Reasons to not write...

Now that the new year has started almost officially, although most of the industry is still in holiday mode... I face the inevitable. 

I have to begin rewriting Casualties of Love. 

Which means so far this week I have done the  following;
Returned from the frozen north.
Replenished the fridge.
Did laundry.
Did lunch with a producer friend.
Set up meetings and lunch for next week.
Sent a script to a producer in Canada who might be interested.
Asked for the 5th time for the Christmas movie producer to send me a dvd of the completed film.

Have you noticed something? 
I haven't started the rewrite.

 I passed by the script with notes from the cast reading in December and considered picking it up. But just for a second, as I also had to vacuum the place. And I had a dental appointment with the hygienist who liked my movie and had to tell me again how much she liked it.

Anyone who said it gets easier with age and experience doesn't know what they're talking about. As I've said before, it gets harder. Harder because there's pressure on me to do better than I've ever done before. And that means exceeding what I have accomplished over a lifetime of writing.

And that's not easy. The irony is that the pressure comes not from a producer, but from me.

So I make excuses, I go for lunch with someone or just myself, I read magazines and newspapers. I recently bought an 8 mm film viewer and editor so I can edit 40 year old Kodachrome 8mm films so that they can be scanned into digital files. I also am editing a short documentary on Highway 50, called "the loneliest highway in America". Well, editing over  a period of 4 years. But this year I will finish it. Promise.

The link is:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J04BzRgm29o). Or you can find the link in the Materials section on the left side. Look for Lonely Highway 50.

Oh, yeah, back to writing. See how easy it is to get off track. In fact I can make more imaginative ideas not to write, than some of my screenplays.

I got two emails from two of the actors in the script reading also. This means they're serious about my screenplay and also encourages me to write.

But it's a sunny day in LA, and the temperature is gonna be close to 70F. And I have a lunch with Ira, and I'm doing this blog.

But I think that Casualties script seems to be doing a Vulcan mind-meld on my brain. Write, write, write...

But wait, that lunch isn't wasted, actually I can drop by Eddie Brandt's, the ultimate video store ever, so I can pick up two Christmas movies from 30 years ago to watch for the screenplay The Christmas Train, that I am thinking of writing. Well, more than thinking... sort of.

Just have to get that damn Casualties of Love script out of the way.


So now in front of all of you, I am giving myself the challenge of at least getting halfway through the Casualties reading video and rewrite. 


But right now I have some online shopping to do.


(Mon: Progress)