Zero Draft Thirty 2017 Spring Challenge: Day 28
One month. FADE IN to FADE OUT. Creativity meets Productivity.
One month. FADE IN to FADE OUT. Creativity meets Productivity.
Zero Draft Thirty: Day 28.
Write an entire draft of a script in March — FADE IN. FADE OUT. Or any sort of creative goal you have in front of you.
Feature length movie screenplay. Original TV pilot. Rewrite a current project. Break a story in prep. Generate a month’s worth of story concepts.
Whatever you feel will ratchet your creative ambitions into overdrive…
DO THAT!
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Today’s Writing Quote
“Script gurus sell you their structure rules as dogma. Watching and liking movies tells you dogmatic rules are stupid.”
— Amos Posner
Today’s Poem
Larson’s Holstein Bull
By Jim Harrison
Death waits inside us for a door to open.
Death is patient as a dead cat.
Death is a doorknob made of flesh.
Death is that angelic farm girl
gored by the bull on her way home
from school, crossing the pasture
for a shortcut. In the seventh grade
she couldn’t read or write. She wasn’t a virgin.
She was “simpleminded,” we all said.
It was May, a time of lilacs and shooting stars.
She’s lived in my memory for sixty years.
Death steals everything except our stories.
While I suppose a poem about death is not something one would ordinarily consider to be inspirational, this is different. First, it’s written by the great novelist (“Legends of the Fall”), essayist, and poet Jim Harrison who died last year in his home in Arizona. He was 78 years old. Second, it’s a powerful poem which reminds us of two things: Each of us is born with an expiration date. And “Death steals everything except our stories.”
Stories transcend death. See if that doesn’t inspire you in writing your current story.
Check back later for the winner of today’s Anita Loos Award!
Three days left in the Challenge!
Onward!
UPDATE: This is not your typical inspirational image, but bear with me because I’ve got a spin on it which I think works.
That’s you. Me. Us. You know, those times where our creative spirit is all wound down. And that piece of luggage? That’s the weight of our expectations and hopes bearing us downward. And that parched earth is our soul from which we’ve drawing so much inspiration, but now… seemingly nothing there. And those mountains? That’s FADE OUT. So near, yet…
Know what we need? To celebrate!
That’s right. We may not be there yet. We may be exhausted and spent. But know what? We’ve made some goddammed progress on our stories. We are closer to FADE OUT than we are FADE IN. And if we get our ass off the chair for 4 minutes and 18 seconds, and shake it — and I say this as the world’s worst dancer — let us all commence to getting down and getting funky!
It took us a while, but I believe I got us to a good place. And thanks to Tracy Shefras for that image of the weary writer. For kicking us off into this thread of hopefulness, she is today’s Anita Loos Award recipient!
I see you dancing! You look good! Give it a whirl, get the blood flowing, then sit derriere onto chair… and WRITE!