I wrapped the whole horror film up today, coffee cold, brain fried. There were hours in there I couldn’t tell if I was writing for myself, the director, or the ghosts of Bernard and Alfred. That feeling of wanting to please the room, the past, the invisible judges and at the same time wanting to hear your own crooked heartbeat inside the cue. I got jammed up sometimes, circling ideas, worrying I was repeating myself like a beginner drummer with only one fill. Frustration sitting beside me like a critic with a clipboard. Then the only good idea came sneaking in barefoot, don’t give a damn. Just play.

Like nobody’s archiving it, like no historian of horror is watching on their surveillance camera in the corner, like the director is out walking his dog and the crew went home. I started looser, almost laughing at it seeing what would stick. And wouldn’t you know it, out of that came some strange little gifts. Moments that fit better than anything I might have calculated. Accidents with perfect teeth. You can’t blueprint that. You can’t draft a memo to the subconscious and CC the universe. You just lean forward and jump. If you don’t jump, nothing grows wings. Guy Clark sure put it well in his song The Cape. I must remember to learn it one day.

One scene knocked me out. A character speaking in bewilderment, lost in his sentences, and I let my hands fall into slow major seconds, leaning against each other like they weren’t sure who should move first. Not melodrama. Just two tones rubbing shoulders in the dark. That’s when you remember the sound can tell the truth before you can.