Category: Whiteworms

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Progress Report 34 – Arrested Development

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Another week, another progress report, I can’t believe I’ve done this 34 times already. Sure, technically the number should be higher but I’m still quite pleased with myself.

The last week has been really busy. Not only do I have to correct a lot (grades are supposed be done by tomorrow) I also spent some time working on the new idea I mentioned last week. I didn’t do as much running as I’m supposed to, it’s just too damn cold to go outside but to offset it a bot, I’m spending more time on the home-trainer and I did go cross-country skiing for the first time in I don’t know how many years. It went surprisingly well. I postponed the last stretch of my weight loss project until the weather gets better, right now I’m just managing my weight which is enough of a challenge as it is. I think it might actually be a good thing to stay around 80Kgs for some weeks before I get down to 75. The body has to adjust to the new circumstances. I also switched from sitting to standing desk again, I move a bit less so I decided to make sure that I stand more and I’m feeling really good about it.

But let’s break the numbers down before I talk more about developing the new idea:
One book/screenplay: Finally finished The Hamilton Biography. Really long but good read. I’m also finishing The Amzing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Next Up: The brief and wondrous life of Oscar Wao.
Two movies: I’m still not sleeping well. The upside is that I have a lot of time to watch movies. I watched all the Harry Potters and a bunch of other movies. You can follow my adventures in sleepless movie watching on letterboxd. At some point I’ll probably write a bit more about some of the movies I watched. I think the Harry Potter series deserves a post, maybe as one of the new segments I’m planing, I’m going to call it “Adventures in Sleeplessness”.
Seven pages: Developing and correcting took some time this week. Maybe next week.
Seven hours: Let’s ease into this. Developing the new idea is and has been a blast. Orlindo is doing the heavy lifting but I love this stage of any project. The possibilities are endless and every choice you make has the potential to turn your good idea into something great, obviously the opposite is true as well but let’s not go there. We’re using slack.com to sort our ideas and so far I quite like it, it’s far from perfect but it’s a decent group working tool but I digress.

I like the development stage, you don’t really know where the idea and your choices take you. It’s hard work of course and there’s a lot of work but what I really love about developing an idea is collaboration. Taking apart an idea your writing-parser had, defending your own idea, realising that your idea is total bullcrap and going back to the drawing-board. I love it, especially the defending your ideas part. It forces you to think about your idea, you’re not just throwing your idea out there, you really think about it and try to argue for it as good as possible and while doing that you see where your idea has its shortcomings and your idea gets better in the process. Defend and improve so to speak.

I’m really curious about what will come from this idea. It’s still promising and the work we’ve been doing has not only been fun but very fruitful as well. I’m currently waiting for the next draft of the outline to give my feedback. The deadline is February 1st, we’re cutting it close.

Arrested Development svg

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Progress Report 33 – The one with the competition

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A few years ago Orlindo and I handed in Skyscraper into a few competitions. We never got far but it was an interesting experience. It was about getting our work out there and we’re glad for the experience and the feedback we got.

This week we decided to compete in one of those competitions again. There’s only one problem. We don’t have a script yet.

Orlindo came up with a wonderful idea, I’m not going to spoil it and the idea is very much a fluid concept at the moment but we think that the idea is promising and worth exploring. For the competition we only need 10 screenplay pages and an outline. We think that’s doable. Orlindo had a rough outline and we worked on it and it seems like we have a diamond in the rough. There’s a lot to be done but it’s quite exciting.

We’re also thinking about doing a quick polish of Skyscraper and hand that one in as well, last time we handed in the German version so this time we’d try the original.

If we go through with this, we’re going to be really busy. Too bad that there’s also exam week but who needs sleep.

But let’s do the numbers:
One book/screenplay: School reading and I bought a new D&D book, Volo’s Guide to Monsters.
Two movies: I had trouble sleeping this week so I upped my movie watching. I’m going to post my letterbox diary look here for you to enjoy but I specifically want to mention La La Land and Pitch Perfect. I love movies and I love music and movies like that just press my buttons. La La Land was wonderful and I don’t get some of the backlash it is getting, I have to admit though that I prefer Sing Street.
Seven pages: Still working on The Eternal. I’m a bit short of seven new pages though…
Seven hours: …I’m having some issues with my outline. I think I have to scale my outline back and focus on the character and the absurdity of his situation. More Big Lebowski and John Wick, less Memento.

And now for something completely different: I started to do some of those silly memes. I had a discussion with some of my students about their media consumption, apparently they spend hours on their phones looking at memes. Big mouth that I am… well, let’s just say I could do that. I’m posting them on my Instagram feed. Please enjoy.

