Tag: Burn Hollywood Burn

I Have Some Crazy-Good Screenplay Concepts Rolling Around In My Mind

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ugh. I’m old. And I’m about 30 years too late when it comes to what I’m suddenly interested in doing — getting into screenwriting. And, yet, being old — and delusional — is rather freeing. I’m old enough that I’m quite aware of how delusional I’m being to begin the process of learning how to write screenplays.

And, of course, there are the other obvious obstacles of my background and where I live. But, like I said, I’m really delusional and it would be nice to have three solid screenplays finished if I ever find myself with a little extra scratch so I can physically go to LA and see what fate might bring me.

But, like I said — I’m delusional. Very, very delusional.

And, yet, sometimes these screenplay ideas I have rolling around in my mind can be very, very potent. They jump out of the depths of my mind and demand to be told.

The reason why I like screenwriting as opposed to novel writing — at least when it comes to these stories — is all I have to do is know the proper structure and formatting. I can just tell some prospective director what should be on the screen and it’s up to them to make it a reality.

Novel writing, meanwhile, requires I actually show the reader in their minds what is going on. This is very stressful and and wear one out if you spend all your time thinking about storytelling — which, of course, I happen to do these days.

Anyway. This, just like the novel I’m working on — is a long term project. I continue to just drift, in fits and starts, towards some general goal. I need to be a lot more clear with myself that I have a very, very window of opportunity to knock something, anything out that I can point to and say, “Look, I’m not all talk and blog posts.”

I’m Using ‘The Enteral Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ As My Screenwriting ‘Textbook’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I continue to drift towards my goal of finishing a novel so I can query it in the fall of 2024 — just as the so-called “Fourth Turning” is going to happen. Ugh. Anyway, I also want to have a fall back “second creative track.” As such, I’ve decided that screenwriting is going to be it.

Just as I have used Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played With Fire” as my “textbook” for the novel I’m writing, so, too, do I plan to use Charlie Kaufman’s “The Enteral Sunshine of The Spotless Mind” as my “textbook” for screenwriting. I think I’m probably going to do something similar with the Star Wars screenplay at some point soon.

I need to understand how to properly read a screenplay. I’ve already found bouncing back and forth between novel writing and screenwriting has helped my writing a lot. Something about thinking about how to structure a screenplay aids in helping me see things in a different way with the novel.

Anyway, something about the fall / winter season coming (along with a lot of more darkness) has caused me to feel a little unnerved. I’m still faraway, so close with the novel. It’s fun to just totally switch gears on a creative level and read about something completely different and new, while staying within the general writing skillset.

I hate the fact that I don’t have enough structure in my life. I have a rather idyllic situation going on at the moment and I spend way too much of my time just daydreaming and drifting towards my goal.

What’s more, I know damn well that this unusual — a great — situation that I find myself in can last for only so long. Something is going to throw everything out of whack soon enough and I’ll be smarting that I didn’t squeeze out every once of creativity I could when I had the opportunity.

I wonder what it will be. Maybe it will be The Fourth Turning, maybe it will be having to go underground when weaponized ICE agents start to hunt me down for thinking ding-dong Tyrant Trump is a fucking cocksucker.

My First Novel Is Growing Significantly Better

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Another day, another few thousand words written on the very beginning of the third draft of my first novel. I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels for months and months and months to the point that I’m growing rather alarmed. I’m so alarmed that I definitely feel in put-up-or-shut up mode.

My dream title for my first novel.

Having said all that, I’m beginning to feel more confident that I may — may — be just about to zoom through the story because I’ve finally established re-imagined relationships between the major characters. I’ve fleshed out some characters that were just meant to be minor characters. I’ve also leaned into the duality of my heroine’s professional life.

Which, I think, makes it a far more interesting read, even if for marketing purposes all anyone will want to talk about is how my heroine owns a strip club. But, I go where the muse takes me and that’s where I want to go. I’m willing to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, if need be.

One key reform I think I’m going to do with this latest version of the third draft is I’m not going to be so quick to re-read what I’ve written. While doing that has really helped make the story a lot better, it has also led to significant drift in the story simply because I keep seeing ways to make the story better.

