scottStories

I did it. I completed the first draft of The Collection last Friday with half an hour to spare. What’s more, I’m very satisfied with what I’ve got and today have started polishing from the top. I will be finished the “first rewrite” by this Friday, and beyond finding a way to cut 15-20 of its 140 pages, it should be fairly easy going. As I’ve said before, I’ve been working on this story for the better part of three years and taken it through several different inceptions. To do anything radical at this stage would convince me that I have no intention whatsoever of ever establishing a writing career. No, it’s time to push the birdy out of the nest – by now, it should be able to build it’s own damn nest on the way down.

I’m currently reading Icon, a comprehensive look at the work of Frank Frazetta. It’s helped a lot as I tend to approach my stories much like a painter approaches a painting: holistically, and with a specific palette suited to my vision. In a number of cases, Frazetta was forced by an editor to complete a painting by a specific date, only to go back to it once it was published to rework it more to his liking. That taught me a lot about how I should approach my writing. In every case, when I’ve finished a story it is done. Finito. I have no more use for it and nothing left to say. But that’s because I’ve taken all the time I’ve needed to get to that point. In a sense it’s an exorcism, and when Pizuzu has left town for other lodgings, he’s well and truly gone. I have some very clear purposes behind everything I write, and even though it may take me a while to satisfy them, once I have I feel relieved. Right now is one of those times. There is still some work to do, but more akin to rearranging the furniture than designing the entire room.

That’s not to say I don’t look forward to a day where I am under pressure to produce, and forced into turning over something that may satisfy the whims and purposes of another, or perhaps a team of others. Sometime that’s easier, because the parameters have been set and you can simply play with the limits of what’s available. When the limits are set by the writer, a project can often become unwieldy and lose focus. This story had those stages in its development, but seeing as it was only my inner harsh critic that it had to please, it was perfectly fine if it lay in pages of notes and various drafts humming with potential. However, today, I am happy to report, for all intents and purposes, The Collection exists as a complete draft. Sweet.

But I have learned a valuable lesson. Deadlines must die. They cannot rise again to eat away at your brain, causing you to lock yourself away in a boarded up basement forever. If I may offer a bit of advice, set them and keep to them. Doing so will force you to batten down your plot points and cinch up you characters, distilling a sea of literary opportunity into a wave of essential, narrative power. It will also force you to move forward when it is easier to drift sideways and be thrown off course. Fight until that hour of death is upon you and then take your draft and put a bullet in its brain. Once you’re through, start another, set a new one and do the same.

It’s been said that creative projects are never finished, only abandoned, and I agree to a point. But I still believe there is an essence that can be achieved that says to me that a project has fully matured. In terms of The Collection, I think I’m there. Now…

…BANG.

…when we practice to deceive. I had a teacher once who used to exclaim that anytime someone in class tried to offload a bunch of bullshit. And while writing a story isn’t exactly the same thing, it’s very close. If you’re trying to do too much at the start of the thing – interweave too many plots, take on too much science, work a myth too hard – the outcome is much the same. And right now, gentle people, I’m fucking mired.

You see that velvet Frazetta rip-off to your left? Well, that’s what I feel like right now: a cheese-up of all the right elements with none of the original genius. In fact, I feel like those subhumans summiting the velvety peak are my plot lines and character bits coming back to get me. Now, I could wrap things up by going to the old bag of tricks and plastering them over holes like scraps of duct tape until it all holds together, but frankly I’d rather chew off my own bollocks. It must remain as organic as possible if the tone is going to work. If I have to overly contrive something, bonsai a plot or two to get my characters where they need to be, or invite some deity into the machine, it must have resonance and stand alone as an iconic piece of creative chicanery. If I have to do a little soft shoe to get out of any expository dialog holes it must at least dazzle a bit before I come into the crowd, puppy-eyed, hat in hand.

