Jonny Atlas Writes

I have officially decided that I need to alternate genres if I am going to survive as a writer. I don’t mean “survive” as in “make it” or “have a career”, I mean “survive” as in “not smash my head in with a hammer”. Seriously, sometimes I think my head is going to explode. I’ll explain.

Now, I always alternate genres. My current spec is a survival horror. The spec before that was a thriller, and the one before that a gritty western. Before that? A noir detective story. Sounds diverse, right?

Well, they are.

But they’re not. See, there’s one thing that binds them all (one thing to rule them… sorry, couldn’t resist). Death. People die in every single script I have written. The only exception is the first spec I ever finished, which was a coming of age drama. In that one, the dad shoots himself OFF CAMERA! See? I only alluded to the brains splatted on the wall! And when the main character tries to kill himself? Well, he fails!

:sigh:

Seriously, if my next script isn’t 100% free of death, dismemberment, and especially splatter effects, I think I’m going to lose my mind. There are only so many ways you can describe carnage like that, and I’ve used damn near all of them.

Well, maybe not 100%. I have 2 more specs I NEED to get written. You know that feeling. That craving. It eats away at your guts. One of them is the feature length script based on Hostile Delivery, a short I finished not too long ago. The other is a thriller about a missing girl. There’s no killing and no shooting in the thriller, until the end. There’s one death. I can live with that.

I’m not done with splatter or violence for good. Not by a long shot. I couldn’t live without it. I just need a break. I need to show my chops outside of action and horror. I need a month without blood.

Fuck it. I’m gonna go write a family film.

Popularity: 35% [?]

I’m on page 31 of my latest screenplay, which means I just hit PP1 four pages ago. A big thanks to Unk for giving me some serious food for thought on what to build pages 8 through 28 around.

I love this script. I’m not going to lie. It’s good. The concept is money in the bank. I knew it the moment I thought of it. This is my second attempt at tackling the concept, though. I’m so in love with it, and I’m so in love with what I know the end product is going to be, that I’m intimidated as hell.

Heh. Imagine that. Intimidated by my own work.

My problem is that I want it to be as great as I know it should be. But this is the first draft. Writing is rewriting, and that is especially true for me. My first drafts are shit compared to my later rewrites, but that’s the way it’s supposed to be, right? So why can’t I just hammer out this script like I usually do? I know the first draft is going to have on the nose dialog. I know it’s going to read like a four-year-old trying to tell a joke. I know I’m going to cut, trim, and shred 70 to 80 percent of this draft. I always know that, and I’m always okay with that.

so what’s my fucking problem????

I think I have hyped it up in my head too much. I want it to be perfect. I want it to ooze perfection. I want to be able to read it and say to myself “holy fuck, that was amazing.” At one point, that will happen. If it happens on my first draft, I have a problem. I should never be that in love with a first draft. First drafts are shit. Always. I guess I just love this idea so much I can’t bare to see it fucked up - even by me. Which is funny, because if it gets made (and hell freezes over, and pigs fly, and monkeys fly out of my butt), there’s about a 110% chance it’s going to get fucked with by other people. That leaves me about a 10% chance that it would even be true to the version they bought from me. Don’t question my math. I’ll fight you.

To be honest, I really could see this concept getting green lit by someone, somewhere. But I know the odds and I can also see it sitting on a shelf collecting dust, or sitting on my computer with a pile of rejection letters accompanying it. That’s just the way of the biz. I have no delusions of grandeur in that respect, so I need to drop this foolish idea that my first draft of this screenplay needs to be perfect. Shit. I really need to approach this script with the same painful realism that frames my vision of a future as a screenwriter. I just need to hammer it out already!

The same goes for you. Seriously. Stop wasting your time on that first draft! You’ve done your homework (or you should have), you have your concept and your logline and your fleshed out characters and your outline or beat sheet. so why the fuck have you been working on the same first draft for three months? Four months? A year?

JUST WRITE THE GODDAMNED THING!!!!

You can’t actually write your script until you’ve finished that first draft. It’s going to be shit. Honestly. No matter how hard you work, it’s going to be shit. Just finish it so you can get to the REAL writing. Accept the fact that it’s going to be shit, write the shit, and then rewrite the motherfucker until it’s the amazing, brilliant, glorious, awe-inspiring script you knew it could be.

Then set it aside and get back to your day job, because no one is going to pay you for that shit. This is Hollywood, for crying out loud!!

Popularity: 24% [?]

With the “big move” now less than three weeks away, I can’t say my life doesn’t feel upside down. We still have a LOT to do. None the less, I can’t wait to be on the West Coast. I really can’t say that enough.

Thinking about all of this, I have a feeling the store I transfer to isn’t going to live up to my current store. All of my coworkers are amazing, and the store is one of the top in the company. How could this other store possibly live up to that? I just know I’m going to feel like the new kid. I haven’t felt that for close to 2 years, and I am admittedly a wallflower when it comes to being in a new place with new people. Hell, I’m a writer. lol. In a business setting, or a party setting, I’m pretty laid back and meet people pretty easily. Walking into a classroom or a workplace for the first time is a totally different story. I’m going to be spending 40 hours a week with these people. That’s pretty intimidating. Hopefully they will be awesome people. We shall see…

Popularity: 31% [?]