I had this great idea yesterday that I would go to the beach for inspiration.  I hadn’t written anything of any consequence in several days, so I thought maybe the sound of the pounding surf might beat it out of me.  It didn’t.

Generally, I come up with ideas easily. But… I have a project (several) I want to totally rework based on, well they need it.

I went to a writer’s (artist’s) retreat, put on by the Greenhouse group, a non profit organization that helps newbies get started and become familiar with the Hollywood scene. It was absolutely phenomenal and so worth it. It’s focus was on incorporating our own personal story in our work, this is what gives our work it’s own unique flavor, unique to us. I liked that.

I left there completely inspired, ideas and juices were flowing like a fountain but I was driving on the San Diego freeway and couldn’t jot them down!!!!

Then instead of making a beeline for home, taking advantage of all this inspiration, I thought since Russ wouldn’t be home for awhile I’d go see a movie I’d been wanting to see before it went out of the theater’s.

Big mistake! I left there totally dried up, like what was I thinking?!!

I may have mentioned this before but there is a movie that got made that was similar in nature to one I’ve had “in the works” now for a few years.

I got positive feedback from the Austin Film Festival with suggestions on how to improve on it.  Well, that’s what I’ve been doing. Why this particular film seems to be stagnating, I just don’t know but it has.

Maybe I should just let it go and move on.

My original script was 40 pages long and everyone that read it loved it. But, here’s the but that bogged me down. Everyone that read it thought it should be a feature film, which meant extending it by an additional 50 pages…at least.

Okay, so how do I do that and not lose the momentum I had?

My first effort was 120 pages long. Oh boy was it heavy.  So much shit in it that the story got lost.  So, I went at it again, and again, and again and so on.

One reader (script doc) said,  I had a comedic moment that he thought was inappropriate since it was a drama (ala Taken). That made sense, so I took it out.  (He did however complement me on my natural sense of timing for comedy)

Another source says I have the possibility of some strong women parts which are sought after but they were underdeveloped. I needed to give them more. Okay, that made sense too since that’s the reason I created them in the first place.

Then there is the angst between my protagonist and her father which needs strengthening as well, I had it originally but dropped some of that in the rewrite because it didn’t read like I wanted it to.

So, here I am at the beach looking for inspiration.

I sat and sat. I wrote a few things in my book, but nothing that wowed me. All these stories that were flowing from me on the way home sputtered.

I had at least 4 stories bouncing around in my head and the passion with which they were coming? Gone.

At least I remembered the idea, so I settle for writing the basic idea for each down in hopes that someday the story will come. Sigh.

Note to self:  Say “NO!” No detours and in the future, pull over and just jot it down. So what if you’re a few minutes late? There’s always the phone.