Tuesday, May 03, 2011

The Writing Week (Vol. 4) part 174 - Act One Done

One of my favorite things about this time of year is that I can begin writing outside in my back yard again. Here in NYC, it's still a bit too chilly to spend time immobile outside some of the time, but we're getting close to consistently warm days. When it's actually nice - and not just deceptively so - I take my laptop outside and write in the sun. And yes, that's how I managed to burn my shoulders before May.

I spent most of the past week at the picnic table behind my house, ticking away, tracks from LAST OF THE MOHICANS and BRAVEHEART and GLORY and SUNSHINE seeping from my computer's speakers. The first few days were a little rocky, but I decided to push forward, eventually arriving at a first act that was just over 26 full pages long. I took the weekend off to read the results, and spent the past two days tweaking the pages, coming out with another page. 

Being so close to the material - I know what will come next and what the scenes are supposed to have accomplished (which means that I can easily assume they do that, when they in fact don't) - I know that I need a few sets of outside eyes on it now. Thankfully, that's what the League is for. We have a meeting next week, which I will be out of town for. My target is the June meeting - one full script, coming up!

In the meantime, it's on me to keep rolling with the draft; the worst thing I could do is lose the momentum I've built over the past week and a half. I have 27 and change pages in what I'm hoping will be about a 100 page script. I can't afford to take time off to "celebrate" act one; to do so would be foolhardy. As we say in theater, the show must go on. Only, without me, there's no show.

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