Holy F-ing God! I haven't been sick like this week in a long, long time. It got so bad that I thought I was going to head to the ER last weekend not because of the illness but rather because I was worried I'd overdosed on medication. Remember, folks, you can take only so much Tylenol and Theraflu before it works against you.
But now that I'm better, I need to get my ass back to the task of writing, and that includes revisions on a new short story that I hope to have out on submission runs by the end of the month.
I've also begun reaching out to LA venues to give readings of Unholy Spirits. Out of five that I emailed on Friday, one wasn't looking to do repeat performers just yet and another has quite a backlog at the moment. Roar Shack has me down for October - perfect timing for Unholy Spirits - another venues is reviewing the story, and a fifth one still needs to get back to me.
I've also got about a dozen or so other places to reach out to. For now, I decided to start things off by reaching out to places where I at least had a contact name. We'll see where those lead.
About Mario
- Mario Piumetti
- Born and raised in Los Angeles, Mario Piumetti is a freelance writer of science fiction, horror, screenplays, and nonfiction. He has a bachelor's degree in English from California Lutheran University and an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University. An avid music lover, his work is heavily influenced by rock, punk, and metal. You can contact him at mario.piumetti.writer@gmail.com.
Monday, February 9, 2015
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Screwy Screenplays
I don't know if it's the cold talking or what (sick twice in one month, folks!), but I just haven't had my heart in this screenplay I've been working on for some time now.
Quick recap: last summer, when I met my boss at the entertainment company I interned for, he suggested I submit my own material, even without an agent. "Lord knows you've earned it," he said. At that point, I'd covered about 70 scripts, 150 by the time I left in November, and had shown a solid understanding of what makes a good and a bad script. Even came up with a little shorthand for my reports; if my comments began with "there's no sugarcoating this..." then chances are it sucks.
It wasn't until August a few months after that first meeting that an idea came to mind that I thought would make a pretty decent screenplay. I sent the synopsis and later the outline, and then I got to work writing the first draft. I figured it can't be as hard as writing fiction, right?
Wrong. It's harder.
Writing a screenplay and enjoying a screenplay are two different things. Of course, I used to say the same thing about writing fiction. Screenwriting was decidedly never an option for me until recently, the logic being that that, growing up in Los Angeles, I knew that everyone had a movie to peddle; even your grandparents' cat Muffy wrote one. The earliest stories I wrote were terrible, but I got better at it over time.
So am I abandoning screenwriting? Not exactly. I am going to abandon this screenplay I was working on. My heart hasn't been in it for a while. Instead, I'm taking a step back and hacking away at smaller scenes to build up my muscles.
Quick recap: last summer, when I met my boss at the entertainment company I interned for, he suggested I submit my own material, even without an agent. "Lord knows you've earned it," he said. At that point, I'd covered about 70 scripts, 150 by the time I left in November, and had shown a solid understanding of what makes a good and a bad script. Even came up with a little shorthand for my reports; if my comments began with "there's no sugarcoating this..." then chances are it sucks.
It wasn't until August a few months after that first meeting that an idea came to mind that I thought would make a pretty decent screenplay. I sent the synopsis and later the outline, and then I got to work writing the first draft. I figured it can't be as hard as writing fiction, right?
Wrong. It's harder.
Writing a screenplay and enjoying a screenplay are two different things. Of course, I used to say the same thing about writing fiction. Screenwriting was decidedly never an option for me until recently, the logic being that that, growing up in Los Angeles, I knew that everyone had a movie to peddle; even your grandparents' cat Muffy wrote one. The earliest stories I wrote were terrible, but I got better at it over time.
So am I abandoning screenwriting? Not exactly. I am going to abandon this screenplay I was working on. My heart hasn't been in it for a while. Instead, I'm taking a step back and hacking away at smaller scenes to build up my muscles.
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