Spinning

So I knew which script I was going to write next.

And I even found old notes on the idea that pretty well mapped out the plot -- and it's good. I mean, all twisty and turny and fairly solid.

And I bought Blake Snyder's Save the Cat and decided that for this experiment I was going to work my way through it, in order, doing exactly what he said. Because you see, I've never plotted/planned a screenplay out in advance before. Not to the degree he recommends. I plotted out novels when I was selling them off proposal, but that was not only different, it also left all sorts of room for frolicking away from the outline and into foreign territory, and that's not good for what I'm doing now.

And I wrote a logline (hate hate hate doing that) sort of, meaning, I kind of wrote one but am not sure if I love it. And I kept working my way through the book, and was close to beginning writing -- and I got excited when I saw nic's "script status bar" and got the html from her and posted my own with the title (Ash Wednesday -- do you like that at all as a thriller title?) and was all ready to go when --

A voice of authority (or rather, a manager) said of the logline, "Eh, sounds too psycho-sexual."

Like that's a bad thing? Heh.

And that's going on the assumption that the logline isn't misleading.

But that's okay -- I figure okay let's not waste time writing a script for which there might not be a market so I pulled the title off and left the status bar over there waiting for a new title, a new project, and now it's nagging me, haunting me, saying, "I"M still sitting on 0% and not only do you not have a title or a logline, you don't even have an IDEA."

I haven't decided whether that status bar is a good thing or a bad thing.

Okay, so I have ideas, I always have ideas, but I don't have THE idea. (And this reminds me of why I have so much down time between projects, because I can never make up my mind what to write next because I want it to be THE idea, THE script, and nothing measures up, and I spin my wheels and spin and spin and spin....

So. I've decided that if I don't have an idea I am absolutely in love with by January 15, I will write the thriller. I'll give myself three months to do it. And maybe during that three months I'll come up with another idea for when I'm finished. Because a project with a title, a logline and especially an outline is a terrible thing to waste.

Unless I fall in love with another idea before January 15.