When creativity fails

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I used to make up stories. I imagined kings and queens walking down my neighborhood street (which they would never do but it was fun to think about). I imagined what would happen people AND animals could fly... like cats and dogs and cows and dolphins. I imagined the necklace I had gave me powers to read people's faces perfectly.

Then something happened, I'm not entirely sure what, and my stories dried up like raisins in the sun. My creativity bled out of me and I got stuck in the read world; the world where guns are forced in the hands of children and they become soldiers for a cause they know nothing about, where planes are flown into buildings to prove a point, where earthquakes kill hundreds of thousands, where people don't care about anyone but themselves, where good doesn't always win.

I must have grown disillusioned somewhere along the way. My creative world was always optimistic full of happy endings. But when faced with reality, I guess it couldn't hold up. It quietly grew wings and flew away.

How ironic. I'm practically pulling my hair out because I need stories but I come up empty. I have bits and pieces, little flashes of scenes, but I need an entire story, beginning, middle and end. It needs to be interesting too, because its going to end up becoming a short film. And who wants to sit through a boring short film?

I'm starting to think I'm just not that creative any more. Maybe I'm bored with the stories that show up on the screen; every movie is somehow predictable, every TV show just peters out with no strong ending... or worse, gets booted off TV on a major cliff-hanger.

I think my problem is that even though I'm in school, I want my film to be the next major hit, something truly amazing. My story needs to be epic. The characters need to have a huge revelation about themselves as they face (and fail at first) overwhelming difficulties. The stakes need to be high, the drama intense, the action fast-paced, the humor... funny.

And all that needs to fit into ten minutes or less. Oh and the script was due last week. No pressure or anything. Come on brain, think of something! You can do it!