by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I continue to drift towards my goal of finishing a novel so I can query it in the fall of 2024 — just as the so-called “Fourth Turning” is going to happen. Ugh. Anyway, I also want to have a fall back “second creative track.” As such, I’ve decided that screenwriting is going to be it.
Just as I have used Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played With Fire” as my “textbook” for the novel I’m writing, so, too, do I plan to use Charlie Kaufman’s “The Enteral Sunshine of The Spotless Mind” as my “textbook” for screenwriting. I think I’m probably going to do something similar with the Star Wars screenplay at some point soon.
I need to understand how to properly read a screenplay. I’ve already found bouncing back and forth between novel writing and screenwriting has helped my writing a lot. Something about thinking about how to structure a screenplay aids in helping me see things in a different way with the novel.
Anyway, something about the fall / winter season coming (along with a lot of more darkness) has caused me to feel a little unnerved. I’m still faraway, so close with the novel. It’s fun to just totally switch gears on a creative level and read about something completely different and new, while staying within the general writing skillset.
I hate the fact that I don’t have enough structure in my life. I have a rather idyllic situation going on at the moment and I spend way too much of my time just daydreaming and drifting towards my goal.
What’s more, I know damn well that this unusual — a great — situation that I find myself in can last for only so long. Something is going to throw everything out of whack soon enough and I’ll be smarting that I didn’t squeeze out every once of creativity I could when I had the opportunity.
I wonder what it will be. Maybe it will be The Fourth Turning, maybe it will be having to go underground when weaponized ICE agents start to hunt me down for thinking ding-dong Tyrant Trump is a fucking cocksucker.
