Feeling The Blues - Journal Entry #2 [04/29/25]

Brayfans,

...Yeah, that does not roll off the tongue, huh? I thought it would be cool and quirky to give my faithful collaborators an affectionate nickname. I was wrong. Let's just move on together and forget you ever saw that.

I figured it was time enough for an update on some of my projects! I'm burning through two scripts that I'm very excited about. That's not to say that it's been smooth sailing all the way to the bank. It's been a process, for sure.

My first original feature-length script, Objects In Mirrors, is starting to bloom! Around the start of 2025, I started writing it. Now, I'm halfway through! But I'm also three drafts deep by this point. That doesn't make any sense, I know; that's just been the process for me. This story is the most personal thing I've ever written and it's been incredibly rewarding. It's been with me for a while, but I haven't had the courage to follow through until now.

All roads have their bumps, though. I'm writing the script as a part of a two-part class. The first class got to watch me take baby steps and develop my story and characters. I think they really took to it. In the table reads, every jokes landed, every emotional swing hit, and every bold risk paid off. Wow, this is incredible, I routinely thought. I'm really making my dream. It's going to work out.

Then I enter the second class, with new students. We did a table read. Crickets. Confused faces, cocked eyebrows. A general air of "what is this?" But that was before they said anything. They gave me notes, too. (Granted, in retrospect, they weren't as harsh as I made them out to be in my head, but they stung me nonetheless). They couldn't follow this. They didn't like that.

I've been through critiques before. I've built up a tough armadillo skin over the years. I remember in high school, the smallest note from my theater director would have sent me into an existential spiral. But years of college beat that sensitivity out of me (for the most part). At a certain point, you just learn to take it on the chin and remember to cover your face next time.

But that critique didn't feel like all the others. Not when I vulnerably presented my entire, butt-naked soul. The soul I watched wilt a little. I never wanted to ball up in my armadillo skin any more than that moment.

I know, a tad pathetic. But this is the journey of life: a roller-coaster, not a mountain climb. We're allowed to dip from our greater judgements, as long as we carry ourselves over the next hill.

It's nothing against me, I know that. And some of their notes were helpful. I had a couple holes I still needed to fill. Writing is also editing. But I talked to my professor after the critique, desperate for any semblance of a direction to go in after an evisceration like that. Plain and simply, he told me, "You'll know where to take your story. Some people won't get it."

Some people won't get it, Braydan. Is that the mental gymnastics of a narcissist? Or is it just the acceptance that I can only reach so many people? Am I not qualified, not talented enough to marry the cerebral with the pedestrian? Is it even "cerebral" or is that just another misnomer for piss-poor writing?

I still don't know. It's been weeks since that critique, since that conversation. I still don't know the answers. In a way, my professor is right. Some people won't get it. I certainly don't.

Of course, there has to be a happy ending here! I haven't given up cold turkey. I've been deep into the weeds of re-writing the first half while also writing forward with new pages.

Tiny diatribe, but have any of you fiddled around with the revisions mode in Final Draft? It's not as much of a pain as I was thinking it would be. The real kicker: my crummy eyes can't read the blue text on dark mode so I have to perpetually flashbang myself with the regular white background. Absolute hellish experience. It's like writing directly on the face of the sun. I feel like Robert Pattinson at the end of The Lighthouse. To anyone who can write on light mode, sociopath demon get away from me.

That's not all I'm working on right now! I'll try to write another post soon to tell you about... a documentary? Exciting.

If you all want to know more about Objects In Mirrors, please let me know. I'd love to go more in depth and talk about it. Stay frosty, Brayfans (no regrets).

With burned retinas,

Braydan