I have been working around an idea that has been interesting. It came from someone who knows me well. It started by an email from someone I knew back in 1971, when I got married.
It turned out to be my ex's niece, now grown up and in her 40's (I think). She had discovered me on FB and emailed to me. My ex and I hadn't seen each other for about 25 years or more. Ex was married again I knew that.
But her niece told me she had some bad times.
So now niece suggested I call ex. I emailed and ex returned email. Now we talk now and then, I'd seen her three times and it was all okay.
So what's that?
About a year ago ex said that we should celebrate our 45th anniversary. Her husband had passed away a few years ago. It sounded okay, actually we laughed about it. And naturally, I begin to think it's a movie too. Not mine, but a screenplay.
Most of my screenplays started with ideas like that. My Christmas movie from Hallmark was developed by three different locations that I had worked on, passed through or a memory of something.
So this is now going to happen.
I'm a little worried though, because it is, as they say, to0 close to be good. Why? Because you know your story too much and it might fall apart. The idea was good, she even liked it. But I stayed away for almost a year.
So now, I decided to start. I got my old Power Structure software, a program I've used for at least 30 years. I would work out the story and then write the screenplay from my Screenwriter software.
It's today.
And how do I separate myself from myself?
That's where I have to make the screenplay not about me, but about "him". The other guy, looks like me, talks like me. All I need is to find a "way" to separate me and so I have created "that guy". It worked well for my Christmas Movie and my father screenplay and it worked fine. For that one, I changed myself to a woman, sort of, the story was about father and son, but I changed it to father and daughter.
And Jody Foster's crew read it and said it was written by a woman. But it wasn't. It was a man.
So I can fool them again. And fool me too. So let's go back, way back.