The Writing Week (Vol. 2) part 88 - The Plan of Action

As I was leaving work on Friday, my phone rang. It was my manager, and he had Gretchen - the producer who optioned my post-Apocalyptic spec - waiting to conference in. With all three of us on the line, it was time to talk about the latest (and we hoped, final) draft I had turned in and what the plan for moving forward with my script is.

First, the great news was that they really liked all of the changes I have made and how effectively I have incorporated their notes. They reminded me that unproduced, young writers can best guarantee their careers by being easy to work with. Had I fought every note I've gotten from them, I'd be burying myself. Since I took their notes, threw in my own new ideas, fleshed the story out, and made the script much stronger, they said I have a much better chance of having a long career.

There's one final round of edits that Gretchen and I will be working on. There were some things that she wanted to cut, so she was going to use the weekend to really comb through the script. I should have those final edits soon. The difficulty, though, is that I write in Movie Magic 2000, while she uses Final Draft. Though the software claims to be compatible, I've found that it really isn't. She finally managed to get the script working in Final Draft after I converted the script to a rich text file. So, we'll see how re-converting goes.

Once the edits are all done, we're actually going to hold off on going to production companies or studios. Gretchen and (manager) Kevin have decided that trying to get an agent on board will make our case for the sale stronger. Their reasoning is that an agent at CAA, WME, or ICM will have other contacts at possibly bigger places and will also bring a level of name recognition that we might not yet have. Not to say that Kevin and Gretchen are unknown in the industry, but since they're working with an unknown writer, we have to do everything we can to make some things happen. If, however, we don't get any bites from agents by October 1st, we'll go forward on our own.

So, while there's more waiting ahead, I can handle it fine. There's been so much waiting to this point, that the next month shouldn't be too bad. Yes, we're waiting to hear back on some potentially big news, but I know I can't make those deadlines come any quicker. the best thing I can do going forward is to get another script in order that I can use it as a follow-up to this one. Roman army spec, here I come.