Riding Off Into The Sunset

I've started writing again. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. For the last couple of months, I've been focused on getting my real life back on track. Getting settled into my job. Extricating myself from a bad relationship. That kind of thing. Before that I was fully immeresed in my script I was working on. I cranked it out pretty quickly and it was very theraputic, but it was a hard journey for me. That script was very close to my heart and many aspects of it were largely based on my real life. It forced me to confront a lot of feelings I had bottled up inside of me and that was a good thing, but other parts of it that I had not intended to mirror reality ended up coming scarily too close to being true. That script is in desperate need of additional pages and honestly needs a major re-write, but I can't do it right now. I need some distance from that story. I also need some unbiased input, but I'm not ready to share it with anyone else yet. Soon. But not yet... In the meantime I have not been in a writing "zone." Everyday real life has just been too all-consuming. That's not to say I haven't had story ideas bouncing around in this head of mine. Two in particular have been nagging at me. One has some basis in the reality of my past and it's a story I need to tell, but I'm not going to go there yet. So that leaves my other idea. I should be writing low-budget indie fare that would be easier to sell or that I could ultimately put together and produce myself. Fuck that. I'm not in the mood to be practical right now either. Writing is an emotional outlet for me and I need to write the story that most wants to get told. That story is currently a Western. I'm not sure where it came from, but I don't really care. I like the characters already. Many of their traits are definitely based (at least loosely) on people in my life. They have to be. It makes it easier for me to write people I know. I'm about a 1/4 of the way through the outline and this is most definitely not a low-budget project, but then by their very nature, Westerns usually aren't. There are period coustumes. Authentic sets to be built. Horses to deal with. That kinda thing. Still, I think it's a good story and that's the most important thing. I'll be happier once I get the outline done, but I'm not looking forward to the emotional turmoil this is going to put me through though. And it will. I get very involved in my writing. Somehow I don't think writing a period piece will make that part of the journey any easier. Well, let's hope it's at least an interesting trip...

"Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals." -- Don Delillo