wilderworks

I worked all weekend on the treatment for Sick Day , but I only made it slightly into the second act. Starting yesterday afternoon, after I made dinner, the exhaustive detail of the thing started to weigh on me. I took a nap and felt exhausted by the size of it. It will be a thirty-page scriptment at this rate, and I simply don't know whether that is for the best or not. Moving backward through time, Unpredictable had a full treatment, but it was so overlong, plot-wise, that it was vastly and explosively revised as I wrote the screenplay. By the end, the script and the treatment has diverged in very serious ways. That was okay. The only problem was, the script was also okay. Nothing more. I can't afford to do that again. With Gravedigger's Son , I'd written and re-written that treatment a hundred times, several times from scratch. I'd tried writing it as a novel. I'd started on the script as many as three times before realizing that I'd missed the boat ...

Is This What's Been Missing? This evening, I followed my own instruction and I scribbled down everything I knew about Sick Day. I did so in the sloppiest, most freeform manner I could muster. I put Fletch Lives on Netflix streaming, which chased away my intellect completely, and I doodled down the movie. Until that moment, I'd honestly forgotten about all the scribbling and doodling I've done on my past screenplays. But tonight, in pieces, I remembered sitting in the LA courthouse hallway, waiting through at jury duty, drawing circles around ideas for Zaniness Ensues . I remembered sitting in backseat of my car, in the rain, on break from my all-night hospital job, scribbling as quickly as I could in cursive, until I sorted out Blaring Static . I remembered laying on my stomach on the carpet, drawing lines all over dozens of notebook pages, until I cracked the third act of Storybook Park , which became Gravedigger's Son . I remembered the rush I felt each...

1095 Days Later... Three years ago, a producer gave us $5000. I'll call him Sheldon. (It's not his real name). In exchange, he entered into a "joint-venture" production of a short film based on my script, and won a three-year option on my feature-length screenplay. We'll pretend the name of that script was Zaniness Ensues.  It wasn't a great deal, but a starving man doesn't turn his nose up at a stinky Twinkie. When I signed, I made sure the dates all said January 2007, so the contract would extend 1095 days from cashing the check. Over the last months of 2009, Sheldon discussed that impending expiration date on at least two occasions. January came and went. No word from Sheldon. I was free. I started making plans. I had control of my screenplay and my short film again. I would finish the edit and send it to competitions. I would cash-in my few connections and get a packet out to agents, a packet including Zaniness Ensues . I  would leverage...

My first two years out of college, I wrote five feature-length screenplays. I'd written endless skits, I'd written 21 episodes of television, but I'd never written a feature-length screenplay before. I started writing the first, Intelligence in the last months of college. I finished writing the fifth, A Darkling Plane , in my first months back from Harlem. I thought, if it didn't do the trick, I was probably done. It didn't do the trick. In my third year out of college, I was back home. I traveled around hanging Christmas decorations. I moved to California. And I finished one screenplay, Storybook Park . I felt, if it didn't do the trick, I was probably done. It didn't do the trick. This time, I hit a bump. For two years, I haven't written any new features. For two years, I didn't even start one. I kept tearing up the old scripts, starting on vast revisions that lost steam half-way through. I failed to fix Storybook Park , then I failed ...

I met with Gordy Hoffman concerning Storybook Park . Despite his assertion that the present engine of the story (that is, Baron), needs to be fully excised with a thick rim of healthy skin, he didn't believe that should be my next move. Quite literally, he said I needed to drop all the bullshit, fuck all the short-films, ignore the people who want me to make sci-fi or thrillers, and write a high concept romantic comedy, and get it out there. Which means, drop all the crap... He wasn't overly excited by the Cusp of Aquarius pitch, though I don't believe I did a very good job of pitching it. Frankly, I did a terrible job, because, as always, I haven't yet figured out how to explain it, since I haven't yet figured out how to write it. I sent him an e-mail yesterday with a stripped down pitch for The Jumpers , and I've been allowing myself to think it's a brilliant idea, when boiled down to the core. I hope I'll hear back from him soon, so he can p...

