Diving Back Into My Baby

Status Check: In the midst of starting Boogie (it’s great to write a cover page with contact info for a paying company versus an agency), using FrameForge to storyboard Omission, and prepping for potential assignments, I’m back to where I most want to be—script 13.

The Machiavellian drama has subsided for the moment and I can shift my focus back to that little baby script I left to cool all those weeks ago.

Since our last date, I was able to do something I’ve never done before—finish a draft and let it sit two weeks before diving into a rewrite. They say you should do this in almost every book ever written on the craft, but I’ve always had deadlines, and MPC’s constant refrain is:

“We’ve got to hurry up, Moreno. We’ve got to hurry up, Moreno.”

This Week: MPC has been coming into the store everyday on my lunch hour and we’ve been hashing out bits and fragments in the event room. Even after years of dreaming about it, and months of heavy research and outlining, there are still things that have not been defined.

I used to get so stressed out about these things. My days would be ruined or my mind distracted while in the car or at work or out at places like the Getty. All I would be able to think about was the gaping hole in my story—

The missing piece that would prevent anyone on the outside from seeing the gem I thought it was. I feared I would die before solving the issue, stitching the hole; that for the rest of time, this script would be in limbo with a gimp leg (or Pivotal Moment).

Now, things are different.

I’ve worried about the scripts and I’ve worried about the business. And I’ve realized it’s much better to worry about taking your story to the next level then worrying about who will take your story to the next level.

I also entrusted the rough draft to my coworker Sam, who I consider to give the best notes of anyone I have ever met. Anthony and I call him “the goose that lays the golden notes.”

I showed Sam the RD, although no one ever sees them, because I wanted an outsider’s opinion, and since he has heard me talk about it so often, I knew he would forgo the comments about typos and on-the-nose dialogue and address more immediate issues. I was right. His notes will help get it closer to home for the next draft.

The good thing about targeting specific areas to fix or enhance, is that even when you kill your darlings, if you are being true to the story, the loves you cut are replaced with even better ones.

I’ve written too many scripts at this point to think this draft will do the trick. If this is draft two, I know it’ll need two or three drafts before the reps see it and another two or four before it’s close to going out.

This is the way it is. And I am forever learning to embrace the process.

What else have we got?