I'm not sure why, but I usually get inspired while driving over the Queensboro Bridge.
It really doesn't make sense. It's probably the ugliest bridge in New York, on the lower roadway there is a limited view of the skyline and right now construction workers have placed a yellowed tarp over part of the bridge which looks like you're driving through a papery wasp's nest. I hate wasps, ever since I was a kid and was stung three times in 5 seconds by a sharp barbed flying menace.
But as I drive my Volvo over the disgusting span of the Queensboro (trying not to remember that scene from Escape from NY), I have a few moments alone to concentrate. It's different than laying in bed or walking down the street. Maybe it's the inebriation of a few stolen puffs, but I start dreaming. Driving forward from Queens to Manhattan is moving forward, from the low ghettoes to the flying skyscrapers. It's not unlike taking my ideas for movies, books or plays and pushing them forward from the dregs of my plotting braing into the stark dare-to-be-great reality.
That's where this post came from. Last night, while my Volvo squeeked over the bridge, I thought of listing everything I had ideas for and using it as a springboard to actually
accomplishing one or more of them. Something's been bothering me lately. I fear that I have too many ideas. Sounds stupid, I know, but I fear that I have too many projects I want to complete and that it paralyzes me into accomplishing nothing. Just look at the nouns I use to describe myself. I am truthfully a playwright, a screenwriter, a stand-up comic, a journalist, an author and a producer. My projects sometimes intersect my identities, I want to write a short film and probably produce it myself. Or I have this idea for a documentary about stand-up comedy. But I feel spread thin. I hope this list will focus my energies.
- Creation Play. This is where a lot of effort has gone lately. I have been editing and rewriting this play for over four years and I think it's ready for at least a workshop type production. I've thought to book an engagement at the Red Room but haven't had the balls to actually do it. That will change. I will have balls!
- Complete Works. This is a sci-fi play set in New York after a nuclear apocalypse. It's Mad Max meets Shakespeare in Love. I've written the 1st act, which will probably be changed. Right now there are too many characters and I need to streamline the plot. This needs to be shaped up for a reading, maybe I can set a date for that soon.
- Work. MOvie about my time at Ivoryton and the Beach club. Been finished for a while but I got some feedback from some peops and it needs to be revised. The 1st act should be completely changed and I'm thinking about deleting the voiceover.
- Untitled Freshman movie. I love this idea lately. A teen comedy set in 1992 with music by Belly, The Pixies, The Breeders and the Throwing Muses. I have the first act pretty clearly sketched out in my brain, I just need to get it down on paper.
- Gogol movie (Diary of a Madman is a bad title I think now). Mr. Savage and I wrote this a while back but it's fallen by the wayside. I started revising it again last but stopped because of personal reasons. It's too good of an idea to give up though.
- Road Trip Movie. I wrote the first act of this movie loosely based on my Brother and I driving across country in his VW bus. Needs to be finished.
- Car Service short film. I got this idea during the last film contest I did and I've been meaning to write it for a while. My Volvo makes the craziest sounds and I think it'd be funny if a guy started his own Car service in his brookyn neighborhood with a crappy car.
- Stand Up documentary. I love the stand-up scene in New York, and although there have been a few docs about the process lately (Seinfeld's comedian, The Aristocrats) I think they are ignoring the little guy, ie. me. Of all my ideas, I actually think this one has the greatest potential to make money. It's like i have the bullet point of a pitch already floating in my brain. I should move forward on this one.
- Fantasy novel(s). I've been making progress in crafting the first volume of a fantasy trilogy set in a world of my devising. After I wrote a few chapters, I relaised I needed more backstory and went back to creating more details. I think now I need to write a short story based on the world to set the page.
- Fantasy short story. I know the basic story I want to tell. It will cement a lot of details about Dwenelen. Now I just need to write it.
- Article about Penciltopia. I think my friends are doing something amazing with running programs to teach kids about stop-motion animation. It's something I think people would want to read about and it might even make me some money in the process :). I need to finish writing an informed query letter pitching the idea to good magazines.
- Articles. So far, the only money I've received from writing have been from writing about video games for online publications. I need t use the Writer's market and start coming up with ne and better ideas for articles. And then write the query letters for them.
I've written these kind of lists before. Sometimes they help keep me on pace, sometimes they serve as reminders to flog myself for not accomplishing any of them. Whatever happens, this list will remain in the internets for all time. Perhaps 100 years from now, someone will read it and wonder where that crazy Bob Jingle ended up.
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