I’ve just started a course in script writing in which there’s the expectation that we already have a story idea.  Here’s what I wrote in class recently…

Character description

I don’t have even an idea, let alone a character.  I need a freaking idea.  All I hear is rushing wind between my ears.  And the aircon.  This is not good.  At the current rate, I’m heading for FAIL.  *sigh* I’m pretty sure I’m not cut out for this.

Fkety fkety fk.

ANIMATED BOX.  Empty.  Indeterminate age, but made of cardboard, so can’t be too old.  Like, not ancient.  It talks, but is apologetic for what it says.  Because it’s never had an original thought, that is.

SINGLE SHOE.  Homeless.  Not completely worn out, so not old or shabby enough to chuck away, yet not very useful for anyone with two feet.  Unless they like weird art.

Box meets shoe.  It’s a match made in size seven.

Oh ho ho.

Location

Vinnies in Paddington.  I walked past it the other day and it seems pretty big, so nobody would notice if a shoe and a box came to life there.  Unless the shoe was a Manolo Blahnik and a one-legged model walked in.  Hopped in.

Fk.

I’m writing away here like I have something to say.  This is hilarious and stupid.

Inciting incident

The box falls out of a bus.  Miraculously, nobody has stepped on it.  It’s outside the shop.  The shopkeep walks out and picks up the box, thinking it’d be useful.  It’s a nice enough box.

Meanwhile, the lone shoe gets tipped out of a plastic garbage bag, along with a whole bunch of other crap someone has brought in.  There’s an ’80s board game in there somewhere.  The pile of junk, waiting to be sorted, starts wobbling.  The shoe emerges.  It hops around the store.  It even weaves between people’s feet.  Nobody notices.

Meanwhile, the box has been left on the shelf (har de har har) and is kind of looking at people who walk past with objects in their hands.  It opens its lid like a mouth, hoping to swallow something substantial.  Nobody complies.  Someone with arm full of clothes knocks the box off the shelf.  It drops and rolls across the ground.

The box wants to feel full.  The shoe wants a home.  I want to puke.

Let the record reflect that I’ve corrected grammatical issues in this ‘manuscript’.

I’m writing this crap until I come up with a real idea.  Which better be mthrfking soon, or I’m writing a two-minute animation about inanimate objects finding love in a world devoid of a better idea.

And it’s this mindset that has deterred me from even writing in that most indulgent of media, my blog. *sigh*

…Ingredients for vicarious living

1. Keep your options open. If you decide something, that instantly means you have to do something.  And if you have to do something, you don’t get to be a spectator.  So ignore any twinges of inspiration, forget about having a timetable, and stay in those PJs.  Don’t let life get in the way of your doing nothing.

2. Unlimited supply. Line your every surface with stimuli – books, DVDs, music, games – so you don’t have to actually do anything in order to feel everything.  Any kind of adventure or fulfilment you could ever want is right at your fingertips.  Sure, your skin may go translucent from lack of natural light, and your torso may adopt a spherical shape, but those people in that frame/on that page/in that song are doing more than enough attractiveness for you.

3. Cloak of invisibility. If you’re too noticable in real life, you’ll be too busy being you and won’t have time to experience life through fictional characters.  But if you’re invisible – like a ninja or… someone who’s invisible – you’re free to live life to the emptiest.  Free as a dodo or a pterodactyl.

Script Frenzy has ended.  I reached an admirable 85 pages.

I was going to submit a less-than-admirable 100, but when I got to the website to upload my doctored document, I found the uploading feature closed.  It was set to American-centric time and clocked off, probably, at midnight on Pacific Daylight Savings Time – about 7 hours ago.

But my aim was to see a thing through, and I did.  I wrote three TV episodes, plus the beginnings of a musical.  Little of this is good work, but I never pledged to write well – just to write.  And write I did, until life got in the way (which I’m kind of grateful for, truth be told – as I’ve said before, “Ah life – it’s a keeper”).

So why would I go and cheat and add some stuff I’d written prior to April in order to give myself a 100 page document to submit?  How cheap is that?!  Sucked in to me for stuffing up the deadline and missing out on an ill-got whole number.  For shame!

I wouldn’t cheat in a game against anyone else – if I ever get the chance to peek at cards or short change Monopoly money, I can’t keep a lid on myself for longer than a minute.  In a spirit of guilt or giggling, I cannot shut my mouth. 

I’ve been told before I’m a crap liar and I’m inclined to agree.  On the other hand, one of my high school teachers once told me I was “either very unfortunate or a damn good liar” when I’d come up with yet another excuse for why I hadn’t done my homework.  Though, the fact that she pointed out how “good” a liar I - allegedly - was, pretty much spells the opposite.

Anyway, my point - buried in an entanglement of tangents here – is, I’m prepared to cheat myself way above and beyond my preparedness to cheat others.  This is comforting in a way – also, unsettling.

Still.  85 pages.   That’s about as much script than I’ve written in the entire last six years.  So in that sense, I didn’t short-change anyone, or anything – not even myself.

I may have cheated this blog though.  So I guess my new pledge is to give it some TLC. 

“Don’t go chasin’ waterfalls, please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you’re used to…”

Hey, if I’m gonna short-change this blog, I may as well screw it up good ‘n’ proper before I make amends.

Er, sorry.

I’m very sorry to go on about this, but my shuddering must be setting off volcanoes in Iceland.

I’m hoping that, by writing and reading and thinking about it that I’ll desensitise myself.  So far, this tack is not working.  But still, there’s a story to be told (and I’m right on Script Frenzy target with 50 pages and I’m procrastinating over starting episode 3).

