The Script in Your Head

So you know how you sometimes get a song in your head, that won’t go away? They’re calling that an Earworm, a name which pretty much conjures up the irritating feeling it gives you.

Do I get earworms? Sure, my head is a recording studio for every catchy tune in history. I’ve learned to live with it.

But worse, I get Ear-scripts!

Here’s what happened. I was talking with agent the other day, on getting some books sent up to me (Author copies of a compilation work on including The Last Guardian, my Warcraft novel). And over the course of the conversation, he mentions a recent news story:

A woman comes home and finds a strange man sitting on her bed. The man says, “I’m sorry, I have to tell you, your husband paid me five thousand dollars to kill you. I think we should call the cops and both be here when they arrive.”

And I responded, “No, no, no. If this was a movie, then SHE would say. OK, I’ll pay you five grand to whack HIM, at which point it becomes a film about betrayals.” And he laughed and the conversation moved on to other things.

The thing of it is, thought, that now I can’t get that idea out of my mind. I thought about more, and I realized that whacking the husband doesn’t happen yet. First the wife wants to know WHY her husband wants her whacked. And the hit man doesn’t know, so that starts us out. And it is about who is in charge of a relationship?

And then I got to thinking about how one would go about hiring a hit man in the first place. Particularly if one didn’t run in those circles in normal situations. Like if you were a white-collar husband - how would you pull off this crime if your were an engineer. And of course, why would you want to bump off your wife, as opposed to just divorcing her?

And so it has been for the past day or so. I have been writing a movie in my head. One of those thrillers where everything makes sense, and which has a gimmick to it (Flashbacks!), and where one member of the triangle has to survive, and you know who it is, but you have to get to the point that it makes sense who that person is, even though it is surprise. And I have a tag line ("Violence Never Solves Anything. Except Problems.") and know what classic song is playing over the end credits (Talking Heads Once In A Lifetime).

I know what this is. This is my brain in rebellion. I have no real desire to write a movie, and though I have come over the years to respect those that due (even really crappy movies). This is about the fact that I have four major things I have to write right now (one of which is being revealed in this month’s issue of PC Gamer, mailed out today – I’m the one in the rust-colored shirt in the pictures), and this is my brain saying “No, I don’t want to write all of this stuff you've agreed to – I want to go out and play. And THIS looks like shiny plaything.”

And when I get done with all this stuff, I will look at this movie idea and say, Yuck! What was I thinking to want to write about THAT!

But bear with me in the meantime, and be glad that you just have to worry about getting David Byrne caught in your brain.

And you may find yourself in a beautiful house,
With a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself
Well...How did I get here?

More later,