I received the revised outline for the short on Christmas Day and have spent the past two days reviewing it.

My first response was “What the hell is he thinking?”  But I decided to cool my proverbial jets and gave it some time.  At least a day.  I looked it over again yesterday morning. I still don’t know what he’s thinking, but rather than get upset and try and tear him down, I thought it would be better to focus on the story.

So I went through the outline, scene by scene, scribbling down questions that each scene raised.  Why would the character do this?  Why does this happen?   Is this being set up to be paid off later? And so on and so on.

But as I read through, trying to figure things out, I also came to the conclusion that I may not be the writer this project needs.  As much as I’d love to see this develop into an actual film, I don’t know if it benefits either side for me to keep trying.

I think my ideas work, but it’s his film.  It’s frustrating to slave over a draft only to get “Not really what I had in mind” thirty minutes later.  This has happened twice, and I don’t know if a third try is worth it.

I gave him the option of going with another writer, but have yet to hear back. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

I’ve never walked away from a project before, but sometimes you just have to.