Writing Agenda

I've decided to put the detective novel that I had been developing aside for now to work on something else. As far as the book is concerned, the story is fully outlined and I've got the characters pretty well figured out... but then I got an idea for a screenplay that I want to run with while it's still fresh. Sometimes, I find that's the best way to write comedy. When the muse appears and says that it's time to write, I just go with it. 

I have a certain fondness for screenwriting, too. I like the economy of language in the form. You only have about ninety pages, with relatively limited space on each page, to tell a cohesive and compelling story. This requires discipline, knowledge of the craft, and the ability to choose just the right words to say more with less. In some ways, it's actually harder than writing a book. I tend to think of my first three or four screenplays as practice scripts. They live in a box somewhere, never to see the light of day -- but sometimes the best way to learn something is simply by doing it. In the process, you improve.

The screenplay that I'm writing started with a title and just kind of snowballed from there. It's a comedy that could be shot on a modest budget. That's all I'll say for now. I suspect that the deeper I get into this project, the less time I will have to write blog posts. That said, I hope to have this script done within the next couple of months, at which point I will probably do a few more blog posts and then get back to working on the book. Once I am vaccinated, I also hope to get back to teaching.