” articles that I can use to entice larger magazines to give me a shot. Fewer phoners, more action.
• Little Nemo in Slumberland project. Dust off. Figure out what the next step is.
• Actively seek representation. You can’t be the guy negotiating your own contracts, because face it: you have no idea what you are doing.
• Direct another music video.
• Keep up blog. Make it focused on screenwriting and make it practically useful to other screenwriters. That means less self-absorption and more script analysis, talking about career options, etc… Be transparent and honest on blog. Put this To-Do list up on it.

  *See. I’ve already started.

• June: Canyon trip w/ Jake.
• Find p/t editing job or whatever to supplement paltry freelance journalism income.
• Plan out a “writer’s reeducation camp” for yourself. You’re getting lazy with usage at the same time you are trying to get more experimental: a recipe for disaster. Reread Simple & Direct, read Poetics, read Three Uses of the Knife (actually, screw that- you’ve read that thing five bazillion times and all you’ve learned is that David Mamet is awfully fucking snooty about structure),scripts, some Dostoevsky. More fiction.
• Practice the guitar 3x/week.
• Go over the Greek play again- See if you can get into it. Stop worrying about the historicity, themes and “Classical Greekness” of the play and instead find a compelling story of real people you can get into.
• Finally, and most importantly, this year needs to be about articulating a more honest voice. You know you have a tendency to adopt an “authorial tone” and you also know that this might inspire admiration, but rarely excitement or engagement on the part of your audience. Part of this is style- you just write really long sentences, but most of it is a tendency to intellectualize your feelings and then resolve them. The most interesting human feelings are the ones that do not resolve easily, that that are held up through the tension of contradiction, that are borne, not solved. Go after that.

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