Thursday, December 27, 2007
On Writing and Wondering and Waiting for a Good Idea
A writing instructor of mine once said that writing is, or rather successful writing is 10% talent and 90% luck. He said ideas are a dime a dozen its the execution that is what makes a good script. He said a lot of things. He also said that he and his writing partner had been writing for over twenty years and only had one thing optioned. That was over 10 years ago, and I still have never seen his name on the screen. I bring this up because well I have a dollar sitting here on my desk and well that should buy me like what over 100 ideas right? LOL My senses have been inundated with story lines and plot lines and images both good and bad from all visual mediums it is sometimes difficult to know if an idea is original or not. Then again Ecclesiastes says that there is nothing new under the sun, so perhaps I can rework some existing ideas.
Which is what I have been spending some time doing on my break this Holiday season. I am pulling up abandoned ideas and unfinished projects trying to find something to spark my imagination and to write again. There's an old saying that stories are never finished, only abandoned. I have abandoned many projects, finished about twice as many as that, and have infinite partial ideas with no feasible way to breathe life into them. Another saying is that writing is like giving birth. I know I am not barren because I do feel some kicking. :o)
Film critic Roger Ebert said something to the extent of, "so what if it has been done before, as long as its done well." I am inclined to follow that philosophy. The script I wrote for my MFA thesis had a pretty formulaic plot, but it worked. I tinkered with it and it fell apart. I should have stuck to my dramatic vision of the script and left it alone. It is now as it was intended, and decided, after much debate, to try to convert it into a novel. Hey I guess thats an idea right. Still have that dollar...any other ideas for me?
Which is what I have been spending some time doing on my break this Holiday season. I am pulling up abandoned ideas and unfinished projects trying to find something to spark my imagination and to write again. There's an old saying that stories are never finished, only abandoned. I have abandoned many projects, finished about twice as many as that, and have infinite partial ideas with no feasible way to breathe life into them. Another saying is that writing is like giving birth. I know I am not barren because I do feel some kicking. :o)
Film critic Roger Ebert said something to the extent of, "so what if it has been done before, as long as its done well." I am inclined to follow that philosophy. The script I wrote for my MFA thesis had a pretty formulaic plot, but it worked. I tinkered with it and it fell apart. I should have stuck to my dramatic vision of the script and left it alone. It is now as it was intended, and decided, after much debate, to try to convert it into a novel. Hey I guess thats an idea right. Still have that dollar...any other ideas for me?
