Where do you write and what do you use?

Started by Adam0199, March 19, 2003, 11:27:21 PM

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Slick Shoes


Weak2ndAct

Usually store ideas and scenes in my noggin for a really long time, let it gestate like some mental illness or virus.  Then I write out a vague outline on a single scrap of paper to see if the general structure is there.  I won't start a script until I know the title, have a good opening, and a definite ending.  Then I find mood music, or make a mix-cd of what I'm going for, then play it on repeat indefinitely.  I then bust out Final Draft 5 and go to work, as scenes and ideas often change and take on a life of their own as the work progresses.  The work is very concentrated, all night and all day for a couple weeks max.  Then months of sloth and depression.  Rinse.  Repeat.

SHAFTR

I'm a horrible writer.  I normally get all my writing done 1am - 4am on my computer in my small little room.  Either music or I'll have a movie playing in a window next to my Final Draft window.
"Talking shit about a pretty sunset
Blanketing opinions that i'll probably regret soon"

kotte

My habits have changed since I bought a laptop.

I sit around coffeshops and put down notes on a pad for maybe a month. That will usually give me a good idea of what the story and characters will be. The next step is, again, sitting around coffeshops with the computer 'till it's done.

I bought the laptop not long ago and haven't actually gone through these steps yet but that's how I imagine it'll be.


I LOVE this thread. Let's keep it going. There are lots of new members that haven't posted here. Isn't there...?

molly

If i'd sit in a coffeeshop with a laptop on, people would think i'm:
1)out of my mind
2)stuck-up missy
3)some secret agent

If i'd sit in a coffeeshop with a notebook and pencil, but not pretending to copy sth from a book, or writing something for work or studying, people would think i'm some secret agent.
Very Coen-ic.

kotte

so you're out of your luck if you want to get outside your apartment? That's crap.


Or let people think your crazy or...wouldn't be cool to have people think you're a secret agent. Just go along with it and dress up in a black pants suit and shaded glasses.

The Perineum Falcon

All of my writings go through an identity crisis an 8th of the way through and then I have no idea what I'm trying to convey with it. And then I'll watch extraordinary movie or something and wish I could write something like that, try it on for size, and fail horribly. Yeah, that's a bad way of doing things.

But here lately, I've been trying to avoid that as best I can. I've been following the school of thought: "Don't get it right, get it written." So, I basically write entire scenes as they come to me and later on paste them in the order I think they're supposed to go. If I don't have an entire scene finished in my head I'll grab a note card and scribble down a rough idea of where I want to go with the characters.
The latest edition of my story is coming along rather nicely.

Quote from: mollyIf i'd sit in a coffeeshop with a laptop on, people would think i'm:

3)some secret agent

If i'd sit in a coffeeshop with a notebook and pencil, but not pretending to copy sth from a book, or writing something for work or studying, people would think i'm some secret agent.
Very Coen-ic.
Sounds interesting. Make a short out of that.
We often went to the cinema, the screen would light up and we would tremble, but also, increasingly often, Madeleine and I were disappointed. The images had dated, they jittered, and Marilyn Monroe had gotten terribly old. We were sad, this wasn't the film we had dreamed of, this wasn't the total film that we all carried around inside us, this film that we would have wanted to make, or, more secretly, no doubt, that we would have wanted to live.

MacGuffin

Quote from: mollyIf i'd sit in a coffeeshop with a laptop on, people would
3)some secret agent

But I'd think you were a very bad agent to type up secret files in a very public area.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

molly

Quote from: MacGuffin
Quote from: mollyIf i'd sit in a coffeeshop with a laptop on, people would
3)some secret agent

But I'd think you were a very bad agent to type up secret files in a very public area.

the wouldn't think of that. They would be busy thinking i'm taking notes about them.

Spike

When I have a good idea or a good character description or just something else that crosses my mind I just write it down with a pencil on a scrap of paper. I have tons of such scraps. Then I sit down in front of my computer and try to put the stuff together. Usually I'm writing in Microsoft Word and I don't have any problems with it.
Often I let a movie run, I actually never heard to music while writing. I also don't have to think extremely about dialogues because most of the stuff I do is horror.  :twisted:
"We're gonna celebrate St. Suck-My-Big-Fat-Fucking-Sausage'a!!!"

Stefen

I usually think of actors I would like to be in the company of. From there I think of situations I would like to see said actors in. I've never finished a screenplay, I try and try but end up getting bored of what im writing and think of a new idea, usually 40 or 50 pages in. Before I start I always make a cd of what I want the soundtrack to be. From there I bust out word and never use a title, it's always titled "Untitled" for some reason I feel a title is a constraint and whenever I title a screenplay I always find myself trying to write it for the title. Music or a movie is always playing the background, usually alcohol is being consumed, and that may be the reason I never finish anything.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

cron

context, context, context.

Ordet

Don't you hated when you are just thinking a shit load before you go to bed and then all these cool concepts strike you and then you're like cool and then you are also tired and then you're like shit I gotta get up and write this shit and you do it and wait a little to see if something else pops out and it doesn't so you go back to bed happy about the cool ideas you wrote and then you get in your bed again and you start thinking again more and more and everything suddenly becomes clear and you understand everything and you're falling asleep and bang! The idea that will revolutionize cinema and mankind hits you. And you're like fuck yeah I'm really tired I'll write tomorrow this shit is great. I cant forget this, this is to good nobody cant forget this and you fall asleep and you wake up and cant remember that great idea.
were spinning

ono

Yeah, I really hate that.  I find inspiration tends to strike in four places: before or during sleep, in the shower, on the can, or walking to and from where you got to go.  And none of those places are contingent to actually getting down what you need to to remember it all.

SoNowThen

Quote from: OnomatopoeiaI find inspiration tends to strike in the shower

YES!!! I sometimes I like to just sit in the shower for hours and do thinking/acting out scenes. This only works when your water bill is already included in your rent, btw...
Those who say that the totalitarian state of the Soviet Union was not "real" Marxism also cannot admit that one simple feature of Marxism makes totalitarianism necessary:  the rejection of civil society. Since civil society is the sphere of private activity, its abolition and replacement by political society means that nothing private remains. That is already the essence of totalitarianism; and the moralistic practice of the trendy Left, which regards everything as political and sometimes reveals its hostility to free speech, does nothing to contradict this implication.

When those who hated capital and consumption (and Jews) in the 20th century murdered some hundred million people, and the poster children for the struggle against international capitalism and America are now fanatical Islamic terrorists, this puts recent enthusiasts in an awkward position. Most of them are too dense and shameless to appreciate it, and far too many are taken in by the moralistic and paternalistic rhetoric of the Left.