Write what you know

I haven't been blogging much as there have been some distractions. I guess I had nothing pressing to report. The main issue was that I finished my screen play. I wrote 140 pages of a comedy/drama loosely based on my real life experiences. It took six months. I worked best in two to three-hour spurts. I never showed a word of this to anyone until this week. I worried that I had created a ball of shit. After all, I am a rookie and never wrote much more than a blog entry or a newspaper feature story. This was new for me but I DID enjoy it. Sure beats mowing the lawn or taking the train to the city.

I was relieved to get some positive feedback on this first draft from a very reliable, talented writer friend. There are some changes. I had trouble with the ending and it took me a few weeks to get it down "on paper"...Here's the wacky part - I dreamed the ending. In that dream was my late father who was very supportive and he actually said (gulp), go with your dream. I had no choice. I followed his advice.

In this screen play, the main character writes a blog. It's titled (brace yourself) Time Killer. Hey, I was in Marketing for 30 years. It's all about cross promotion. Why do you think they ask for your zip code at Radio Shack? It was very easy to come up with Time Killer samples - I have about 130 entries - some good, some not so good. My main character, anonymous, became very successful with his blog. He got a book deal. I have some background in publishing so I had enough BS to get through that scenario. It was some of the other stuff I had trouble with. I would just wing it or rip off the many movies I've watched.. God, I had to write a sex scene. I went very PG-13.. I toyed with going R but wimped out...

So I was comfortable writing "what I know"... working, commuting, being a husband and father, socializing, finances and general time killing. I hope something comes out of this. So far, besides some nice early reviews, I can only say that now after 140 pages, I have to wear reading glasses. Maybe I should write what I can SEE...