  *sigh* Why is writing so hard? One of my classes this semester is screenwriting II, in which we are supposed to produce, by the end of semester, a full length screenplay for a feature. While I am happy to have the motivation of not looking like a fool in front of the whole class and wasting my expensive tuition to get me to the final draft 6 and writing like a writing-maniac.. it doesn't mean anything that I write is any good. At all. God. I just don't get fully formed idea's ready to transform into feature films in six easy steps.
Or 12, or 24. I'm somewhat familiar with my own writing process. I will start off with an idea - usually a really bad one - and pound away at it for a few weeks, re-shaping it into something somewhat decent. At some point, inspiration will strike, and I will know that I'm on to a good thing, the story and the beats of that story will somehow finally become clear in my mind. I can then sit down at the computer and in one fell swoop, write something that I can feel is pretty good. Of course, there's fine tuning needed here and there.. I do have a tendency towards the cliche. But overall, I will be able to keep the main structure of the story. This time, however, it's been different. I've been happy to trundle along, with no solid story line in my mind for these past six weeks of class, trusting inspiration to find me and fire me up.
It's just not happening though. My second set of twenty pages are due on tuesday and I have No. Frigging. Idea of what to write. I've been trying to build a story around a character, and maybe that's my problem there. I started with a really strong sense of a character, but no sense of the situation. Usually i go the other way round, or the character comes to me out of the situation, if that makes sense.
I don't pretend to be the greatest writer, or even a very good one, but I know that every now and then I write something that I don't hate so much. I kind of want to do that again, this semester. Because it feels good to do that. It feels good when the words start flowing. It feels good when the character comes alive to you, and it's like everything just unfurls, movie-like, in your heard.
One keystroke follows another, effect follows cause, and your story and images are laid out on paper, exactly how you imagined them. Your story conveys your own personal themes and ideologies.. That's what I want to do. Maybe I'll scrap everything I've written and start over again. Maybe it's time to kill my children, so to speak, and start anew? 