I’ve spent the better part of three months on this script, and three years before that slowly pulling it together. I will tell you right now that that is way too long to devote to any project that won’t fly to the moon or cure a disease. The reason being, it gives you plenty of time to add clay until you’ve gone from a finely sculpted concept to a big, clay thing with odd bits of ideas so jammed into it that it looks like one of those crappy cupcakes from one of those crappy birthday parties where the parents thought “more” meant “love”; it doesn’t suck exactly, but the effect is so numbing and ultimately unappetizing that you just don’t want to bite into it.

I haven’t given up, and I won’t. In fact, a lot of my frustration is probably due to the fact that I’m far too close to it. And perhaps trying to polish every beat until it gleams with brilliance is not only impossible, but highly unnecessary. Maybe I need to relax and let a moment of dialog take center stage in order to spice up what might be construed as one of your more well-worn, but more than serviceable twists. As a reader, there are plenty of times where we prefer some narrative momentum to show-stopping, mind-blowing creativity, especially towards the end of a story, which is where I sort of am right now. And as long as the ending satisfies the investment that has been asked of us, we tend to appreciate the work as a whole – maybe even go back and revisit those moments where it felt the most fresh and original.

Well, I feel anything but fresh and original at the moment. But somehow I’m getting through it and I can only hope that it makes a sort of easy sense that still requires one to do some work, although not too much work that it becomes too much like work, does that work for you?

My deadline is Friday.

About a year or so ago I was looking to buy a painting. In fact, I’m still looking. I wanted something strong, inspiring – something that I could consider an investment. Given my penchant for horror and fantasy, I at least knew that I wanted it to provoke in a manner that would make most people uninitiated in my offbeat artistic tastes shiver a bit. I’m like that, you see.

In my looking around, I came across the works of Michael Hussar, a true dark genius who managed to stir something deep within my bones where my nightmares are stored. What struck me most was his ability to create fresh and frightening characters that felt plucked from fables hidden in some ancient, underworld library. They were begging for stories to be told about them – begging to come alive. I thought, “Wow, what if they could come alive? What would they say? Would they like me? Would they want to eat me…or kiss me?” You know, all the stuff everyone asks when they see a piece of art.

The image above is a painting by Hussar called Daddy’s Girl. I loved it from the moment I laid eyes on it. What could be going on inside this artist to imagine such a being? Is she good or evil or something else? She certainly seems overtly sexual and vain, which suggested to me a haughty pride that might make nut-shelling her a bit difficult. And what on earth was she eating? Instantly I began imagining her coming alive, the sound of her voice, her intentions. She was alluring and repulsive, and I knew that the combination of those sensations bubbling beneath the surface of my soul meant a story was coming. That story, as you’ve probably guessed, is The Collection. And she inspired one of the paintings that my main character, Patrick, brings to life. Her name is “Toxic Trixie, the Poisonous Prostitute”, and while the challenge of creating someone that evoked Daddy’s Girl without copying her (as, of course, I couldn’t show her unless I made the film myself with Hussar’s help and permission) stuttered my progress and muted my initial rapture, I was on my way, driven by the need to bring her to life and show her to the world.

I still feel that same need, however the story is no longer as much about those characters manifest as much as it is about how they add to our understanding of the painter himself. There are other Hussar paintings that have inspired characters in The Collection, and I’ve certainly tried to incorporate the tone of his paintings into my narrative, but screenplays are limiting for a number of reasons. Try being too esoteric with your imagery and you can lose someone easily. You have few words and even less time to implant an image into someone’s head, and as sad as it might sound, I find the need to err to the familiar and broad in order to keep the momentum of the story. As I’ve said before, I’m a filmmaker at heart, and if it were up to me I would abandon this script if Hussar were to call me and ask me to develop a film with him using his images. But since that’s unlikely to occur, I have to take the gift of his vision and use it to create one of my own that will work within the purposes of my medium.

I can do that. I will do that.

Halfway there, and loving it.