It's the second friday of my writing vacation and I am sad to say it will be over in two days. We've decided to leave a day early to give Rachael a chance to go to call-backs for South Pacific which will be playing at Tacoma Musical Playhouse. She feels she has a good chance of getting the lead and we both felt it would be a shame for her not to give it a shot.
Even though vacation will be over in two days, I feel like I'm arriving home with a good writing plan. I've just begun my second act and I've finished outlining the whole script on cue cards. When I get home, I'll be tacking them up to a cork board and trying to write at least five pages a day. Outlining on cards and corkboard is fairly common in screenwriting, since it allows you to see all the beats of the story at a glance and also allows you to move scenes around easily and intuitively.
Writing is a rush when things are flowing and agonizing when the ideas aren't coming. With my story broken down like this into bite-sized pieces, I'm hoping to keep the progress flowing.
God's peace,
Paul
Friday, August 15, 2008
Saturday, August 9, 2008
on a writing vacation
I'm in very sunny Palm Springs right now with my lovely wife, Rachael. So far we've been enjoying swimming, working on a jig saw puzzle, watching movies, and doing other "couple related things."
This is a vacation vacation for Rachael and a working vacation for me. So I've been writing. Each day my story becames a litte bit clearer and a lot more fun to write, as I watch my page count go up and up. I'm some where around 25 pages. It's hard to tell cuz I've got some editting to do and I haven't been writing strictly chronologically. Just 75 or so more pages to go!
What am I writing? It's a screenplay called Spokanistan about the extremely talented Peter Blau (20), a native of Spokane, WA, who's been going no where with his life since his dad died his jr. year of high school. When Peter goes on a boozy bender around the anniversary of his father's death, Peter's mom and her live-in boyfriend have had enough. They tell Peter that he has a month to either get a job or enroll in community college. It's a story about finding direction and growing up. Typically Hollywood story discriptions, also called loglines, are no more than one or two sentences. So, as of now I kinda stink at loglines, because I'm over my two sentence limit and I still have a few more important things to say. Through the unexpected appearance of a musical mentor, a legendary guitarist named Lee Cunningham, Peter finds his direction and ends up shooting for much more than community college. The movie is kind of like Finding Forrester meets That Thing You Do (two of my favorite movies).
I'll update again soon.
God's peace,
Paul
This is a vacation vacation for Rachael and a working vacation for me. So I've been writing. Each day my story becames a litte bit clearer and a lot more fun to write, as I watch my page count go up and up. I'm some where around 25 pages. It's hard to tell cuz I've got some editting to do and I haven't been writing strictly chronologically. Just 75 or so more pages to go!
What am I writing? It's a screenplay called Spokanistan about the extremely talented Peter Blau (20), a native of Spokane, WA, who's been going no where with his life since his dad died his jr. year of high school. When Peter goes on a boozy bender around the anniversary of his father's death, Peter's mom and her live-in boyfriend have had enough. They tell Peter that he has a month to either get a job or enroll in community college. It's a story about finding direction and growing up. Typically Hollywood story discriptions, also called loglines, are no more than one or two sentences. So, as of now I kinda stink at loglines, because I'm over my two sentence limit and I still have a few more important things to say. Through the unexpected appearance of a musical mentor, a legendary guitarist named Lee Cunningham, Peter finds his direction and ends up shooting for much more than community college. The movie is kind of like Finding Forrester meets That Thing You Do (two of my favorite movies).
I'll update again soon.
God's peace,
Paul
Friday, July 25, 2008
Last week in my office
Next week is my last week in the office at Lighthouse Christian Center. I'll mostly be editting a video of the Super Sonic Samaritan Tour for three rad guys--Josh, Jeremy and Caleb--and hanging out with a few students.
Right now I'm in the process of packing up my office...surreal. It's odd making choices about what items to save or throw away. I can never tell what will be meaningful to me 5 or 10 years down the road. Probably all of it would be meaningful in one way or another. Every item has a story. But you can't live your life constantly rummaging through old boxes and stirring up old memories. It's just not practical. Nor is there space in our postage stamp apartment for me to be as sentimental as I want to be. So I'm sorting through things and mourning what can't come with me.
I just dumped half a box of my Lighthouse business cards. It felt weird. Painful even. I've loved the time that I've spent at this church. I've loved the people with whom I've been privileged to work, play and grow. I've loved working with students. Dumping those cards felt a little bit like losing an identity. Who am I without the word "pastor" in front of my name? I'm still Paul, I know that. But I'll be sorting through more than nick nacks, I think, for months to come.
What will I miss the most about the office (could this blog get any more self-indulgent?)? I will miss the relationships. I will miss inflicting spontaneous pain on Adam Roberts when I need a distraction from my work. I will miss Lori Harris' interruptions. I will miss the smell of Paul Moffet's left-overs being nuked. I will miss the happy clattering sound of our folding machine bairly drowning out whatever office hi-jinks are going on behind the thin wall that separates my office from the buzzing workroom. I will miss Pastor Art's abrupt movements, the sound of him rising quickly from his desk, bursting through his door, striding out into into the hall, and singing "You lived, You died..." in his over-the-top Bob Dylan voice. I'm gonna miss the thousand different ways that laughter creeps into our work days.
But there are exciting opportunities on the horizon...namely a story I'm working on about a real life guy named Jacob Riis. I'll tell you more about him later.
God's peace,
Paul
Right now I'm in the process of packing up my office...surreal. It's odd making choices about what items to save or throw away. I can never tell what will be meaningful to me 5 or 10 years down the road. Probably all of it would be meaningful in one way or another. Every item has a story. But you can't live your life constantly rummaging through old boxes and stirring up old memories. It's just not practical. Nor is there space in our postage stamp apartment for me to be as sentimental as I want to be. So I'm sorting through things and mourning what can't come with me.
I just dumped half a box of my Lighthouse business cards. It felt weird. Painful even. I've loved the time that I've spent at this church. I've loved the people with whom I've been privileged to work, play and grow. I've loved working with students. Dumping those cards felt a little bit like losing an identity. Who am I without the word "pastor" in front of my name? I'm still Paul, I know that. But I'll be sorting through more than nick nacks, I think, for months to come.
What will I miss the most about the office (could this blog get any more self-indulgent?)? I will miss the relationships. I will miss inflicting spontaneous pain on Adam Roberts when I need a distraction from my work. I will miss Lori Harris' interruptions. I will miss the smell of Paul Moffet's left-overs being nuked. I will miss the happy clattering sound of our folding machine bairly drowning out whatever office hi-jinks are going on behind the thin wall that separates my office from the buzzing workroom. I will miss Pastor Art's abrupt movements, the sound of him rising quickly from his desk, bursting through his door, striding out into into the hall, and singing "You lived, You died..." in his over-the-top Bob Dylan voice. I'm gonna miss the thousand different ways that laughter creeps into our work days.
But there are exciting opportunities on the horizon...namely a story I'm working on about a real life guy named Jacob Riis. I'll tell you more about him later.
God's peace,
Paul
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