    
Welcome...
 This website is dedicated to the work that I do - screenwriting. Here, you'll be able to find out more about that craft, why I do it and the current projects that I am working on. (* see below) The purpose of this site is simply to promote - me. Updates about what I am working on will appear on this page. More detailed information on those projects can be found under the Screenplays tab. Enjoy!
Updates...
January 1, 2012
Good riddance 2011!
The past six months have been especially difficult - time that I wanted to spend screenwriting instead was used working on other writing that I was forced to do to make up for a shortfall in income that was lost due to... well, let's not go there, lest my blood starts to boil and my veins suddenly pop. All I have to say is: Brainwashing. Greed. Stupidity. 3 of the key ingredients for an archaic cult.
I think 2012 is going to be a terrific year with a lot of changes - positive changes.
A couple weeks ago, I received some great news: In December, Amazon Studios ran a contest asking participants to develop a synopsis for a film based on a logline they posted. In a field of 1,000 participants, my synopsis was selected to move forward in the contest and they asked for a feature writing sample.
Currently, they are evaluating feature writing samples from the people whose synopsis' were satisfactory. They'll pick 5 people to expand on their synopsis and write a treatment (basically, a short story) for the film. From these 5 people, 1 will be selected to write the screenplay with the ultimate payment of $75,000.
After an incredibly difficult year, this was the best news I had had in a long, long time.
Screenwriting is a difficult profession. To break through the closed and locked doors of producers, studios and agents - no matter how good you are - you're going to need both luck and a break.
When things look bleak, I sometimes doubt the talent that I have. Then, when something like the Amazon Studios thing happens, I know I must be doing something right.
In orthodontic news, I am back wearing the crozat (and will be for the next 3 months). In the spring, I hope to finally be at the finish line - almost 2 years since the beginning of treatment. It's incredible how my upper teeth have moved forward and how I almost have a normal bite.
June 15, 2011
Some of you may be familiar with Amazon Studios. For those that aren't, here is a brief run down.
Amazon Studios is a 'film studio', an offshoot of the giant bookseller Amazon.com, that was created late last year as an alternative door into the film business for screenwriters and film makers. You upload your screenplay or film to their website and it is judged, critiqued and sometimes altered. They have monthly contests (the entry fee is $0) and a year-end overall contest for the best screenplays and 'test films'.
When it was created, the sticking point for a lot of screenwriters was that anyone could make changes to your screenplay. Now, that has been changed and you can block your screenplay from being altered at all, but it can still be read, judged and reviewed. I don't have a problem with it being on the web because it and all of my scripts have been copywrited and registered.
Amazon Studios immediately options your screenplay for mediately options your screenplay for mediately options your screenplay for mediately options your screenplay for $0 for 18 months. for 18 months. for 18 months. For those unfamiliar with 'the biz', optioning a screenplay usually involves an exchange of $ for the 'option' to create a film from the script.
The script I've chosen is Postal (appropriate in these times) and the link to read it on Amazon Studios is below.
May 25, 2011
YAHOO! I have FINALLY (and I do mean finally) finished the first draft of my new sci-fi thriller which is now called Final Decree.
Once I passed the 100 page mark on April 30, it just kept going... and going... and going... until today, the final scene I wrote brought it to 182 pages - that's a 3 hour film.
I had no intention of it being that long and I am adamant that 60 pages (or an hour) have to be cut. I didn't write this screenplay to be an epic. The last 80 pages I'm really happy with. It's the first 100 (where I was writing long narratives and dialogue, mostly to pad my way to get to 100 pages by April 30) where I know most of the cutting will take place.
When I look at it, it's as if I wrote two separate screenplays: the first 100 being the big build up to the major plot reveal; and the last 80 which is non-stop action to get to the climax and the resolution.
Despite it being really long, I'm happy with the outcome and I have lots to work with to get it down to around 120 pages. If it's a bit longer than that, I won't be too upset - just as long as all that's there is relevant and essential.
I haven't decided whether to put it away for awhile and start another screenplay (lighter, less complicated), or get down to the chopping... I'm just so glad this first draft is done.
May 10, 2011
 Well, I have done it again! I 'won' Script Frenzy for a second time.
Don't get too excited. 'Winners' don't actually win anything.
Script Frenzy challenges writers to envision, write and complete a screenplay in 30 days. 'Winners' are those that complete the task and I did, so I get to post this nifty icon on my website.
