Seriously, I am so much more productive when I'm busy, even if I'm tired.
Last night, I could not fall asleep, it was after 4am before I finally was able to knock off, and then I had to get up before 7am to make sure one kid was awake and getting going. The other one is on home and hospital and we're getting him back into the swing of things with school, so I didn't take him to school till 9am and had to pick him up at 11am. Needless to say, sleep was not my friend today. Of course last week, there were a few days that I didn't even get out of bed, so this was a definite improvement.
Apparently lack of sleep was a good thing because I spent all afternoon at the library and I wrote 8 pages. If I keep this up, I might have another script finished in no time. I still can't believe how fast is coming together. I don't think it sucks, but I could be mistaken. What's crazy, is because I had at least a rough outline of what was happening and I knew what was happening in each scene, it's really helping me. I've even figured out how to tie later scenes together with the setup.
I remember reading somewhere that having an outline allows you to explore deeper each scene because you already know what's going to happen. I can honestly say that it's been true, at least in this case. With the last few scripts that I've written, each one had been uniquely different. I'm not going to count my first few attempts because OMG, they were horrible and I'm mortified that I wrote them. I'm also not counting the ones that I co-wrote with Hillary.
With Watch Me Disappear, I didn't know how it was going to end. I just wrote from a place of anger and pain. It was cathartic, but it took years to even remotely finish and there are still things that I want to tweak. To do that though, I would have to go to a very dark place and right now I'm just too happy to go there.
My scifi TV series is a good idea, I've even outlined a good portion of it. I like it, but it too, is very dark and I was just needing to write something cheerful or at least less dark than the stuff I had been writing. Besides, I couldn't even come up with a title that I liked. Without that, I just wasn't feeling it.
With Just After a Lifetime, I knew the story I wanted to tell and where I wanted it to end, but I wrote at last 100 pages that I ultimately cut. I'm not sure if outlining would have helped because the reason it got cut was it was just so boring. That may have been execution, but I think it was all setup that I didn't need and just showed down the pacing. Making sure you are writing the right character and the right story is important. Besides dropping my main character in the thick of it, with both her and the audience, trying to figure out what's going on is so much more exciting. I did have to toe the line a few times and make sure I didn't take it too far dark and lose the audience. So far, everyone who's read it, thinks it's compelling (they all used that word, I wonder what that means), so I think I did all right on that account.
This script came to me in the course of about 2 afternoons, complete with beginning, middle and end. I had the cast of characters done, outline and title written down in an hour. It was a very basic 4 page outline that provided almost enough for a complete feature length film. And because I'm in such a much better place, this script is a comedy, though it does have a few moments that tug at the heart strings. I just call that good writing.
Since I originally thought about doing this as a Web series, that was just fine, I didn't need any more content, but then I decided to change that. Now I'm writing it as a feature, so I needed a few more scenes, which I came up with today and they all tie in so nicely, they fit like a glove.
Depending on what happens, the more I'm thinking about it and writing about it, the more I want to direct it as a feature film. The more I want to have it be my first feature film. It's already being written low budget, so I guess we'll just have to see.
Man I really want to make this as a feature film. It would be so much fun!!!!
I totally just got an adrenaline rush and it's making me even more excited to write tomorrow. Writing definitely creates the need for more writing.
They say it takes at least 5 screenplays for then to be any good. Guess how many I've written? You guessed it, 5 (not counting the Co-writing of 2 dark comedies and one produced, award winning independent feature film, all with Hillary).
I may not be fast, but I'm plugging away at it. Never give up. Never surrender.
I can't wait till my next movie premier!
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