Just the other day I realized I hadn't thought up a new idea in quite a while. I'm booked solid on ideas for a while, but I like being ten ideas deep to be comfortable. And it concerned me that I hadn't gotten excited about a new concept for a few months.

Then I got this idea last night for a new spin on an old story that hasn't been touched in feature form for decades. I was watching a thing on History Channel or Discovery or something and there was like this throwaway line and I just went Oh my god! I suddenly realized there was this story just waiting for me. It's so perfect for me it's ridiculous.

The thing is, on the surface the story's a bit of a western, and we all know westerns aren't really selling like hot cakes, but as I started to do preliminary research and put my own spin on it, I realized there are all kinds of neat non-western directions I can take this. So it could be like a western but not a western.

It's a period piece, but you never know. I think I could pull this off. I have to finish what I'm working on now first, then I'm going back to Burnside for a page one rewrite, but that won't take as long as starting from scratch, so I hope to be working on this new western/non-western thing early next year. And then I'll be set.

Last night after going around and around with my script outline so many times I completely lost focus. I couldn't figure out whether I was coming or going or whether or not my idea was any good at all or just another generic piece of crap idea.

I emailed a friend of mine, told him about the notes I already got and the ways I was throwing them around, and then we got on chat and he talked me through it. Like deactivating a bomb over the phone.

By the end of the conversation, I not only had a new direction, but I had a new title and new confidence. Once he thought of the title he refused to let me not change it, to the point where he may track me down and shoot me if I don't. In fact, his title suggestion is so good I'm not going to post it here until I'm done with the script. For now it stays The First Hit: Most Generic Title Ever.

The beautiful part was that besides the title, everything was there in my head. I just needed someone to help me find it.

Everybody needs that one friend who knows how to steer you in the right direction when you're wandering in the wilderness.

I had this idea that was pretty cool so I started writing up an outline, then I read Horrible Bosses, which has a lot of similarities to my script, so I changed the location from work to somewhere else, which necessitated some changes in the overall story as well.

In the process, I created a whole new protagonist. I went from Emma Stone to - well, not Emma Stone anymore, anyway. Someone more wide-eyed and innocent.

I love the concept and the character I've now created, but I've spent two weeks trying to make this work to no great effect. I finally threw up my hands and asked for help, and so far the help has been helpful. Helpful help.

Whenever you ask for help on a story, everybody always has these directions they'd take it based on things they like, so one of the great tricks of taking suggestions on the idea is to know what's just someone's personal preference and what's the true direction you want to take.

And I think that in order to do that, you have to be open to anything. I always go into getting notes of this kind hoping someone will say one thing that will send me off in the right direction, but sometimes it doesn't happen that way. Sometimes what they say is that the idea you had needs a complete revolution and that the one element of your story you KNEW was right, was, in fact, not right at all.

So I've started toying with some of the ideas I've been given today. Part of me says "NO! That's not the story you want to tell!" and the other part of me says "But this might be an even COOLER story!" and another part of me says "You're a fucking hack and nobody wants to read your stupid story anyway!" and then another part of me thinks "Explosions is the answer. More explosions," and then another part of me just stares at my hair in wonderment of how fantastic it looks when I use that expensive conditioner.

At some point I really hope this all clicks into place, but for now I'm just floating, looking for the glue to hold the puzzle together.