Moron Seeks Lessons In Leaving Well Enough Alone

There are times, people, there are times that I wish I could just take to my brain with an ice-cream scoop and start removing bits left and right.

I think too much. I read into things. I over-analyze. I get bogged down in details. I lose sight of the big picture. I can’t leave well enough alone. I’m a pretentious git and occasionally proud of it. I cannot, for the life of me, stop thinking.

That is the issue of the hour. It is not the first hour spent on this, and it won’t be the last. For the moment, it’s what is on my plate and damned if I can get rid of it any way besides devouring it whole.

Part of it is in getting the last word. Part of it comes from an old fear of being misunderstood (one motivator behind becoming a well-spoken guy). Part of it is a chronic case of diarrhea of the mouth.

It’s a work in progress. I am getting better at knowing when to stop my mouth on a particular running gag, or similar attempts at entertaining whoever I’m talking to. I know I don’t have to do that, to be ‘on’, but the habit’s engrained. It helps pass the time sometimes.

Shit.

There must be a way to engage the brake. To come to a stopping point, and just not continue thinking about random topics well past the mark of rationality. To stop discussing a topic with another human being when its been exhausted, or should have been.

This is not to say that every notion is a profound one, or makes a great deal of sense, either. Depending on how much sleep I’m operating on, complete random batshit will come fluttering out of the recesses and just baffle me. But they nonetheless occur to me, and have their moment (or five) of observance.

Another way to look at it would be like watching TV and never turning the set off: Depending on the time, you could have something decent to pay attention to, or utter crap not worth watching in the slightest.

The option that facilitates things as well as any other, is writing about it. Getting it on paper. Cataloging the damn thing so you can at least try to move on to something else. God forbid I take a breather and relax.

I recently finished a new script, Writing Sucks, and asked a friend, Amanda, for advice on how to move to the next project. She suggested I take a step back and actually relax, take note that I’d done something and pause for a while. It had never even occurred to me.

Right now I’m trying my damnedest to fully develop a plot I’ve been working on for almost two years. It started as an actual dream, and exploded into detail from there. You either know what I’m talking about or you don’t. I don’t want to risk speaking of it directly, lest I find out it’s been optioned as a three-picture deal. Fate’s been kicking my ass lately like that.

In any case: the plot, while approaching completion, is defying my efforts to give it a recognizable form: Effed-Up Children’s Story, Novel, Epic Poem (That one’s not gonna happen), Screenplay, something. Something I can share in a fashion besides just narrating it over a cup of coffee to those with the patience and/or interest to hear it out. To those who have listened, thank you.

That’s the bastardly (Yeah. It’s a word.) aspect of any story: It wants to be told. I couldn’t let it sit if I tried. And I’ve tried.

Okay. Enough of this. Thanks for the ear, people. I’ve got work to do…