 

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Progress Report 32 – Year Two

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Keep calm and enter year two

Yeah…keep calm. I wish…

#ProjectMomentum year 2, let’s kick some ass in 2017.

2016 is the past now and so are all the past accomplishments. Not that there were many but at least I wrote one decent screenplay. The plan is to pick up where I left off. I started a new script last week and I hope to finish it within 2-3 month while also continuing to improve “Die Klientin”.

Last week I focused on doing as little as possible. I just needed some time for myself and I finally feel ready to sit down in front of the keyboard again.

Let’s do the numbers.

One book/screenplay: Some school reading.
Two movies: I watched quite a few movies over the Christmas break. I’m using www.letterboxd.com to log my movies this year and I also started a list where I log all my consumed media. I might do something with that on this blog. The three things I want to mention this week are “John Wick”. “Kubo and the Two Strings” and the documentary “O.J.: Made in America”. Three very different but equally interesting offerings. I highly recommend them. “John Wick” I especially watched in preparation for my new Project.
Seven pages: I started a german version of “The Eternal” (the title will change). It’s going to be a no hold barred action romp with some genre stuff thrown in, John Wick meets Memento and Underworld or something. Just action, a decent MacGuffin and lots of dead bodies. That’s exactly what I need right now. I scraped the idea I talked about in my last post, at least for the moment.
Seven hours: I’m still outlining the rest of the story but I have a good grasp of the tone and where I want to go, I just have to get the details nailed down. Orlindo finally delivered the first draft/version/pages of his screenplay. It was a long way coming but he’s on track to delivering something really interesting. I was a bit skeptical about his idea but he fleshed it out and it makes sense now. I see what he’s trying to get at and it has potential. I’m really looking forward to the rest.

This is it for today. I have to get back to outlining and there are other things that require my attention but stay tuned, there’s more to come, 2017 is going to be the year I take my writing to the next level.

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Progress Report 31 – Going Rogue

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It’s the last week of work and to be honest, I’m a bit behind on my writing but I’m confident that I got through that little rough patch. After completing the current draft of “Die Klientin” my batteries were empty but I’m confident that they are about to recharge over the next couple of days. I finally had some creative ideas and I hope to put them to good use in the next couple of weeks.

But lets do the numbers, shall we:

One book/screenplay: That Hamilton book is really thick, especially if you have school reading as well. But I introduced my students to Watchmen this week, at least I have that going for me.
Two movies: “Rogue One” was decent and stupid me started rewatching “The O.C.” and “Friends”. I’m not a film critic so I’m not going to review “Rogue One”, let’s just say it’s the best of the prequels. I also don’t have to say how good “Friends” is, from the get go it’s just a good show and please don’t laugh, so is “The O.C.”, it gets really bad after a while and there are some stupid , very stupid storylines but the first 10 episodes have been great.
Seven pages: I started to rework “The Passion of the Geek”, not a page one rewrite but it’s going to be different, I have to streamline the whole thing and get rid of everything that’s not working and focus on the characters. I also startet working on another dialogue driven idea. I’d pitch it as “Before Sunrise meets Burried”. I’m writing that one in German and I wrote the first two pages. I don’t have a real title yet.
Seven hours: This week has has been a mix between developing and writing. Orlindo promised me some pages and I’m really looking forward to them.

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Not in the movie.

The new idea just came to me. I started outlining a much bigger version of it, a complicated story about love, rejection and whatnot. But I soon realized that I’m only interested in one scene so I decided to skip all the boring parts on focus on that one scene. I have no idea whether it’s going to be a short or a feature length script. I know how I have to set the characters up and how to get them to where I want them and from there on I let them speak and hear what they have to say. I’m not ready to go into details let me just say that it’s cheaper than a therapist.

On a side note. I’m below 80 kilos and I never felt better. People (some) are noticing and it feels great. I just hope that Christmas isn’t going to be too bad but then again, who cares, you have to enjoy some things without thinking too much about how many calories they have.

See you next week for the last post of 2016.

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Progress Report 30 – Loglines

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You might remember some of my post about some of my random ideas, some of them I’m working one others are on the back burner. Last week I had the opportunity to take part in a little logline competition. I didn’t win (Orlindo has a different story to tell about that) but it was a good exercise and I feel a lot more motivated now. I handed in two loglines, one about the Idea I’m currently working on “The Company” and of about an older idea that I keep coming back to. Guess which one was more popular?

I call it “The Eternal” and this was the logline I submitted:
John has a problem – he keeps dying but he doesn’t stay dead. Too bad no one explained that to the Russian mobsters after him. John needs to hide and he has to find answers about his past but that’s almost impossible if you lived too long to remember who you are.

