Draft done!
The feeling of finishing a draft, an elaborate recipe of triumph, accomplishment, empowerment, wonder, and even loss never gets old. Since the inception of the League, I have: re-written one script, written the first drafts of two screenplays, written one (and a half) drafts of a stage play, and written the first (unsuccessful) act of another play. Yet, with each project’s “completion” comes reason to celebrate. Every project is both an adventure and a test. The reward of typing that final “Fade Out,” be it for the first or the umpteenth time, is always gratifying.
Since this is a first draft, I’m not sure of its strength. Our next meeting is sometime within the next week, so I wanted to give the group as much time to read my 113 pages as possible. Therefore, which I do not recommend people do, other, perhaps, on rare occasions with a writers group, I haven’t re-read the pages yet. I will do that this week as the rest of the League will.
In nine weeks, though, I did what it took me years to learn; I wrote a feature-length (draft) script. No matter what notes I receive when we next meet, that is something I can be proud of. I had trouble with this script, and I bet that will show. But at Backer and Onyx said, the group is there to iron out the problems. Hopefully, in another nine weeks, I’ll have something much more solid, something that proves less difficult, yet just as fun to write (if not more so).
Now, though, comes another kind of decision. Rather than trying to decide what happens next in the script, or finding out what happens next as my characters’ actions determine it, I have to decide what’s next for me. Do I wait for notes—granted, I have a few days of re-writing and editing before we even meet—or do I move on to something else? My New Year’s resolution was to keep as actively writing as possible. Just because I finished a draft does not mean I will allow myself to forego the hour of writing each night. I either need to choose a new project to turn my attention to, or dive back into this script and embark immediately upon the re-writes.
I feel as though I’ve been working in the same genre a lot recently, which I have enjoyed. However, at the same time, I feel compelled to change that, to go a new direction. That’s not so much because I don’t have more action/adventure ideas; I do, a lot of them. But I don’t want to ideas to blend on the page before me. I feel that if I began another similar project, I would feel compelled to incorporate similar aspects from the previous two projects into it. It will be more of a challenge to me, and a refresher period for my action inclinations, to work on something different next.
What that is, though, I don’t know.
The feeling of finishing a draft, an elaborate recipe of triumph, accomplishment, empowerment, wonder, and even loss never gets old. Since the inception of the League, I have: re-written one script, written the first drafts of two screenplays, written one (and a half) drafts of a stage play, and written the first (unsuccessful) act of another play. Yet, with each project’s “completion” comes reason to celebrate. Every project is both an adventure and a test. The reward of typing that final “Fade Out,” be it for the first or the umpteenth time, is always gratifying.
Since this is a first draft, I’m not sure of its strength. Our next meeting is sometime within the next week, so I wanted to give the group as much time to read my 113 pages as possible. Therefore, which I do not recommend people do, other, perhaps, on rare occasions with a writers group, I haven’t re-read the pages yet. I will do that this week as the rest of the League will.
In nine weeks, though, I did what it took me years to learn; I wrote a feature-length (draft) script. No matter what notes I receive when we next meet, that is something I can be proud of. I had trouble with this script, and I bet that will show. But at Backer and Onyx said, the group is there to iron out the problems. Hopefully, in another nine weeks, I’ll have something much more solid, something that proves less difficult, yet just as fun to write (if not more so).
Now, though, comes another kind of decision. Rather than trying to decide what happens next in the script, or finding out what happens next as my characters’ actions determine it, I have to decide what’s next for me. Do I wait for notes—granted, I have a few days of re-writing and editing before we even meet—or do I move on to something else? My New Year’s resolution was to keep as actively writing as possible. Just because I finished a draft does not mean I will allow myself to forego the hour of writing each night. I either need to choose a new project to turn my attention to, or dive back into this script and embark immediately upon the re-writes.
I feel as though I’ve been working in the same genre a lot recently, which I have enjoyed. However, at the same time, I feel compelled to change that, to go a new direction. That’s not so much because I don’t have more action/adventure ideas; I do, a lot of them. But I don’t want to ideas to blend on the page before me. I feel that if I began another similar project, I would feel compelled to incorporate similar aspects from the previous two projects into it. It will be more of a challenge to me, and a refresher period for my action inclinations, to work on something different next.
What that is, though, I don’t know.
