One of the biggest things I've learned in the past year is that, in addition to talent and strong ideas, a thick skin and a refusal to give up, a writer needs patience. A lot of patience. Early last week, my manager slipped my post-Apocalyptic spec to three agents. And thus began more waiting.
We're hoping to hear something early this week from the agents. If they don't express a desire to represent the script (and ideally that actually means me), then we'll take the script out without an agent. Of course, these sort of deadlines are semi-arbitrary. It might become obvious that waiting another week will work to our advantage with the agents. Yes, this is sort of prime spec market time, so we don't want to fall too far behind the times. Still, I'm waiting for a less-than-concrete deadline to come, and there is very little I can do about it at this point (other, of course, than work on a different project).
In the mean time, my manager is reading my Roman-army spec. I've asked for his feedback with the clearly-stated caveat that some of the beats in the script are very obvious place holders. There are some rather laughable moments (more embarrassing each time I think about them), and I gave him a re-write outline to accompany the script, with the hope that that takes care of some of his concerns about the more problematic beats. Though I'm 99% sure of the direction the new draft will take, I expressed a desire for my manager's input and am open to suggestion if he has other or better ideas.
This second script serves a couple purposes. First and foremost, once it's completed, it'll be my followup (hopefully, I'll need one) to the post-Apocalyptic spec. I don't like the idea of potentially going into meetings without a solid back up ready to go, and have already lost more time for rewrites than I should have. In addition to being the back-up, though, this script is also an addition to my resume so far as my manager is concerned. We still haven't solidified whether we'll be working together beyond the post-Apocalyptic project (maybe it's one of those things that will go unsaid). Last we spoke about our longer-term working relationship, we agreed that we'd see how the rewrite process went this summer and that he would want to read another project of mine. That's what the Roman-army spec is now.
Lastly, I guess sending him the script does something else, something equally important. It lights the fire under me to get back onto that project. Now that my manager is reading it and going to get back to me, I have no option but to start draft two.
