7:00 AM: Crazy Carl's Causation/Correlation Calamity Conversation

It's not a secret that I have a tendency to overextend myself. I take on a shitload of projects, of varying importance. In some respects it is important to me to finish the next chapter of my webcomic (before the end of 2009) and do my reviews and write all the good stuff I think is in my head. And also do my homework and try not to fail tests. I also have a job and go to school in a place that takes a great deal of time to get to, so...... time is weird to me.

It's starting to show. I'm losing my grip, I think, everything is getting magnified, particularly those negative emotions you folks have been good enough to put up with for years anyway. It's not uncommon for me to just spend a large portion of the day thinking "I suck, everything I write sucks, I have no future, my life is pointless, nobody will ever love me." I don't know how many of those notions are true. Probably not all of them.

The overextension is of course part of the problem. I get exhausted, I get burned out. I look at this script I'm doing and I'm although I think it is better than most of what I've already done, I still think it's bad. In a sense. I have a really warped sense of good and bad, and it changes often. I think a lot of writers are familiar with the idea of wanting to write something they think they can't, as opposed to whatever they naturally do. What I naturally do sprinkles clever(ish) dialogue amongst long character-based passages. If Half-Past is any indication, it should work, if done well... I want to believe Half-Past for reasons not related to transexual mobsters.

I think all I'm going to need is to finish the draft I am working on, then immediately go back and smooth it out. Structurally it's okay, but as it's a fairly fresh piece I spend a lot of time shoehorning in a lot of stuff about characters' motivations and shit that could get tedious to the audience. I'm working with a limited capacity of "show don't tell" since I work in the realm of minimalist theatre.

I would love to write something, you know, gut-bustingly funny, something that is just all-out laughs. A lot of people attempt stuff like that and fail miserably, and I simply lack the confidence to take that risk, so I bring in the sbutle emotional undertones and hit what I consider to be an easier target. Ironically it may be a more rewarding one. Rcall Robyn's dad telling me on the way home when I took them to see the play, how honest and real the play felt. The dude was gushing. That's when I knew I was onto something. Well, I knew before that, but I can't help but be suspect of my audiences. I'm still curious to meet someone who is willing to tell me to my face "This actually sucks."

Not that I hate compliments. I love compliments. It's the entire reason I'm back on WritersCafe writing my weird little poems. (Last night: "I Want To Lick Your Brains.")

I have ideas for plays that go beyond the territory of Half-Past and End of the Night. Maybe not complete, self-conscious avoidance of their tropes, but definitly taking my work into different territory, not just in content but in presentation. It's a meta-theatre thing, but I think the distinction between my work and others is that most people are doing meta-theatre these days and I'm willing to take people for granted that yes, they are watching a show, and no, it's not all that different from a movie. No need to shoehorn much fourth-wall-breaking monologue, although Cary and I had some talks on that when we were prepping Half-Past, since I was all about those monologues for a while. I've learned since then.

Eric's main comment was that he didn't like the dream scene, particularly the "You're having a dream bit." I can understand him on that, even if I feel the exact opposite way. I kind of dig those "You are having a dream" moments, because unlike an art film where a dream sequence would be trippy, this is meant as a way for him to communicate with himself, to be open, and it starts by being honest about the scene.

I was feeling pretty shitty today, part of my ongoing psychotic episode. After groceries, though, I did get a word back, which was a relief. I can put it out of mind for now, although absolute confidence eludes me, at least I know there's a short-term future and I am not just kidding myself. This is important, as I was finding it ridiculously difficult to be productive with all that uncertainty hanging over my head. So while I've still got uncertainty, it's a good kind. A kind I can live with.

I was picking fights with the world today. Really. Everything was getting on my nerves. A girl took my usual seat in Film. I paid too much money for a stupid "Thai" chicken wrap (pretty much just the spicy chicken breast you get pre-diced in the supermarket) and at dinner, making my taco (yes, two different variations of wrap in one day, it's not like I planned either) I discovered the sour cream had gone moldy at the last minute before it would have been too late. Well, not the last moment, but it was a waste of a taco either way.

Suffice it to say, I was an irritable bitch today and every inconvenient thing that happened, every irritation, felt like a tragedy. It's been that way off and on for weeks and thankfully I can relax, at least for a while. I can refocus my energies.

I was doing some rewrites earlier -- I started this entry before dinner and now all the post-"I got a reply" stuff is at midnight. I've been going through this script trying to straighten it out. As much as I have the idea that it's not working, a lot of it does. There are parts that I'm sure do not work and I am thinking about them a lot, how to improve them. It's going to be a bit of a process. But I've still got a good clear view of how I want this to go down.

Yesterday, a power-outage prevented my alarm from going off. Today, another one narrowly missed. The downside of Monday was that I had stayed up until 3 AM the night before, for no real reason, and slept in past my train. The good news was, at least I slept better than I have in months.

I should probably prepare for some finals. Later.

Sleep now, though. And Keep on rockin'
-Scotto, writer of the disjoined uneven half-angsty post.