Matthew 13 Blog

I must admit, gentle reader, I'm one of those people. When shopping at a particular online store, named after a great river and rain forest, if I happen to hit the "check out" button and receive a message informing me that I must spend just a little more of my hard earned cash to qualify for free shipping, I spend the money. I spend it each and every time. Super Saver Shipping has got to be one of the most ingenious concepts that a retailer has thought of since some baker way back when asked himself, "What if, instead of selling these huge awkward loaves, we sliced the bread?". It does not matter if I have to spend ten more dollars or ten more cents, I will spend (or if I'm real honest with you, over spend) that extra amount to qualify for the free shipping. It's not just that I need an excuse to spend money on myself, I think it actually makes some sense. I tend to look at the situation this way. I could buy one item and pay the money to have it ...

Writer's Block. The two most dreaded words in the writer's lexicon. Never before have two words combined to cause so much pain, frustration, and self doubt. It's like quicksand. One minute you're strolling around the jungle looking at all the pretty trees and wildlife, the next, you are waist deep in muck that is pulling you down into the unknown depths with seemingly no way to get out of it. The blank page may be a mighty adversary for the writer to overcome, but writer's block is some monster out of the ultimate nightmare that literally kills many a story in almost any stage of development. It is the other silent killer, of dreams. Three days into my first attempt to write a feature length screenplay, I was face to face with it, and I was loosing. On my journey to go from an aspiring, to a real, live, honest to goodness, filmmaker, I found myself stopped out on day 2 of what I had hoped would be a 21 day process. That process of course being the one found ...

So, when last we met, gentle reader, I was basking in the glow of a successful first day of my 21 day schedule to write a feature length screenplay. But even I felt the warmth of success wash over me, I must admit I had a concern or two going into the second day. I knew that Day 2 was going to hold some challenges for me. However, I was unaware of how much of an understatement the word "challenges" was going to be. While in the process of doing the prep work of writing a screenplay, author Viki King has the reader, (and in this case the writer), lay down some structure for the forth coming work of art. More specifically, she has the reader write down certain events, that will take place over the course of their movie, onto specific pages. For example, what event will happen on page 1? How about page 10 or on page 30? In this way, a type of outline of the movie is formed. Essentially, before the reader/writer types a single word, they are already aware of what page wil...