The Grand Productive Years*

Wrote a screen-play from scratch in four days. I say "from scratch" (I've said it twice now) but it is actually a variant on something I've already written, although that was in a different medium and this has a completely different ending, a different villain and the characters are different too. I think its quite good. Foolishly I continue to think things are quite good.

I would prefer to. For money.

I enjoyed it. It was peculiar as I had already been asked to write a treatment for it so I actually had to work out the story ahead of time, meaning I knew how it was going to end and the various things that needed to be in place in order for the plot to set up and pay off effectively. When I was filling in the dialogue it felt like cheating, it was almost perfunctory. This is not the way I normally write but I think it is far closer to the way that other people write. I can see why. There's a safety net right there - you don't need to worry about running out of steam, you know where you're going and its easy to get there. Equally, there's no real opportunity to flip out with a dazzling hand-brake turn and introduce a series of mad, difficult or arbitrary ideas, which is what I usually like to do.

Nevertheless it was oddly satisfying. And its nice to know that I can do it if necessary.

I've not had a drink for a week. I've had a cold. Its rained pretty much all day every day and I have no money. It has been a perfect storm for getting work done. And so I have.

Tomorrow its back to the begging letters. 


*It's from Barton Fink. It's all from Barton Fink.