“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”   ― Ernest Hemingway

Fourteen years ago, I had the idea to write a screenplay.

I finished writing that script two years ago. And, in those twelve years in between, I became a husband, father, lawyer and comedian.

But, through it all. Through every single moment of my existence, I have wanted to write. Whether it be a poem about personal independence. A shorty story about World War III (a war which will hopefully never happen). Or a screenplay about changing the direction of your life. I wanted to express myself in the best I know how – the written word.

I believe the desire to write is inborn. It is part of who you are, and how you perceive the world around you. Writing is an amazing way to take all of that information you consume on a daily basis, and convert it into something that makes sense. To you. And to, hopefully, other people who find joy in reading your words.

The purpose of this blog is to share – with whoever wants to listen – my writing journey. And for the moment, that journey is a screenplay.

The idea of this latest project came to me last summer while taking a screenwriting class at UCLA. I wrote about half of the script before realizing that I didn’t even know what the movie was about. I mean, yeah, I knew what it was about in a very general sense. But, when asked to describe the crux of the story in a sentence. I couldn’t do it.

So. I stopped writing it. And months went by.

And, after many, MANY hours of deliberating about what kind of story I truly wanted to tell….it finally hit me. I started writing the script again because I finally knew what the story was about. What it’s really about. The story centers around a man who must break free from a life-altering promise he made at the young age of 17. But, before he breaks free from this promise – which is dragging him down into the abyss of an unfulfilled life – he must venture down the road of death and deceit.

….in my next post, I will discuss how the idea first came to me, and how it developed into its current state. Then, we will explore putting the proverbial pen to paper, and moving into the art and science of a screenplay.