So much to do, and so few people to share it with... Some people will follow small snatches of this update, but in whole, this post means nothing to nobody but me. I wish it did. I want to revise the main Misplaced Planet page (it's already 25% done, in secret). I want my sounds and audio page up, playing MP3s. I want lyrics restored to the writing section. I want my productions page upgraded. I want Storybook Park to have its own animation on WilderWorks . I want my Bio and Resume section to not look silly anymore.  I want Stirling to send me a new design for OMKF , so I can implement the many changes I've imagined for it. We have our podcast up, transmitting video, which for now means Brains!! We have the trailer up for the horror movie, Antebellum . We have a composer working on the score for Momentary Engineering . We have the script for the Sci-Fi Short Film Contest hammered out, and that's probably g...

RE: STORYBOOK PARK & A DARKLING PLANE Congratulations! You have been chosen as a quarter-finalist in the 12th Annual Writer’s Network Screenplay & Fiction Competition . Your submissions received very high marks in both storytelling and concept . As one of 661 quarter-finalists advancing to this stage out of over 1,800 entrants, you will now compete for the semi-finalist round of the competitition. We will notify all semi-finalists by mail no later than November 30. If you’d like to view a list of the quarter-finalists or the upcoming semi-finalists for the 12th Annual Writers Network Screenplay & Fiction Competition, please visit www.fadeinonline.com after November 30, 2005.

Revision 3 of Storybook Park is finally finished. I've never worked on a screenplay, without interruption, for so long. And I still love it. The vastly revised, improved, and completed version is right here. MY INTENT? Magical realism. Everything should be slightly elevated. Characters should speak a little more interestingly than real people. Images should be a little more crisp. It's a romantic comedy. Sub-genre, fantasy adventure. It should get your heart going, make you laugh, leave you believing in love, or at least aching for it. It should be a fun ride, but should offer up deeper, simpler truths, when reflected upon. WHAT'S IT ABOUT? First, it's about following a dream, a goal, a desire, even to doom, or the grave, even if it seems clear there's nothing to be had at the end. Otherwise, life is backing into the grave, moved by fear, by what is unwanted. This is about questioning reality and answering dreams. About passionately following som...

Congratulations J. Wilder Konschak, "Storybook Park" has reached the Quarterfinalist round in the 2005 Slamdance Screenplay Competition. We received over 2,000 submissions and 200 of the best have been selected for the quarterfinals.

So, I guess I got a job. And I guess I start Monday. And I guess it's not too far of a drive, and they won't make me pay for parking, and it's full time, and it's enough to pay all my bills, with a tad to spare. So I guess I should be pleased. But I wish I could get over this week's intense case of writer's block. I'm going to take a break from Storybook Park , I believe. At least until I get more feedback, more inspiration. It feels too much like beating my head against a wall, and I don't want to kill it. Caroline should soon be back from Peru and points beyond, meaning I can return to work on Insignificant Others . Meanwhile, I've been working on the Misplaced Planet Website . Once I have that in a presentable shape again, I'll move on to cleaning up my own website... Don't know why. Guess it counts as a hobby.

What a week it has been. I had my first and last day of work on Monday.  On Tuesday , a management company requested one of my screenplays, one that needed revision.  Wednesday I had another interview, this one with a company I really liked (and probably will never hear from again) called Sobini Films.   Thursday I finished three non-stop days of revision on Storybook Park , though it was technically 8 AM Friday morning. And Friday I mailed it. Also, somewhere in there, news came down that the director is still interested in Insignificant Others after reading my writing sample, Ladies & Gentlemen . Which puts that on the pressure cooker for the next big race to the finish. Next week, I'm back to sending out resumes, and trying to get the car insured.

But it's the difference between night and day to me.

I cracked into the long-ignored file folder for Storybook Park and found a two-page snippet of prose that I'd completely forgotten having written. It seemed so unfamiliar, I wondered for a moment whether I'd actually written it. Maybe I'd just clipped it from online for inspiration. But no. I wrote it. I recall doing so. In Princeton. In Marguerite's bed. On her laptop. It's quite good in parts (awful in others), but somehow it captures the thrill I had about the idea that night. These words that I looked at only once, half-asleep, more than a year ago, capture the seed of the story I now need to tell. In those two pages, the stale concept that's been stewing on my back burner is fresh, intact, and exciting. I am grateful to have it. I hope it will drive me to begin, and guide me to finish. My ten thousand dollar short is shot. My fifth screenplay, which took almost a year, which I swore would make or break me, is off to competitions and agent...