There is a reason why they say all novels are “abandoned” rather than “finished.”

The story is never going to be “perfect,” it just has to be “done” and “good enough” that I can query it to a literary agent without being embarrassed at how bad it is.

The whole issue of querying is beginning to loom large in my mind. It’s very much uncharted territory. I really need to finish this third draft no later than, say, about March. That will give me time to figure out how to properly query and to find “comp” books, etc, etc.

It will be a whole new era in this project.

Having said that, I continue to be interested in learning about screenwriting. I have even gone so far as to print out the screenplay of “The Enteral Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” to use as my “textbook.” I probably will do the same thing soon with Star Wars.

I have a number of REALLY GOOD screenplay concepts rolling around in my mind. But, just as with the novel, I apparently seem determined to just drift towards my goal without any structure.

All this as I worry that just as I’m trying to query my first novel in late 2024, the whole world will implode / explode and I’ll be kicking myself for not learning how to use Ham Radio.

Some Thoughts About Screenwriting

I Continue To Bootstrap My Second Creative Track Of Learning To Write Hollywood Screenplays

By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve decided to chill out until November 1st when it comes to the novel. I’ve been running hot and I don’t want to burn out and grow discouraged. As such, I’m going to (hopefully) spend the next 48 hours bootstrapping myself with screenwriting.

I have learned a lot about how to start a major creative project through all the hard work I’ve put into this novel, so I have a sense of what works well with my personality. I do think I’m going to probably pick something like The Enternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as my “textbook” and really read it and study it to get a sense of how a master does it.

But I (hope) to read a lot of other screenplays as well — especially Star Wars.

A lot is going on all at once when it comes to my nascent efforts to figure out how to write a screenplay. I pretty much have an entire plot nailed down when it comes to a screenplay based on the real-life events that took place when I went to Lonely Beach in Thailand some time ago.

But, remember, I’ve talked a good game about this sort of stuff in the past, only for me to lose interest and for me to focus all my attention on writing a novel. So, lulz, who knows.

Imagining The Reality Of Our ‘Her’ Movie Future

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here are some basic existing things that I’m using to game out the ultimate demise of the “passive Web” by, say, the end of the decade. (Excluding a pause to get the outcome of The Fourth Turning sorted out, of course.)

The first is the growing power and popularity of Large Language Models. Another is the growing power of computing hardware in general. Another is the fact that there is some techno-cultural determinism in LLMs solving some pretty basic problems with the Web as we know it. And last would be improving XR technology.

Ok, with all that in mind, it’s pretty easy to imagine that we literally could live in a Her movie-like future pretty soon. Everyone will wear a earpiece that allows them to have real-time conversations with a LLM digital assistant. The LLM’s dataset will be the entirety of the Web. The LLM will be finely tuned to your specific personality to the point that all of today’s bitching and moaning by conservatives about chatbot “bias” will seem quaint and silly.

Instead of searching Google, we will have casual, personal conversations throughout the day about whatever it is we need to know. Websites will no longer exist — or will no longer get the (human) traffic that they get today. And here is where XR technology fits in.

Instead of the passive use of a “browser” to read a New York Times article, you will actively be presented the contents you’re interested in by your LLM — probably displayed as a multimedia AR experience at your demand. The connection between AI and XR is not as obvious as maybe it should be. It seems to me that the two will feed on each other so that both are trillion dollar industries by 2030. (Again, baring the United States collapsing into civil war / revolution because of fucking ding-dong Trump.)

The thing about it is, all of this could happen really, really fast. Within just a few months, content on the Web could collapse into a Singularity with little or no direct human interaction with it. An entire genre of media will no longer be relevant at all.

Even all the microblogging services that have popped up might no longer needed because the real-time news element of the services will be replaced with you having a really interesting, personal conversation with your digital personal assistant.

Or, at the very least, what you might previously get via Twitter or Bluesky, you will see via a XR display that you wear most of the time.

Besides the obvious historical and political obstacles to this happening, there might be some human resistance to what seems to make total sense today. As such, maybe it’s not 2030 that no one reads The New York Times website anymore, but, say, 2033 or later.

