In Search of Citizen Z.E.D.

Two types of movies that I lose patience with very quickly: time travel, and "found footage."

So, needless to say, a project that came to me a while back, and which now has a title (see above), is both a time travel story and a "found footage" one.

I'm really excited about it, because I've finally managed to think up a story that I think will address a couple of issues that I think are important, and do so in an engaging and entertaining way, without becoming preachy.

Beyond that, I don't really want to say much more right now. It's still in the early stages. Next step will be to write a treatment for it, and that will require some more thought.

In the mean time I intend to focus on this idea for a short, "Niobe," which I will begin plugging away on as soon as I post this update.

I've finished the first draft of Two Many Tonys and I'm letting it sit for a little while, as I work on these other things. By the time I come back to it hopefully I'll be able to read over it with fresh eyes and know what changes need to be made--beyond those that resulted in me changing my mind about some things as I was banging it out.

So, I'll be plotting and writing "Niobe," treating In Search of Citizen Z.E. D., and trying not to allow any more projects crowd my already limited attention. It's not easy. For some reason I've been coming up with other ideas that I really like, and older ideas I've had are sort of waking up and clamoring for my attention, too. One of the curses of doing what I do, I guess.

Anyways, time to work on this short thing, and hopefully manage to pound out something that'll be both engaging and under twenty minutes or so in length.

And watch football. Because I just can't help myself.

Projects on deck, in queue, and at bat . . .

Okay, a more normal posting from me now, about what I've been up to lately.

I'm maybe 2/3 of the way through the alpha draft of a screenplay for a mystery that I'm calling Too Many Tonys. I call it an alpha draft because it's not quite together enough to be considered a first draft. I've changed my mind about some key plot elements and I'll have to straighten all that out with a rewrite later. Right now, if somebody besides me read it, it wouldn't make much sense, because of that.

Once I get to the "Fade out:" for that project I'm going to put it aside for a couple of weeks to work on a short project I'm calling Niobe. It's more of a drama, and I don't expect it to be longer than 10 script pages. Maybe less. It's going to take some intense concentration on my part to get it down to that short because I've got a lot of story to tell and I'm not giving myself much time to tell it. It'll take some thinking to get it down to that length without making the story seem choppy. I'm also planning, eventually, to shoot this one myself, which is another consideration. That won't be until sometime next year, though, at the earliest. I'm not going to be setting this one aside--I'm going to focus on it until it's done.

Then, once I'm done with that script, I'll jump back onto Too Many Tonys and begin the rewriting process. Within a couple months hopefully I'll have this baby to the point where I can copyright it and register it with the Screenwriter's Guild.

After that, I've got another short project I want to do--this one is more horror than anything. I'm calling it Inside, and it's based on my own song of the same title. I plan on shooting this one myself, as well. I'm expecting it to be around 10 pages or so in length.

By that time I should be ready to start on this project that, right now, has me a bit intimidated. I don't have a title for it yet, but it'll be a science fiction piece that involves time travel. Yes, I know I've said I hate time travel stories, but this is such a good idea . . . anyway, it's one of those stories that could really make some statements I feel need to be made, and be entertaining at the same time. It's also going to take some intricate plotting, and the pacing is going to be especially tricky. It's one of those things that'll either be great, or really suck. There won't be any in-between.

Then there's another drama about a preacher with something to hide, based on a short story I wrote years ago, that I think would make a decent little movie.

At this point it gets a bit nebulous, but I do have some things I'm considering--most of these would require me acquiring the movie rights so they'd fall into the area of pipe dreams at this time:

• A prequel to the Predator movies
• An adaptation of Michael Moorcock's The War Hound and the World's Pain
• An adaptation of the Karl Edward Wagner and David Drake novel, Killer
• A romcom about a couple who has been living together for over a decade deciding to get married--and the Queen of England winds up attending the wedding (due to various and sundry hijinks and escapades . . .)
• A "bitter home boy" story set in a small Southern town I'm calling Misery Creek.
• A horror movie set on a space ship

Of course, all of this is subject to change. Hopefully I'll live long enough--and somehow find the time and money--to do all this. We'll see . . .

Hopefully this will clear up some of the confusion . . .

I was chatting with my goddaughter the other day, and we were discussing movies that are out now and which one, if any, I should see. She suggested Pan. I told her that I don't particularly care for Peter Pan.

She was aghast, and horrified, and thought I couldn't love her anymore because she adores Peter Pan. I told her that, first of all, I don't hate  Peter Pan, it's just not something I care for. Also, she is free to continue loving it all she wants, and I'd even watch the movie with her if she wants. I also explained that I don't expect her to like the same things that I like, and she's free to watch or read or listen to whatever she wants, as long as she enjoys it.

She accepted this and was overjoyed that we might get to see Pan together.

My goddaughter is 11 years old, and even she could grasp a concept that seems to elude an awful lot of people these days.

Choice:

 the act of choosing : the act of picking or deciding between two or more possibilities: the opportunity or power to choose between two or more possibilities : the opportunity or power to make a decision: a range of things that can be chosen

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/choice

See, I've been seeing all these memes on Facebook posted by people who oppose abortion about how it's the first step in eliminating people who may oppose those in power. It's just another tool for keeping people down. This from mostly people on the far right.

Of course, for something like this to work, abortion would have to be mandatory. There would be police officers rounding pregnant women up to force them into clinics to have abortions. While I've seen that happen in other places in the world, I just don't see it happening here anytime soon.

See, what gets their dander up is choice. They don't seem to understand that just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you must do something. If something is legal they seem to think it's mandatory.

This is one of the tools in the lunatic fringe's toolbox. They did the same thing with marriage equality--skipping right over the fact that all it does is give gays the right to marry each other, and making it seem like it's required now, for everybody, or will be in the future.

The folks who buy into this seem to have problems grasping that concept. It's not just politically, either--if you don't like the movies they like, or the food, or whatever, they think there's something wrong with you, not that you just don't care for it.

So, here's my deal. You can marry who you want, you can go to whichever church you want, you can believe politically whatever you want, you can read whatever books or see whatever movies you want. The fact that I may disagree with you is not a slap in your face, and the fact that you may make decisions that I wouldn't make is not offensive to me.

But when you decide that you know what's best for me, and use lies and misinformation to try to limit the choices I can make simply because you don't like them, it's a step too far, and then I will get offended, and I will say something.

So, please, understand what the word choice means. Use it in a sentence. Try to apply it in your daily life.

If you still don't get it I know an 11 year old who could probably explain it to you.