I Will Not Write Your Fucking Script

So, yeah, like everyone else I read Josh Olson's blog about how he won't read anyone's fucking script. And like everyone else I found it funny, and true and I patted myself on the back because he validated me in sort of an off-handed way. He said that a real writer cannot be dissuaded from writing by anyone. Let me tell you, brothers and sisters, that's me in a nutshell. I'm like the Job of Screenwriters. I scream to the Heavens, "Oh Hollywood, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Hollywood doesn't answer. Just gives me more boils or infections or broken generators.

So I've made a decision. If Hollywood is going to forsake me, then I'm going to forsake it right back. I make a pledge right now, with the whole internet as my witness, that I will NEVER write an assignment for a studio. I don't care how big the paycheck is, I don't care who the director is, I don't care how many times those clowns in the Armani suits tell me they want to be in the John Ray Hax business, I will not succumb.

Bite me, Hollywood. I will not write your fucking script.

J. Ray Hax

Tennitus

I've fallen prey to the disease that writers fear more than Writer's Block... Terminal Tennitus.

For those of you who are lucky enough to have never contracted this particular disease, I will give you the basic prognosis: Terminal Tennitus is a disease which strikes when a writer hits the last ten pages of his/her script and is unable to bring the bastard across the finish line. I know this is a real disease, because I've spoken with other writers who have contracted it. Apparently, it's a lot like Herpes. Once you've had it, you have it for life and the outbreaks can either get worse with time, or can abate completely.

Symptoms include: cramping of the fingers, the intestine and/or the genitals. Profuse sweating from the brow. Bloodshot eyes. Too much or too little mucous. Diarrhea. Vomiting. Sleeplessness. Milky, yellow discharge from the anus and/or the ears. Clenched/puckered sphincter. Painful, itching pustules in the armpit region. Fever. Euphoria. Dementia. Claustrophobia.

I have all of the above. And man, have I got it bad. I'm like the Brundlefly at this point. It's nasty.

The throbbing of my twin Generac 7000 generators is like the Devil (my former agent) tap-dancing on my skull. I'm starting to think that what I'll do is cut and paste the first ten pages of the script at the end (because bookending scripts seems to be the thing to do now), or maybe structure the whole damn thing backwards like Memento or Irreversible.

Your truly from the bowels of despair,

JRH

Agent of the Devil

Got an email from my agent this morning. Apparently we are "moving in different directions". Yes, that is correct, he dropped me. Through email. I guess I should be happy that he didn't do it on Twitter. I have a hunch that this is all because I didn't want to chase after his stupid Leprechaunaconda movie. He was always telling me that a job is a job, and in the current economic climate blah blah blah. I don't write for money. I don't write for fame. I write because I must. I don't have the luxury of being able to turn off my creativity.

He will, no doubt, call me again when my spec sells for seven figures and I will tell him that I will take him back as soon as he delivers to me certain photographic evidence of him in a menage-a-trois with a genuine Leprechaun and an anaconda.

So, needless to say, I am looking for new representation. If anyone out there knows of an agent that isn't a bumbling, slobbering sycophant with a perpetual Appletini in his/her  hand, please point them in my direction. I should have a new spec for them to peddle in the near future.

Sacrifice

Had to get a new keyboard today. Sometimes it feels like the Universe is trying to thwart my every move. A chain of events, starting with the suspension in the springs of my car trunk giving out . I was unloading the groceries when the trunk slammed down on my fingers. I haven't felt pain like that since the dishwasher incident. To make a long story short, the nails on my right hand turned black and blue, and about twenty minutes later, the nail on my right index finger came loose.

All I can think about is finishing up the script. When I'm sitting at the computer, it's like time doesn't exist. Three hours goes by and in my quantum experience it feels like three minutes. When I have to break to eat, shit, shower or sleep I resent it. Human interaction is painful, it's hard to focus on what people are saying - the guy at the supermarket kept rambling on about his nephew's briss, and all I feel is this obsession to keep churning out the story. So having my fingers mashed is a major inconveniance, to say the least. I soaked my sore fingers in rubbing alcohol, which hurt slightly less than the accident, wrapped them in gauze and got back to work.

After about four hours of typing, I guess my finger with the missing nail started to bleed. I didn't even notice, until the 'K' button started to stick. I looked down and realized that I had leaked blood right into the keyboard. I did my best to wipe it off, but I was on a roll, in that fever pitch of writing and I didn't want to stop. Normally the pain would have registered, I'm sure most people would take a few days off to rest their injured fingers. But I've experienced enough creative blocks in my time to know that you don't look a gift horse in the mouth. When the floodgates open, you go with it. I feel so connected to this story, I swear it's almost like someone is dictating it through me and I'm just the vehicle to bring it into physical reality. And this unseen entity is a slave driving taskmaster, that won't let me rest or have any peace of mind until the job is complete. So I chugged some whiskey and Advil and kept pounding away at the keys. I must have written a good five pages before I even realized that the bleeding was getting worse.

The middle row of keys finally wouldn't respond, no matter how gently I coaxed them. So, first thing today I got up and went out and bought a new keyboard. Fingers are wrapped in thicker gauze now, which causes a few more typos, but I'm getting the hang of it. I'm warmed up now, gonna go dive back into it.

Pain.

I'm 46 pages into my script and its like I'm having my spine ripped right out of my back. Torture to get this story out of my gray matter and onto the page. But it's got to get out. It burns deep down in my gut. Churning like a fragile ship on a reckless sea. Every day I sit down to write and do everything I can to make the themes and the ideas and the whole scope of it come together.

I've given some pages to writers I met online. They tell me its good. They tell me to keep going and to have faith. I don't know if I can believe them. I don't know if I can believe anyone.

What I do know in those moments when the fever breaks and I step away from the computer and get a drink -- what I do know is that I am trying to do something great. Trying to tell a story that digs deep into the things that truly scare us. Not a man with a knife. No, not that. The twisted cultural institutions that repress us and the mythic beasts of our imaginations that signify deep-rooted primal thoughts-- these representations of man's fear all designed to keep the beast at bay. These are my tools.

Milennia ago we huddled in caves, firelight flickering on our faces. We told stories to keep the darkness at bay. To keep our fear in check.

Thats what I'm doing now. Except the flames are the glow of my computer screen. I sit alone in my dark room, writing. Hoping that someday my words will turn into pictures and light the faces of lonely men and women huddled in modernity's cave: the multiplex. Stale popcorn has replaced animal bones, but the meaning is the same.

Last night I lay awake listening to the winds whistling through the canyon. Coyotes howled. I felt their hunger.

In the morning I ate a stale coffee cake.

And then I did what I had to do. I wrote.