But it’s coming. I just don’t see how the Web continues to exist in its present form.

Thinking Of Screenplays To Study

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I think I’m going to print out a chunks of the screenplays for Star Wars and The Enteral Sunshine of The Spotless Mind to use as a my screenwriting “texbooks” pretty soon.

I have some other screenplays that I can study, but those two screenplays seem to be represent the sweetspots of what I want to do with any “screenwriting career” I may have.

But, remember, I’m an old, poor coot in the middle of nowhere. I’m really going to need some Hollywood magic to cause this to be anything more than just one of my usual daydreams that go nowhere. (Though, to be fair, my dream of being a novelist is progressing quite well.)

Why I Need A Second Creative Track

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have really been spinning my wheels the last few weeks with the very first few chapters of the third draft of my first novel. I’m afraid I’m feeling a bit burn out. There is a very arbitrary structure in my mind about how the story progress and because I just can’t get it where it needs to be, I keep reading then revising the novel’s first three chapters over and over and over again.

As such, I think I need to give myself something different to piviot to creatively whenever I feel this way. At the moment, it seems like it’s going to be delving into the icy waters of screenwriting.

But this will happen in the context of my main goal still being finishing a mystery-thriller that is an homage to Stieg Larsson’s original Millennium series. My novel is so different that pretty much only I would notice any similarities.

Most of what is similar to Stieg Larsson’s work is structural in nature or the result of “form follows function.”

I will freely admit that my novel just isn’t as good as the novel I’m using as my “textbook” — The Girl That Played With Fire. That novel has a lot of heart. But that is, in general, what I want people to think of on an instinctual basis when they read my novel.

If they are fans of The Girl Who Played With Fire, they will feel like they’re putting on an old brown shoe. It will feel very cumfy and familiar, even if my novel is totally, completely, it’s own thing when it comes to subject matter.

That’s my goal, at least.

But I’ve studied Larsson’s stuff so much and have come to see some of his editorial decisions on a macrobasis as “the right way,” even though there is no such thing, I keep revising and revising and revising.

This is wearing me out. So, rather risk total burn out, I want to be able to pivot to screenwriting as necessary now and again.

It will be interesting to how long this plan lasts.

Video: Mulling Using Screenwriting As My Backup Creative Track

The Old Kook Tax & Psyching Myself Up To Start A Screenplay

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I continue to spin my creative wheels with the first act of the third draft of my first novel, I find myself pondering yet again a second creative track: a screenplay.

I already have the infrastructure to do so — I have Final Draft. But the thing that stopped me from plunging into screenwriting remain: there is a sharp learning curve when it comes to writing a screenplay. So much so, that I honestly feel like just redoubling my efforts with my main creative track of a novel.

And, yet, I’m not getting any younger and I’ve progressed far enough with the novel that I think maybe it would be fun to piviot to writing a screenplay whenever I feel overwhelmed with the main creative track of the novel. I think, in general, what’s going on is I’m ready to expand my creative horizons beyond just one novel that I keep tinkering with.

I’m very much in a put up or shut up moment. I have GOT to finish something. But there are a lot of problems with a second creative track being screenwriting.

I’m Too Old
I’m just too old. At 50, I’m so old that I fear that any hope of being a screenwriter is kind of an even bigger delusion than being a novelist. But, lulz, it would be fund to just tinker around with screenwriting despite my decrepit age.
I’m a Kook
This is a problem because I have no friends and no one likes me. If I was “normal,” I could maybe find a creative collaborator who could help me develop a screenplay.
I Live In The Wrong Place
I really live in the wrong place. I live in BFE Virginia. But, lulz, it would be fun to have a few screenplays done so if I ever happen to find myself in Hollywood I might be able to pitch them.

The upsides to screenwriting some on the side as I progress with writing a novel is that I could flex a different creative muscle or two in my mind. I have a few really great scifi concepts in my mind that would be fun to explore. I think what I’m going to have to do is do treatments for these screenplay concepts before I sit down to actually write anything.

The temptation will be, of course, to simply use those treatments for novels, rather than screenplays. But, lulz, as long as I’m being creative, I guess that’s all that matters, right?