I didn’t get to post last night because K was using the computer.

And there’s something using up a ton of memory on this thing, so we’re handing it to an ‘expert’ who couldn’t really find anything wrong with it, but will give it another look-see, so I won’t be able to post over the next couple of days.

Regarding the great outline fine-tuning project, I’m up to around the halfway point.  Not as insurmountable as I thought, but still somewhat intimidating.  I hope to be for the most part done sometime next week, and could actually start writing pages the week after that.  Gosh.

I’m still a bit nervous about the comedy issues, but maybe inspiration will strike during the process.  Just waiting and seeing.

Fingers crossed until then…

I just got back from my group.  It was good.

We all had something, which is definitely productive.  I’ll get to my stuff in a minute.

-Other Guy’s outline.  Lots of potential, but needs a ton of work.  He seems to keep missing basic points of structure, including establishing who the hero of his story is. There are lots of subplots put into play, but it gets confusing trying to keep track of them all.  As he said, it all makes sense to him in his mind.  But other people need to have it make sense on the page.  And without that, it doesn’t work.

It was easy to see the disspointment on his face, but he has a habit of rushing through outlines without thoroughly developing them (in my opinion) and wanting to get right to actual pages.  Which is why when he gets our feedback, he starts over.  Repeat ad infinitum.

Our advice was to put it away for two weeks, then approach it with things a bit more…thought-out.  We’ll see.

-Sole Female had more pages of her script.  Nice development, but there is so much in there that can be cut out, or at least rewritten and much, much shorter.  I was wincing on the inside when I saw how many spelling errors there were.  Don’t get me wrong – she’s got a great idea and is still developing it.  But it would be nice to see her not worry so much about minute details and focus more on having fun with it.

Again, we’ll see.  I made some suggestions about tightening things up and how to get to the final scene right away.

-My stuff.  I made some slight changes to Act One, printed it out and brought it as my contribution.  I read through it and got several actual chuckles/laughs from certain parts.  That was VERY encouraging.  Other Guy had some helpful suggestions on how to better establish a supporting character’s backstory – something I’ve been internally wrestling with since last week – so that was good.  They also thought it flowed well, seemed very organic and did a good job of setting things up.  This was all followed by “So where’s Act Two?”

Well, first I make changes/edits to Act One.  THEN I move on to Act Two.  We meet again in 3 weeks, so I’m hoping to have that ready by then.

I’m back in the traffic studio tomorrow, so that means more of SAVE THE CAT and the aformentioned Act One edits.

Getting rumblings that this thing is actually starting to take shape.

Wow.

More laundry than writing.  I had to.  I was running out of shirts.

But I did start incorporating the work from the past few weeks into Act One.  I was concerned about handing out the whole outline tomorrow night, but realized if I can just give them the first act, that will be enough to talk about without dragging the evening down completely.

I also hope they each have something.  That would be a plus.

tired.  Off to bed.

…I did nothing, at least in terms of writing.  Well, not ACTUAL writing.  But I did do a little reading.

On a whim, and partially because he died about a month ago, I bought Blake Snyder’s SAVE THE CAT!  I kept hearing how great it was, so I bit the bullet and got it.

I’m about 50-some pages into it.  He’s talked about loglines, titles, audience and cost and types of stories.  My take?  Meh.  Nothing I haven’t heard before.  I’ll keep going until the end, but I’m glad I didn’t pay full price.  As I’ve said before, and as I will say many times again, I know I don’t know everything, but I do okay.

-There’s a script-review sight I’ve been enjoying.  I think it’s called ScriptShadow.  From what I can gather, he gets spec scripts that are if not optioned, at least represented (a strike against me).  He discusses what works, what doesn’t, the characters, etc. Then he rates them on a sort of 1-5 scale, 1 being awful and 5 being genius.  Most of them seem to fall in the 2-3 range.  But he recently ran a review of one he gave the first 5 to.  A dark fantasy that seems to combine film noir with Victorian whimsy and Lord of the Rings.  It’s from ’05.  The writer has since gone on to at least a few high-profile projects.  The reviewer could not stop raving about how incredible he thought it was.

It would be nice to think I could have somebody react to one of my scripts that way.

Someday.

I’ve been really bad about posting.  I realize that.  Part of the problem, as pointed out to me by my lovely K, is I usually post at night, and sometimes that’s not easy or possible.  I work in the morning, try to work on the story in the afternoon and go through the process of dinner and getting V ready for bed before having a handful of minutes to possibly watch whatever Netflix we have in the house or get ready for tomorrow, followed by going to bed.

Can you see where the problem lies?

So, starting this week, which will include 4 out of 5 days of doing the midday shift, I’ll try to post BEFORE the evening process.

Unfortunately, not much in terms of updates to report.  I’m still planning to go to LA in mid-September.  Potential meetings have yet to be developed, but there’s Manager Guy and maybe two entertainment attorneys.  Wish Almost-Agent Lady was still around.  That would be nice.  But it would seem she has skipped town without a forwarding address.

‘Round these parts, the outline is just about done, but I’m still very concerned/worried about whether or not I can make it funny.  At the rate I’m going, I hope to have at least 1-2 actual drafts done by year’s end.

But I’ve also been seriously considering joining up with a new writing group, or at least investigating it.  While I like the two people I’ve been meeting with for the past two years, I feel like I can’t really get any more benefit out of it.  In all the years I’ve known them, she hasn’t finished a script and he is ALWAYS going back to rewrite his, which seems to never end.

So this other group is by a guy who writes for Salon and he holds a writing group at his house out by the ocean on Tuesday evenings and Saturday afternoons.  I almost joined up last year, but he charges for people to take part, and that just didn’t jibe with our financial situation.  But I still get emails from him on various subjects.

The next round starts in September, so we’ll see how that works out.

What’s also been interesting is posting my progress as part of my Facebook status.  Lots of my friends seem to be very interested in it.  Curious to know who will want to read it when it’s done/ready.

This is Saturday night.  I’ll do my best to have something up Monday afternoon.

Promise.