Tiny Brain Big thoughts

Sometimes - I feel as if we could all use with just a little bit of God's perspective.

There are so many times in life - where it seems as if everything is just radically crashing around you with no end in sight. But some how - when you look back on it later - it magically has taken on new significance where you see things are really not that bad - and possibly even great...

Stuck in the middle of this perpetual cycle of waiting and rising and lowering hopes - I would love to know if I will one day look back and laugh - or cry.

I remember as a kid - growing up in Taiwan - we would look for any excuse to run to the mountains. Taiwan has some great climbs for a tiny little place... With 6 peaks over 10,000 feet. I got to climb four of them. There is one mountain - called Chi Lai - that was actually off limits to everyone. There were a bunch of people who climb it each year - and a bunch who end up dead.

For a high schooler - this is like the ultimate incentive... My friends and I were determined to make the trek. We got a permit for the closest mountain that we could get to Chi Lai and set out. The crazy thing about the climb was that you had two really long days to get to the base camp. And the base camp was at the end of a really long day hike.

To get to the base camp - you had to get to the summit - and follow a ridge for a couple hours to get to there. Problem was - every day a huge fog bank blows in and the temp drops about 20 degrees like clockwork and the wind blows 30-40 MPH. So you would hit the ridge - start to walk a very precarious path - and then - fog and cold. Before the fog - we were kinda freaked out - cause with a zoom lens - you could actually see bodies that were blown off the ridge and sent to their death below...and then the wind and fog arrived. We were reduced to crawling our way along - calling out to each other so that we wouldn't get lost.

The next day we hit the peak and went home. We all vowed to never come back. But a year later - and many stories about how we almost died - we headed back once more...

So while writing geniuses like Philip Morton tell me it is the same with every project - that you always go through the same things - I still would appreciate just a bit of a perspective check that told me - if nothing else - that everything is gonna be OK. That it all wasn't for nothing.

BUT

The really cool flip side of this - in writing, we have a lot in common with God.

We get to see the story from every angle - and the main reason is that we know the ending. And that is a huge advantage. When you know where you are going - you really don't have much of an excuse not to get there.

It is so easy to sit in a theater and see the strings of a script that were set up and not paid off. It is easy to criticize and wonder why this was put into play only to be dropped. The trick is to be able to go back home and apply that to your script and writing.

We are able to look at things from the birds eye view. So there is no reason why things shouldn't work the way they are supposed to. Keep perspective. Set things up - know what the audience is expecting - and then try to subvert it. Lead them down paths they don't want to go - only to surprise them by going somewhere else.

I am reeling in my take on BIG PRODUCER'S script. I came up with a big fix to solve a conceptual problem last week. Then I figured out my hero's story. Now I'm trying to make sure that my other two main characters have a fully realized story as well.

It is really worth it to look at your story from the bad guys perspective. What is his plan? Is he following his own logic - or is he just a tool to make the hero perform better? Make sure that he is doing things that force the hero to rethink and act - not just react...

It is fun and exciting when it all comes together... I still have a few holes and loose threads... but its starting to work. Just having something that I can make sense of and give a little perspective to makes me feel a little better...

Now if only I could apply that view to my own life...

But with a brain the size of a pea - you can't expect too much....