5 is the New 0

I have to say, I'm pretty happy with myself. After going from staring at a blank page for an hour last night to 5 pages of script today, I think I can say that I have officially began the latest draft and version of Smitten.

I don't write a lot of fiction so it's not something that comes very easily to me yet. If you asked me to come up with 20 questions for an interview with someone at random, I could probably do that in a pinch. If you wanted them to be particular or in-depth, that would take me an hour and access to a computer. But fiction remains a strange animal to me. Something I have to really work at to make it come alive.

So I was a little surprised when my opening (which I had worked out the night before) went from a fairly straightforward narration to something a little less obvious but closer to the overall theme and concept of the story. While I still haven't decided if it's the way I'm going to go with it in the end, it's still a departure from what I had already established, and it was an unexpected one that happened through almost no outward effort of my own. It's a neat feeling to have whatever instinct is in control of that impulse take over and an encouraging one, as well.

Now, if you're a writer and you're reading this, you're probably thinking that I'm like a kid who's just discovered that flicking the light switch up and down makes the bright light come and go away, but I'm still fairly new to this experience so, nyah!

I've always been told and always believed that the key to getting it right is to just write no matter what. Even if it's complete and total crap, you at least have something to work with if you write something down. If nothing else, it becomes a template of what not to do. And sometimes, you hit the nail on the head and discover new and interesting ways to portray a scene or a line of dialogue that you may not have thought of otherwise. But you have to write or absolutely nothing will get done. So write I will, and odds are, I will be posting updates here about the progress I'm making as well as any and all frustrations I may be going through as a result.

I have to hit the sack, now. I work in about 6 hours and my eyes are kind of dry and groggy.

Later!

mike