Knocked on the ground and looking up

In my first High School English class I decided I AM A WRITER. It came easily, I enjoyed it, I thought I was good at it. I read books like some people drink water, I can easily put my thoughts onto paper and in reality, writing made me feel good. It is instant gratification. You have some thoughts, you write them down for a little while and then...viola! You instantly have a product. It's invigorating.

In my first college film studies class I decided that I KNOW MOVIES. I watch them enough and I enjoy analyzing them. I loved taking apart a movie scene by scene, character by character and viewing the insides. I loved sitting in the library, or my basement or my room and reading about Jung's archetypal figures and how the chacaters in the Batman movies represent those figures. Then reading about how each Batman movie is a reflection of society at that time. How Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes is in part an answer to the Nuclear "Beaver Cleaver" Family.

From this I decided that I wanted to write screenplays. I wrote stories, poems, analyzed films. I can write a screenplay then, right?

4 years later and 5 unfinished "screenplays" I have a not so rude awakening. I don't know how to write a screenplay. Not at all. NOT EVEN CLOSE. So now here I am humbly reading screen writing 101 and feeling like I know NOTHING. I'm a little embarrassed and allot excited. I am writing more than I have written in a long time, I am learning a new technique and in the process I am learning about myself. As cheesy as that sounds it is true. That is what has always been so invigorating to me about writing. When I write I force myself to not only examine the world around me but truly examine my own thoughts and feelings. This is something I don't do on a regular basis but when the pen hits the paper thoughts, feelings, emotions I have not acknowledged flood out.

This fall marks a new beginning, a fresh start in my world of writing. Wish me luck.