The Ride Home

The best thing about the Austin Screenwriters Conference and Film festival is the trip home. Before y'all storm my castle (and I do have a castle), the conference was great. I met some new people and met up with old friends and had a smashing time. The conference never disappoints and always succeeds in refueling my zest for writing.

So what's all this about the trip home? Well, after four intense days of this screenwriting stuff my mind becomes jammed with information. It's not until the ride home when I'm forced to sit and stare at the back of the plane seat in front of me that my mind kind of loosens and relaxes. Ideas start flooding my mind, and new ideas emerge. Last year, two new script ideas seeped out of my cranium. This year, I think one of the missing pieces that was keeping Win from rising to the next level popped into my mind like it had always been there.

Now, I'd hope that i don't need to spend a grand every time that I need a breakthrough, so I thought about why this happens and part of the answer came to me*. The last time I remember this happening was on the way home from a screenwriting class. The class was over an hour from home and left me with a lot of idle time to think. I think there is something about coming together with a group and sharing ideas and getting your brain thinking about screenwriting. You wind it up and then just think about other things or nothing.

In all of these scenarios my friend Ryan was on the trip along with me. It could be that the act of talking screenwriting on the way home freed pathways of the mind. I wonder if I spent time reading about screenwriting and then went for a walk or a leisurely bike ride that ideas would suddenly solidify. I think it would have to be something short. A nugget of suggestion that you could read in a few minutes. Something that could get my mind on the right screenwriting track so that my mind wasn't consumed by the minutia of every day life. I'll have to do some experimenting, because I'd like to turn these fits of creativity into something I can do by merely turning on my PC and thinking about stories.

I'll write more after I've done some experimenting...


* Yes, on the way home as well.