Starting a New Creative Project

Recently, I read an erotic story online and was blown away by it.

I've been reading such stories for years, but it's the first time I found myself thinking as I read one, "This deserves to be made into a movie!" (The only time I'd thought that before was while reading Freedom Road, an historical novel by Howard Fast which, it turns out, actually was made into a movie.) "Magnificent" is the word that first came to mind, both for the very creative plot twists and the striking visual images suggested by the text.

Not long after I read this short story, I was actively imagining how the shots would look and the sequence of the scenes, including ones occurring in the story as flashbacks as well as new ones taking the place of exposition. In my mind the story went from "deserves" to must be made into a movie -- that it would be a cosmic injustice for this not to happen. And I have to do what I can to make this happen -- meaning, at the least, to write a screenplay. I guess this is the feeling I've heard reported by other writers before -- that a story is somehow "out there" and demands that they tell it -- but it's the first time for me.

I mentioned to my therapist that I was hesitating because of my lifetime problem of feeling intimidated by big projects, going back at least to fifth grade when I failed to turn in a report because I had been unable to stop procrastinating on it. She encouraged me to go ahead and just try to write a little every day, and I agreed to do that. And yesterday I actually got started -- I've now completed the "Dramatis Personae" page.