Writing and animation.
The Post department at Lone Wolf has been in rather a slow spell lately, although we’re due to pick up again, now that we’ve entered another shoot season. The good news there is that with fewer stresses at work, I’ve felt freer to explore my own art and design.
This time around, however, that creative drive hasn’t manifested itself in the visual or film arts— yet. In days long past, I fancied myself a writer; to this day I diligently keep a personal journal, and enjoy writing long letters. In high school I was a poet dabbling in short fiction, however, and I’ve always been sad to have strayed from that kind of work, leaving behind so embarrassing a legacy.
Writing creatively— for me, anyhow— is a tough and involved process. The idea is the first roadblock I always face, and in the last six or seven years that’s been where the process stalls. I’d get too prissy about my environment; get too distracted by my music or other sounds in the house (and subsequently by the silence after I turn everything off). It’s always so easy to find a reason not to write. But recently I read an article by one of my favorite people, Cory Doctorow, co-editor of BoingBoing.net that really helped me reevaluate my writing process, and away I go.
Right now I’m thinking novella, something around ninety and a hundred twenty pages. My hope is that from the fiction I’ll be able to one day adapt a screenplay without sacrificing too many details. Tentatively, the story is called Sean & Sean.
Sean awakens one morning to discover that he’s no longer alone in his apartment. Another Sean, identical in every way, has inexplicably split from the other amidst some painful and confusing nightmare. With no clear “original” between the two there is no clear priority; Sean and Sean share an apartment, a job, a girlfriend, an entire life. At first, keeping this disaster a secret will be easy enough, but the longer the two Seans coexist, the more their personalities will inevitably diverge.
“This is my apartment.”I’m going to try a method based on Doctorow’s tips to actually finish this story. I’ve got several beats laid out already, so hopefully I won’t be at a loss for plot elements. All that’s missing is the ending…
”It’s not.”
”I’m pretty goddamned sure it is,” Sean pressed. “Just… just cut the shit and tell me who you are and why you were on my floor.”
The other sat up against the leg of the bedside table, just a little, cautiously. The table grunted back an inch under his weight, startling the both of them. “After you tell me why you look exactly like me.”
The two considered each other stonily. In times of great stress, the mind shifts gears, reevaluating priorities on the most basic level; inspiring the heart to beat is more important than trigonometry. As Sean’s ass became numb, pressed awkwardly as it was between the floor and the doorjamb, his brain threw that switch, and he blinked.
Sean sighed, a tingling lump growing in his throat. “My name is Sean Carson. I still don’t get this bullshit here, but I am about to piss myself.”
In other news, I’m going to be working on an animation job for my supervisor, Corey Norman. He’s working on a short-form series called “The Outsider,” and as it happens he needs a title sequence. After Effects to the rescue. It’ll be awfully nice to flex those muscles again.