The second sentence still makes me smile. The feedback I got was encouraging and I think I’m going to pursue this project more than I intended to. Positive feedback is really encouraging.

“The Company” wasn’t that successful but working on the logline helped me define the project for myself: A young ambitious engineer invents technology that enables her to talk to her future self. Trying to prevent a family tragedy leads to even more hardship and soon she has to realize that she’s turning into the problem she’s trying to solve.

Before I share the winners with you, lets do the numbers:

One book/screenplay: Not too much time to read this week. Still reading the Hamilton biography.
Two movies: Arrival was amazing, finally a smart alien invasion movie. Great performances and great direction. Looking forward to Rogue One.
Seven pages: Still rewriting “Die Klientin” but the end seems nigh.
Seven hours: Time spent with the loglines and thinking about my other projects.

Orlindo dominated the competition. He entered three ideas and two of the took the top spot. I like to think that I helped a bit (I translated them from German to English) but the ideas were his.

Spacewhale: A starving moon sized creature threatens earth. Humankind descends into chaos but a young boy connects with the creature on the only level that exceeds its hunger.

One million Ways to die in the Holocaust: A girl in a concentration camp has to relive her last days again and again but trapped in hell on earth she finds hope: Freedom for her and her family could just be one death away.

I really liked the Holocaust idea, both of them are touching on an emotional level. I just hope that this success translates into hours spent at the keyboard. 🙂

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Writings on the Wall.

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Progress Report 29 – Hamilton!

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I know I repeat myself but the break went on way longer than expected but it was necessary. I’m focusing on school and rewriting “Die Klientin” at the moment but I think I have finally decided on my next idea. I figured out a way to make “The Company” work. It’s going to be 500 Days of Summer meets Primer, sounds a bit strange but in my mind it makes sense.

I’m outlining and I hope to get started over Christmas. But let’s crunch the numbers.

One book/screenplay: I listened to “Hamilton” again and I finally decided to read the biography by Ron Chernow the musical is based on. He had quite the life.
Two movies: I watched a few movies but nothing worth mentioning.
Seven pages: Rewriting “Die Klientin”.
Seven hours: Outlining “The Company” and waiting for something from Orlindo.

There’s another idea I’m working on. A few years ago I wrote an opening scene about an immortal guy waking up after getting killed. It never amounted to much but a couple of weeks ago I rediscovered the file and I think there’s something there. I have moments and some plot-points but not a full story yet. But I’m optimistic that I can turn this idea into something worth my time.

As for the title of today’s post: Hamilton seems like an awesome musical, I have to see it but do I plan my next vacation before or after I get tickets?

Ham 1

I need to see this!

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Progress Report – 28 Days Later

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28 Days Later main

…almost 28 days…

That little break went on longer than expected. November is just a busy month with exams, concerts and meetings. But my break isn’t/wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, I think that my writing batteries are charged again and I’m looking forward to using the new found energy and get some stuff done.

Unfortunately I’m still looking for my next idea, but I hope that once I finished work on “Die Klientin” and did some feedbacking on Orlindo’s project, I should have formulated my new idea. I’m toying with the idea I shared a couple of month ago, “The Company”, but I haven’t cracked it yet.

But let’s turn to the numbers, they are depressing though:
One book/screenplay: The Martian for school and I’m prepping Watchmen.
Two movies:The Fantastic Beasts movie was surprisingly good and the Gilmore girls revival was fun as well, the musical sequence was a bit long though.
Seven pages: No new pages, but I’m on it.
Seven hours: Still nothing but I’m ready.

That’s it for today.

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Progress Report 27 – Better late…

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As predicted, I’m a bit late, but I’m not worried. There were and are good reasons for the delay and there are just 24 hours in a day. I’m back in the saddle and I hope that the momentum returns, I’m very confident though, the only thing I have to manage is my drinking, I drank way too much in the last two weeks. 🙂

The concert was a success but I’m glad that we have a break now (see drinking). November is also a busy time in school but as soon as I’m done with my schoolwork (later this month/ early December) I’m back at the keyboard.

It doesn’t really make sense to talk numbers today. I did absolutely nothing. I was busy remember, I hope to find some time next week to log some keyboard time. I’m still struggling to find a new idea. There are bits and pieces but nothing fully formed. I have some ideas though on how to get there, one of my next runs is going to be dedicated to coming up with one.

I guess this is it for today. Not much but it has to do for today.

