I Love Lucy

More like this, please

Maximum Z action, antagonist, character arc, characters, comedy, determination, development, draft, editing, I Love Lucy, ideas, perseverance, persistence, protagonist, rewrite, scenes, screenplay, screenwriting, script, sequence, spec, story, subplots, writing , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Some MAJOR progress on the outline for the action-comedy spec this week, and I am thrilled.

Among the highlights: figuring out how and where to connect some sequences, plotting out a few others, and coming up with a great new angle about my antagonist’s arc.

Some of these were a long time coming, and some were spur of the moment. I’ll take what I can get.

Also realized a few subplots still need work, which range from “should this be cut or expanded?” to “three scenes should cover it”.

One thing that’s been nagging at me since the beginning is the best way to show my protagonist’s arc in action. How is she changing over the course of the story, and what are the most effective ways to do that? Doing what I can to have this occur at every opportunity, even if it’s something that initially seems insignificant but plain as day in retrospect.

Ain’t easy, but it’s coming together. Would have been great for this to have happened a few months ago, but that’s how it goes.

No guarantee this momentum will continue, but confidence levels are currently registering as high. I may even be so bold as to suggest a strong possibility the outline could be done by the end of the month. This will most likely be followed by either a whole lot of editing and revising, or setting it all aside to work on one or both of the two rewrites.

Either way, there’ll be at least one completed draft of this script by the end of the year.

Striding boldly into Phase Two

Maximum Z Buster Keaton, comedy, I Love Lucy, JRR Tolkien, parenting, podcasts, representation, screenwriting, script, slapstick, writing ,

Might as well make it a nice-looking door, right?
Might as well make the way in look nice, right?

I had to work New Year’s Day, starting at 5am. It wasn’t as bad as you might think.

It meant holiday overtime (always nice), the roads were extremely quiet, so there was a lot of downtime, which provided me with the opportunity I was hoping for: to hack and slash my way through the script, cutting out anything unnecessary.  Turns out there was about ten pages’ worth, including an excessive amount of adverbs.

But it’s all gone now, and the script is that much better for it. Tighter, smoother, a faster read.  114 pages of potential cinematic goodness.

The professional feedback will have to wait for now, but notes from trusted colleagues are proving to be just as helpful.

Apart from a few tweaks, this script could officially be considered READY TO GO.  A minor celebration will be held in the form of a trip to the comic book store.

The next few weeks will be split between researching and contacting potential reps and continuing the fine-tuning of the western outline (gotta keep the creativeness going).

-Awaiting delivery of my equipment to get the podcast up and running, so add contacting potential guests to the aforementioned list.  More details as they develop.

-Movie of the Moment – THE HOBBIT (2012). Enjoyable, but way to0 long. Why exactly did they feel this had to be a trilogy? Two movies would have been fine.  This is not the epic tale that LOTR is, and suffers for it.

Saw it with V. She liked it, and was genuinely surprised at the end because she thought it would be a single, self-contained story. She’s already stated her interest in seeing the next one. I can’t help but wonder how much Smaug will be featured in Part 2, and Benedict Cumberbatch doing the voice is an added bonus.

-V was also off for winter break, so there’s been a lot of crashing/vegging out in front of the TV. I’m happy to say she’s outgrown some of the inane kids programming she used to watch, and has discovered I LOVE LUCY. It’s easy to see why this still holds up today. She’s already watched the Vitameatavegamin episode three times, laughing hysterically each time. HuluPlus only provides parts of each season, so we’ll have to try Netflix to track down the candy factory episode.

When your 21st century child develops an appreciation for Buster Keaton and Lucille Ball, you must be doing something right.