Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Theory and Practice

I’d like to start this entry with something that’s been somewhat of a joke for me most of my adult life. What is the difference between theory and practice? I mean, if you’re just generally talking about it in terms of an actual learning experience, in theory, there is no difference. In practice, there is.

In theory, I’m a screenwriter. In practice, I’m not. Sure, I’ve written a few screenplays here and there, and I even went to school to earn a certificate in screenwriting, but at the end of it all, if I’m not prepared to churn out screen plays and then drive down to Hollywood and peddle them, all the training in the world doesn’t help. I am well aware, and perfectly willing to admit, that by and large, I do not spend all my time writing, and certainly very little time reading screenplays. Sometimes I think I even see fewer movies than my average friend.

At present, I have two personal projects on the go, both of which could easily be money makers, (perhaps not jackpot moneymakers, certainly marketable nonetheless), a screenplay and a fantasy novel. I’m not going to write about the actual script or book here, but I will at least talk about my progress by and by. My fantasy novel is based on a video game I’ve been chipping away at for three years now, something that certainly wouldn’t be marketable, so I figured, why not take all that creativity and dump it into something useful? People ask me how much of it I’ve written so far. In theory, I’ve written some, but in practice, I haven’t. You see, all my writing is about the fantasy world, about the characters, but as of yet, I haven’t written a single word that is meant to be part of the actual novel – that an actual readership can actually read.

In theory, I’m a writer. In practice, I’m not. I am well aware, and perfectly willing to admit, that by and large, I do not spend all my time writing, and certainly very little time reading books. Sometimes I think I even read fewer books than my average friend. In fact I’m sure of it.

So, this brings me to my first goal for this blog. I’ve given myself goals before, but only in private, and if the only person to call myself on them is me, then, lacking the self-discipline that I do, I’m highly unlikely to go anywhere. Thus, my first goal is that next month, from the beginning to the end of March, every day, I write in this blog about what I did about finding writing work that day. That being said, it means I actually have to search for writing jobs that day. Otherwise, what’s to talk about?

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