Category Archives: Open Notebook

Over the summer, I met one of my wife’s high school friends and his partner (whom I will refer to as G for the ease of narration). His partner, I was delighted to learn, writes on the West Coast and is in the process of developing a movie script. I was fascinated and it took everything I had to start yammering on about my dream of writing, this blog, the attendant self-discovery, blah blah blah, yawn, sigh, etc.

Karma smiled on me that evening as a very small high school reunion commenced at a local restaurant. G and I were the only two people in the group not from the high school so we ended up chatting for most of the night.  Bless his heart, G put up with my (what I assume must have been) exhaustive, noob questions. He was incredibly generous sharing his experiences and observations and even listened to my elevator speech pitch of the story idea I’ve shared a glimpse at here.

As I shared the story, G pointed out that it sounded like it could work as a TV series. (Yes- that is about a million mile jump between where my writing is today and “TV series”.) But- that got me thinking- what would telling a story in a script be like? I’ve written a couple of short stories (and looked back at them pretty critically) but have never written in the style of a script. What would that be like?

This afternoon, after dropping the Noodle and the Goon off at a birthday party, I ended up with a couple of hours to kill. I opened my digital scratchbook (have you tried the Evernote app? two thumbs up here…) and started poking at some of the notes for The Third String. In one of those “light bulb” moments, I realized that maybe it would be interesting to try writing a story as a script. So that’s what I did this afternoon.

I’m still working on it- and have to decide if a voiceover narration would work. (From the first word I wrote in that story, I heard this proper British voice providing a narrative for the story. Think The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. No idea yet if that makes sense or is obnoxious.)

In any event, I feel invigorated in a way that nothing other than writing provides. I’m grateful for the direction from G and the rush that feeding this creative spark brings.

I wonder where this could go…