I had to give up on a project.  It was the first time I have had to do so.  A writer wanted me to transform his novel into a screenplay.  However, I could not accomplish the task.  After reading the manuscript and trying for hours to construct an outline, I finally had to concede that I had no idea what story the writer wanted to tell.

This Sunday at my church, we finish a sermon series based on The Story, NIV:  The Bible as One Continuing Story of God and His People by Max Lucado and Randy Frazee.  What has intrigued me the most over my life about The Bible is how well it tells a big story through many smaller stories within that big story.

When I consider the stories that I enjoy the most, told thought the films and books that speak to my heart and soul, they are the ones where there is a great larger story seen in the telling of the smaller, personal stories of the characters.  And that was where the writer who wanted me to construct a script from his idea failed.  His big story was unfocused and drifted around.  Consequently, the characters were fuzzy and drifted in and out without purpose.

This revelation will change my writing.  I am determined to know the big story and the little stories that will tell it.  The overall story will then write itself.

Posted a new short story on the site entitled Beauty and the Clown.

Short stories are a way of previewing style and ability to potential clients.  But they also serve to sharpen the writing skills and flesh out story ideas that might later become screenplays or manuscripts.

Finished another Zero Hero adventure.  This one was fun to write and it flowed well.  That is when writing is enjoyable.  The trouble is that, most of the time, writing can be a struggle.

Writing is so much like life; sometimes hard and sometimes easy.  Much like a novel, each chapter has its own degree of difficulty and challenges.  However, the ones that prove the hardest to write are often the ones that really define the characters.  Working a protagonist through their arc can be painful and full of rewrites.  In the end, it is what makes the story the story.

Like most people, I would really like a life full of easy chapters but what a dull and boring life that would be.  Yesterday it was nice to have one chapter that flowed.  Today, not so much.  That is what life is all about.