Whew.

A few weeks ago the Boston Celtics season came to an end.  They had too many injuries to go any farther.  It kinda sucked to watch a team give everything it had and come up short just because a few guys had injuries.  But that's sports. 

Now that the season is over the big question (for me, at least) was, what will Kevin Garnett do?  He's an unrestricted free agent who has openly talked of retirement and falling just short of the NBA Finals had to leave a bad taste in his mouth.

Well, today the 6'11" hypercompetitive, trash talking instigator of a power forward gave us his answer and it is that he will play for another three years.  For the Celtics.  Be still my beating heart.  Seriously, I have been Cheshire Cat smiling since I read the news. 

Sometimes I hate how sports take up so much of my time and often crush me for days when my teams lose or suffer some setback.  But on the flipside of that, I love when they uplift me, entertain me, and give me something to cheer about.  Not everybody sees it that way, but I do. 

So welcome back KG.  Glad you never went away.

Why I failed at Script Frenzy :(

Back in March I wrote about how I was so very psyched for Script Frenzy, NaNoWriMo's offshoot program, and then I went and sucked very badly at it.  Here's why:

Simply put, I don't write for speed, the premise that these programs are built upon.

I spent about two months planning and outlining my script so that on April first I would be ready to unleash my brilliant story upon the world in a mere thirty days, but it didn't happen because I can't work in a sheer volume capacity like I would need to to finish my script in a month. 

I tried though, and I have the crappy pages to show for it.  I wrote nineteen pages in six days and I hated almost every word of it.

As I wrote, knowing I needed to fill the page count quickly, I did something that I don't normally do, I wrote from the gut and the gut only.  I started off by following my outline, but I quickly discarded it because the structure was slowing me down.  So I started to improvise and I was getting my page quota accomplished but my story was going off the rails in a bad, bad way.  Pretty soon what I had was unrecognizable and nearly worthless. 

Once I realized that the wheels had come off of the process, I stopped writing for speed and tried to rewrite what I had.  It was so far from the outline that I was ultimately wasting my time. 

Finally, as the end of April neared, I scrapped the mess that I had and started over.  I have, in the two months since, written the same 20-ish pages while following the outline and it is much better (opinion) while still holding to the ideas and structure that I had originally planned (fact). 

So while disappointed that I failed at vomiting out 100 pages in 30 days, I feel that I learned something valuable about myself and my own writing process and ulitmately this is a good thing.

I smell.

So...most days I think I kind of suck. 

How is it that as a grown man, a mostly rational, semi-educated adult, I can lack focus, determination and ambition when it comes to the really important stuff?

How at one moment I am concerned with big issues like responsibility, integrity, honor, equality, about being held accountable, about saying what I do and doing what I say... and then the next instant I'm concerned only with boobs, 'splosions, cartoons and napping.  I struggle sometimes to find balance.

Is this common or am I simply a child grown older?

After getting divorced I went back to school, did alright, had some medical issues, dropped out with the intent of going back the next semester and then never did.  I was thinking about that a few months back and was schocked to realize that that was eight years ago.  EIGHT.  I was stunned into silence.

Cue the depressing introspection.  Listened to the Cure for a few days, was pretty hard on myself, then started to come out of it.

That's when I decided to make some changes. 

I currently have a plan to become a writer who gets paid for writing.  Specifically, I will write screenplays and sell them.  I have told very few people about this plan mostly out of fear.  I don't want to fail and have people ask me how it's going, when I didn't get it done.  But that's stupid.  I'm going to continue to put my plan into action and at the end of it, I'm going to be proud of what I've done. 

I've written two screenplays and I'm working on my third.  My current goal is that I will have the third done by the end of the year, then I will spend three months each revising/editing/rewriting the three scripts, and then I will figure out how to sell them and profit from my efforts.  That's it.  By October 1st, 2013, I will be the proud owner of three finished and excellent screenplays and I will find out how to make a living from them (and future efforts, of course).