I had deep reservations about choosing the screenplay that I chose to write because the plot was very complicated and was going to take a lot of brain power and thinking to make my way through it. Last year was very different because with Why Won't You Die Miss Tutley?, a completely outrageous off-the-wall comedy, I just sat down and wrote it with no pre-planning or notes, and let my twisted sense of humour carry me through to the end. I think I ended up writing past the 100 pages and finishing it before April 30.
Though I reached 100 pages on the deadline - as of today, I'm still writing it with plenty more to go.
April 10, 2011
I'm off and running with my next screenplay and I've decided to do Script Frenzy again this year. Script Frenzy is an online competition (you don't win anything except the satisfaction of completing a screenplay for yourself) that forces you to complete a screenplay in 30 days.
Since I am already 9 days behind, I'm going to have to write a 100 page screenplay in 20 days. My brain needed a break after editing all of my comedies and I have to switch gears to a totally different genre. I've spent the last few days writing out an air-tight plot and getting my characters in order. Now, I'm ready to write.
March 3, 2011
I have just completed the second, third and fourth re-writes of the last of my comedies that I wrote last year, 'My Mother Wants to Meet Anne Murray'. This one was especially difficult to edit because I had written so much in the first draft, that I had over 20 pages to cut to get it down to a minimum of 100 pages.
You rarely see a 2 hour comedy. 90 minutes is the norm, which is why at 100 minutes (100 pages), I am pushing the boundaries of the genre.
I am very pleased with the outcome. I was determined (with all of the comedies that I wrote) that I would not be caught in the trap of building up page-after-page to a great comedic moment every 20 minutes or so like you see in so many comedies (which is one reason why so many of them fail, especially if that big comedic moment falls flat). My laugh-a-page or laugh-a-minute strategy not only allows for that big comedic moment to happen, but also allows for character growth and dimension as they interact with one another, observational humour and physical comedy.
I'm putting the comedy to bed for now (despite the fun and success I've had doing it) and going to start doing prep work for my next screenplay - a sci-fi, then later, my bigger project - a political thriller.
As a lark, I'm going to enter all of my comedies into competitions over the next few months just to see what happens.
In orthodontic news, I now have full braces. The crozat will be gone next month and next week I'm going to start wearing elastics - the dreaded elastics that pull your teeth up and down and side to side to make them fit. I am so not looking forward to this part...
December 24, 2010
I have just completed the second and third re-writes of the first screenplay I wrote this year, 'Why Won't You Die Miss Tutley?' This was a bigger challenge than re-writing 'Postal' because I wrote the 'Tutley' script in 30 days off the top of my head, and though 100% of the plot is still intact, the characters are clearer, the narrative more crisp and the dialogue is more real. This one needed more work because it was the first one I wrote after my writer's block. By the time I had written 'Postal', I was in a groove.
The basic concept of re-writing (or editing) is the same for all screenwriters. I have developed a technique that seems to works for me. Once I finish a first draft, I print the entire screenplay out, then sit down and edit it with a pen - that's my second draft. I go back to the computer and enter my changes - and by that time, I add more changes and round out the original changes - that's my third draft. Fourth drafts usually occur after some input from an independent party whom I trust.
In the New Year, I will be beginning work on two ambitious projects in two different genres - sci-fi and political thriller, both of which I can't wait to begin.
On the orthodontic front, I now have partial braces on my upper while still wearing the crozat - 3 months earlier than I thought.The good news is I am 3 to 4 months ahead of schedule, which means they come off 3 to 4 months early. In the New Year, the crozat comes out and I get full braces on the upper. By this time next year, I hope to be at the end of treatment.
October 31, 2010
I've updated all the pages on this website, including the addition of more films to the Films page. Being Halloween, I've added a couple Hitchcock films, including Psycho.
The deadline for the CBC Literary Awardsis tomorrow. As many of you know, I was going to enter last year but abandoned the project when one of my co-workers suddenly died. Most of itwas already written. I kept the basic plot of the story, gutted the rest and took a new approach. It is now finished, however, I'm not going to submit it because it has no chance of winning. The tell-it-like-it-is, rough-edged style is definitely not in keeping with the 'literary intelligencia' style that bends the judges' ears and eyes, and thus their approval.
