Please Don’t Read This!

I hope you’re not wasting your time reading this, Modern Philosophers, because I really don’t have anything to say.

It’s a quiet night at The House on the Hill, there’s a light rain falling, and I just felt like sitting out on the porch and enjoying the evening.

Of course, my favorite way to spend a rainy night is by writing.  So even if I don’t have anything intelligent to say, I like to open up the laptop and allow my fingers to do that little dance on the keyboard that they do so well.

It occurred to me tonight, as I sat out here listening to the rain, that I now know a great deal about a particular legal area that meant absolutely nothing to me a year ago.  I had a long, detailed conversation today with a coworker, who is also quite knowledgeable in this subject, and realized that my brain has absorbed a lot of information on the topic in such a short period of time.

Life is cool that way.  We’re never quite done learning I guess.

Who knew that I’d care so much about “importing foreign valuables” this late in life?  I guess when something catches your eye, and you decide you absolutely must have it, you do whatever it takes to make sure it ends up where you know it belongs.

Of course, I’ll probably catch hell for that last paragraph, but that’s the fun of writing.  And it was all typed out with love.

After a long hiatus from screenwriting, I now can’t seem to turn off that part of my brain.  I touched base with Matthias last night about progress on Gunther.

Coming up with the financing for a film is definitely not the glamorous side of the movie business, but it is essential.

Matthias’ answers didn’t shake my world to its core, but he assured me progress was being made.  If slow and steady wins the race, Gunther’s journey from screenplay to feature film is going to win a gold medal.

We also talked about some of my other scripts that he’d like to make.  It definitely got my creative juices flowing to know that he sees this as a multi-picture partnership.  There are some screenplays that I’m going to need to dig out, dust off, and put through the rewrite process in the immediate future.  I’ve ignored them for years, but now might finally be the time for these forgotten stories to live up to their potential.

Even more importantly, there’s a new screenplay bubbling over in my brain.  I can’t get it off my mind, and every day, more details fall into place.  What was a vague idea two weeks ago is now shaping up to be my next great thriller.

I can’t even describe how exciting it is to be totally consumed with a screenplay idea.  Entire scenes just play out into my head, as if I were watching them in a movie theater, with absolutely no warning.

I find the script’s characters having long, uninterrupted conversations in my mind, and I feel guilty for eavesdropping on them.  Truth be told, though, their lives are so much more interesting than mine!

Snippets of ideas, which seemed so inconsequential a week ago, blossom into fully formed scenes and then link up with others until almost the entire first act has taken shape inside my brain.

The time is coming, Modern Philosophers, when I’m going to grab the laptop, open Final Draft, and type FADE IN.

Once that happens, I hope to tumble down the rabbit hole of my imagination and not emerge again until a first draft is done.

Please don’t read this post, Modern Philosophers!  It’s just the confused, excited ramblings of a writer who has a screenplay growing inside his head.

Isn’t it awesome?

You should follow me on Pinterest.  I’m usually right about these things…