But back to my original point...sometimes it's hard to find the drive and focus to acomplish this goal.  The defeatist me wants to watch movies and play video games and believe that these goals are hard and I deserve a break.  The ambitious me wants to kick ass and eventually see something I've written starring Brad Pitt directed by Joss Whedon and Wes Anderson (in a historic team-up) and adored by Quentin Tarantino as I walk the red carpet at Cannes being lauded by French journalists as an erudite champion of film and how did they ever survive without me?  Zombie Gene Siskel will rise from his stuffy, psuedo-elitist grave and he will openly weep at the depths of emotion I have plumbed with the best writing ever.

So please, faithful reader(s?) please bust my chops on this stuff.  Call me, text me, email me and ask me how I'm doing.  Demand proof when I say things are gong well.  I'll happily show you the disastrous first draft, then the rewrites, then the polished diamond that will be my as-yet-unnamed third script.  If I say that I'm having troubles, offer support and kindess pretty please.  Unless of course you want to watch me continue my career of customer service to the unwashed, barely literate philistines that have a way of getting into my (admittedly) small comfort bubble and prob'ly want nothing more to see my dreams crushed under the heels of their remarkably unfashionable boots.

On a related note, I have always been a can't-see-the-forest-for-the-trees kinda guy.  So instead of only working on my script every. Single. Day., I will heartily attempt to write this blog much more frequently just so I'm writing a variety of stuff.  Find some balance, I guess.  I don't want to get stuck in a rut, so to speak.  So check back here often, and again, bust my chops if I'm not getting it done.  Only there will be no busting, because I will accomplish these goals.  It's taken my whole life, but I'm finally at a place where I have a clear vision of what I want to be and what I will be.  It's been a winding road full of pitfalls, false starts, crappy ideas, and bad decisions, but I've come out the other side a better person and I'm ready to make this happen.  So there.

Long Time No Blog or Cleaning Out the Mental Junk Drawer part 359

It's summer and I couldn't be happier.  I've always been a summer-type person.  Screw that winter crap.  The weather in Helena is remarkably similar to the weather in Idaho Falls so I know that I will have warm days and cool nights for the next three to four months.  Me likey.

I'm a sucker for cops and robber fiction, thus John Sandford's books always find their way into my grubby little hands.  His most recent novel Buried Prey is really really good.  This is the 21st Prey novel and it is among the best.  I've read them all, some more than once, some more than that.  It's a quick but intense read that gives a glimpse into the previously unseen past of protagonist Lucas Davenport.  Good stuff.  I hope there are 21 more of these before I die.

Recently got an iPhone 4S and I love it.  I'm a convert.  Well done, Apple, you got me to eschew my usual cranky views about trendy technology and now I don't know how I would live without it.  I am fiercly trying to ignore the fact that my phone bill has more than doubled as a result of owning this awesome product, so lets move on before I remember and get all sad and stuff.

A CD that I bought a few years ago, Rogue Wave's Permalight, is pleasant, easy pop.  I don't think I've ever skipped it when it's on iTunes shuffle.  It's one of the few albums I own that I will listen to straight through and then when it's over I'll start it again. (other albums on this list include the Cure's Disintegration, Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet, Underworld's Dubnobasswithmyheadman, Ray LaMontagne's God Willin' and the Creek Don't Rise, and Neko Case's... well any thing by Miss Case, my lifelong unrequited crush.) But back to Rogue Wave, I'm listening to them right now and it makes me happy.  So there.

Movies I've seen lately:

the Avengers.  Awesome.  Joss Whedon pulled it off.  I had my doubts (like a fool) but this was outstanding.  Forget about it being a comic book movie, this is an excellent movie, period.

Rushmore.  For the bazillionth time.  Still love it more than most things.  This is on my Top 25 Movies of All Time list and will prob'ly never leave.

Safe.  I have always/will always dig Jason Statham.  He doesn't even make me mad that he plays the same character Every. Single. Time.  Nope, don't care.  He's fun to root for and fun to watch.  Also, Safe has one of the best final boss fights ever.  The end. 

Aaaand that's all for today kids.  I'm off to cook Paula Deen's Crockpot Mac and Cheese recipe.  Let the diabetes commence!