October 28, 2010
The summer and fall have been incredibly productive. I not only finished the first draft of the third screenplay in my comedy trilogy, 'Postal', I also completed the second draft of it.
I'm calling it a trilogy even though they have nothing to do with one another. Simply, they're all comedies and I wrote them one after the other.
In finishing these comedies, I realized that I have a certain knack for writing comedy. I guess I always have because I remember entertaining my eighth grade teacher with my comedy writing; my creative writing professor in university with it; and getting laughs with whatever I wrote whenever I read it in class. My challenge has always been towrite something more serious. Whenever I hear someone say that comedy is the hardest genre to write, I can honestly say that I have no idea what they're talking about.
And my orthodontic treatment continues: my upper arch is still being expanded by a crozat appliance; and I now have full braces on the lower. The screw in my jawbone is no longer there - it fell out, itsjob in uprighting a tooth, over. Braces on the upper in the new year. I keep telling myself, 'one more year, one more year, one more year' and it will almost be over...
July 18, 2010
I almost forgot about this icon. This was my prize forwriting a screenplay at www.scriptfrenzy.org Script Frenzy challenges writers to envision, write and complete a screenplay in 30 days. 'Winners' are those that complete the task and I did, so I get to post this nifty icon on my website.
On a more serious note, Script Frenzy was the organization that helped me to cure my agonizing writer's block. I was in desperate need of something or someone to push me forward.
Without Script Frenzy, I really don't know how long my writer's block would have continued.With no outline or any real structure, I didn't anticipate what I wrote would be any good - but after I finished, it was and it was goodbye writer's block.
July 1, 2010
Okay.... five months later since my last posting. That is good... really. It means that I have been very busy. Earlier this year, I successfully exorcised the writer's block that had completely enveloped me through much of last year. It was quite horrible. I had never experienced something like that ever before and I hope to never again. I was wondering whether I had lost it completely.
In March I sat down and with no set of characters, treatment, plot or series of beats, I just wrote until something cohesive appeared on the page. To my surprise, it worked. (I had tried this several times before as well). I forced a 30 day deadline on myself and, to quote someone (I have no idea who) "the words poured forth like liquid from a stream".
It turned out to be some of the most outrageous, over-the-top, farcical comedy I had ever written. It turned out to be "Why Won't You Die Miss Tutley?"Striking while the iron was hot, I put that one away and immediately started another - my albatross "My Mother Wants to Meet Anne Murray".again, to my surprise, it worked just as well and that one too is finished (first draft).
The source of my writer's block can be traced back to the overwhelming fear I had of everyone telling me that my screenplay "My Mother Wants to Meet Anne Murray" was like "Little Miss Sunshine". So, I avoided that by not writing it. That was a huge mistake. After I got rid of the writer's block and finished that first screenplay, I said "to hell what everyone thinks" and just wrote it - as I should have done in the first place.
I'm jumping right into my third consecutive screenplay as I write this. I'm going to continue with comedy, though this one is a bit more serious and less of a farce. This one is "Postal", about a man who works for the post office, has a mid-life crisis, quits his job, leaves his family and goes off in seach of himself and the meaning of life.
While I'm writing, I'm trying to cope withthe beginnings oforthodontic treatment, which has been trying to say the least. I have a removeable appliance on my upper arch which is a precursor to braces. I've also had a screw screwed into my jawbone - not fun. Not fun at all.
November 8, 2009
Late last month I began writing a short story for the CBC Literary Awards. A day before I was going to finish it, I received word that one of my co-workers had died in a boating accident. This itself was distressing, however, in a bizarre twist (even before I had known howmy co-workerdied) I had written how one of the characters in my story met with a similar fate. Morally and physically, I could not finish the story and thus, missed the deadline. Since this story deals with death and dying, and life and hope, I know that by continuing to write it to conclusion, it will help me deal with this sudden loss. I hope to one day finish this story, altered of course, and submit it next year.
October 19, 2009
If you're surprised to see this new version of my website, you're not alone.
Last week my web host informed me that they were no longer going to be supporting the software that I used to create my original website. So, over the past week I've been working on this new site - most of which is complete. There are still a few technical things I have to engage and more content I have to write, but for the most part it is finished. I'm impressed with the new features I can add and I'll be trying them out as I create. This was a bit of a curveball, as I intended October to be a 'writing' month. Little did I know that I would be doing writing of a different kind.
Enjoy! |
