Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Unfinished Sympathy

I have parts of five scripts done. Two are comedic, three are dramatic. The three dramatic pieces have been separate stories, but they've also been combined into alternate variations, with one turning the three stories into some kind of Robert Altman movie that goes on for three-plus hours and introduces 125 characters.

In case you haven't guessed, the key word above is "parts". Ideas have never been a problem for me. I can toss ideas around with the best of them. One of those random ideas turned into Frank Belmondo, which, let's face it, if you haven't read all of that, you're missing out on something so amazing, it caused more than one of my friends to say, "What?" I think if there is a Funny or Die producer out there that wants to take a shot on a web series about a former child modern dance prodigy with an old man's voice who turned into a has-been actor, I am willing to talk (don't steal, it's already registered). It's the closest thing that I've come to a fully-realized idea, and even that could be longer, tighter, better.

I keep coming close, but every time I get near the home stretch, my need to edit (and re-edit and re-edit), comes out, and I find myself reformatting it. Maybe it was due to rejection from script readers in my youth (oh, I am bitter of them). Maybe I am afraid of what might happen if I get something exactly where I want it to be and it's not enough. Maybe I just have ADD. Maybe I'm just a lazy shit. I'm sure it's a combo of all of the above.

I like to think that I can write. I like to think that I should be writing. Maybe I need to have a Misery moment, but maybe a happy version where someone more attractive than Kathy Bates (no offense) nurses me to (mental) health and turns me into a prolific writer. Hey, maybe that's a sixth story...