It’s been reported that a 28-year-old guy in Russia named Artyom had a tree growing inside his lung.  This was good news, considering they thought it was cancer.  Lung cancer is horrific, no question, and please allow me to preface the following rant with me stating emphatically that I certainly do not mean to dilute the seriousness of this disease.  Artyom was relieved to have a cancer-free outcome - just as any of us would be.

However.

IT WAS A TREE.  A fir tree, in case you were wondering.  A TREE!  I can actually feel the blood drain from my face.

To think that it had reached FIVE CENTIMETRES.  It brings tears to my eyes.

Did Artyom keep his mouth open long enough to give it some sunlight?  I suppose if his airways were open long enough for a seed to descend and take root, chances are the sun shone in too at some point.

Did the leaves whistle when he breathed?  Did Artyom emit an alpine-fresh scent, but nobody knew why?  Did his red blood cells decorate it at Christmas time?  Did they still admire it when it was covered in snow?

Are environmentalists going to start suggesting the rest of us follow suit so that we can all start exhaling oxygen instead of CO2?  Neutralise this, b!tche$.

I think the thing I find most disturbing – that is, aside from the fact that IT WAS A TREE - is that you could have something like that going on inside you that you have no idea about.

A doctor once told me you can have a brain tumour the size of a tennis ball and have no idea.  I was 8 years old at the time.  This may go toward explaining why I don’t like surprises.

Indeed, Artyom said “I never felt like I had an alien object inside of me”.  He just got really, really sick for a while.  X-rays showed a hideous tumour.  Surgery showed IT WAS A TREE.

The whole thing is having the ‘teeth effect’ on me.  You know, when they discover ill-fated fetus siblings inside people and it turns out they have fully formed teeth?

And yet, somehow, I’m coping even less with this.  This fir tree didn’t share genes with Artyom, it wasn’t his less fortunate brother, it wasn’t some aspect of the complex formation of a human being gone awry.  No.  IT WAS A TREE.  A TREE!!!  With needles that made the poor guy’s capillaries bleed!  Oh dear God, someone please hold my hand.

I’m hoping – HOPING – that we wake up tomorrow to the news that it’s a hoax.  I’ll curse, I’ll laugh, and I’ll be really bloody relieved.

And I won’t have to wear a mask the next time I go bushwalking.

Normally I’d frame a post like this in some kind of broader doesn’t-this-happen-to-all-of-us kind of theme.

Not this time.

I’m writing just to check in here and because I’ve realised a few things.

1. The original idea for me to write a public-worthy blog has flown out the window – this blog is as self-indulgent and unfocused as its predecessor.  It’s just less defamatory.
2. I’m procrastinating massively.
3. Maybe I should finally update the neglected Veggie Rant for a blog that actually has a point to it.
4. I’m not sure why I’m writing numeric points because there aren’t that many points to make.
5. My right wisdom tooth is an absolute mess at the moment.  Not that you wanted to know.
6. Still procrastinating.
7. Yep, still procrastinating.
8. I made awesome pizza this long weekend.  I’m particularly self-impressed with my potato and rosemary and my sweet potato and feta.  I should take pictures.  I should learn to make my own bases next.
9. See clauses 2, 6, and 7.

So fine.  I’m procrastinating around fulfilling my Script Frenzy pledge.  I’ve written one-and-a-bit episodes so far (32 pages) when I should’ve finished two episodes by now (around the 43 pages mark).

It’s not funny, but I know where it needs to be funny and vaguely how it needs to be funny and I knew it wouldn’t be funny at this stage anyway.  Phew.  Though I do kind of wish it was funny because then I’d feel a bit more justified in carrying on, considering it’s meant to be a goddamn comedy series.  But you wouldn’t know it to read it.  It’s comedy incognito.  Lord.

I also have a lot of music to learn and singing practice to do.  I need to start exercising again.  I need a haircut and that’s just the start of the general maintenance required.  I need to stop downloading TV shows lest I blow my bandwidth limit.  I need to stop watching TV shows so I can get singing, learning, writing, general maintenance, and life underway.

I feel very lost with singing at the moment, by the way, so I’m procrastinating around doing that too.  That’s probably why I’ve managed to write 32 pages of script thus far, and why I have still not managed to grasp vocal mixing yet.  Nor have I grasped how to sing my solo without feeling both atonal and a w*^ker.  Of course, it doesn’t help that I don’t even know the words yet.  What an asset I’ll be come rehearsal – ie: next weekend.  Crap, crap, crap!!!

Am I doomed to get things done by using one thing as a means of procrastination around another?

That could work, except for the part where all I can really think about is watching the next episode of Damages season 2 (Should we side with Glenn Close or not?  Who does Rose Byrne shoot in those cutaways??  No, don’t tell me!).

How did I become this cowardly, inert, procrastinating, craft-poor blob?

How can I write 11 pages by midnight?

How can I learn 8 songs by Sunday?

How can I fit in 2 Pump classes this week?  Will I still be able to walk afterwards?

Why did I make this cocktail so sour?

Why did I make a cocktail at all?  I’m supposed to be writing!  Plus, I already had open Zibobo Rosa (Mmmm…) in the fridge – couldn’t I have had a flute of that?

Who says ‘flute’ like that?  Especially with reference to domestic booze consumption?

Anyway, I had to use that lime – it cost 50 freaking cents – and if four sachets of sugar and half a glass of cranberry juice isn’t enough to sweeten it, then too bloody bad.

(beat)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!

 Blackout.