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Progress Report 26 – Too many Cooks

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Greetings, another week ha passed and I have to admit that it wasn’t my most productive one. I didn’t write anything and I didn’t come up with that great idea for my next project. The Firefly thing seems to be dead. The Project leader was absent for a week (work related) and the momentum is gone and I doubt that it will come back. I have some intensive days ahead of me and I doubt that i’ll be able to put in the necessary hours, I’ll try though. I’m pretty sure that this will turn into one of those “Too many cooks” scenarios though. 5-6 people is just too much. Everyone thinks that the others should and could do more, me included, and in the end nothing gets done.

With the concert ahead I’m really busy, I’m not even sure that there will be a post next week but I promise that November and December are going to be very productive. I toyed with the idea of participating in NaNoWriMo but I’ll focus on December and a screenplay.

But let’s do the numbers, even though they are terrible.

One book/screenplay: Didn’t do any reading besides the Firefly reading I mentioned last week.
Two movies:I saw Doctor Strange and I really liked it. I also saw some silly romantic comedies (…I know…) I’m not going to mention.
Seven pages: No new pages, still waiting on feedback.
Seven hours: Still nothing. I’m also waiting until Orlindo has something new to show me. If you’re reading this…I’m waiting.

600px US 83 svg

83.6 kg

There’s one other number I want to mention today and It’s probably the number I’m most proud of at the moment. I weight in at 83.6 today. I had some celebratory dinner afterwards but for the first time in many years I’m considerably below 85kg. I have about 10kg left to go but things are looking good. I’m really proud and it was the right decision to start this journey. I’m feeling fitter and healthier than ever and maybe even a bit more handsome. I’m trying out facial hair at the moment but it seems that’s not going to be a success. I hope to hit my weight goal early next year, Christmas might be a bit of a problem but I managed worse.

This is all for today but don’t worry I leave you with something funny, in German this time.

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Progress Report 25 – An anniversary and more Space Cowboys

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Firefly class ship

Serenity

Another week, another post but this time I actually have something to report. First of all, I think it’s time for some celebration, 25 progress reports, #ProjectMomentum is going strong.

Congratulations to myself. 🙂

A couple of weeks ago I told you about this Masterclass I’m taking. Aaron Sorking talking about screenplay, it’s really interesting and enjoyable. I decided to participate in one of their group assignments. Together with some others, I’m supposed to write the next episode of Firefly, yeah, more space cowboys.

The group seems nice so far and I’m pretty sure that we’re going to be able to come up with an interesting addition to the firefly universe.

I’m a little worried though, I never worked with so many people on a story. I’ll keep you posted.

One book/screenplay: Got some homework from that writing group: read 3 Firefly teleplays. I cheated a bit, I read the Train Job, Out of Gas and Serenity (the movie, not the pilot). Afterwards I felt really annoyed, why was that show canceled again?
Two movies:Some episodes of Firefly, Serenity and I’m on a West Wing Marathon. Seems like I left that silly romantic comedy and action movie phase behind. I just hope it doesn’t come back, If it does…it’s time for the big guns, Richard Curtis and Stallone, but fingers crossed.
Seven pages: No new pages, waiting on feedback.
Seven hours: Still no concrete idea, I have a few things floating in my head but so far nothing worthy has emerged. I probably focus on that Firefly thing though, maybe afterwards the new idea will present itself.

So how did that Blacklist feedback for The Passion of the Geek go, you ask? Well, good and bad. It’s no surprise that they criticized my lack of thorough proof reading, they also disliked the meta jokes, no surprise there, but the one thing that made my day was the fact that both reviewers liked some of my original jokes/set pieces. They liked the absurdist nature of it, even though they criticized a lack of escalation. It’s starts pretty wild and there’s no room for build up anymore.

They disliked quite a lot though, some of it deservedly so, with some of their findings I plainly disagree, they didn’t get it and maybe I did’t do a good enough job of explaining or setting those jokes up properly.

What do I take from this? Well, apparently I have (at least in some sort of way) a voice. It’s still in development and I have to stop hiding it behind the meta crap. That’s probably what I’m going to do in the long run. Write a Passion of the Geek with the meta turned down and the humor turned up.

Maybe that’s what my next, german project could be as well, a german Passion with less meta and more fun. There seems to be a market in Germany for comedies, who knows, maybe I could write the next one.
The downside to this is the fact that I’m planing to write something with a female protagonist and The Passion is too personal for me to gender switch and I doubt it would work as well.

So I’ll probably do something else first. I’m toying with the idea of a workplace romance comedy with a female protagonist, a single mom or so, new job, stupid boss, strange coworkers and some gender reversals like a male nanny or something like that. The more I think about this, the more I like it.

Stay tuned.

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Mal and his Crew.