spec

Planning ahead

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The aftermath of last week’s post about my more-than-questionable notes from Austin, along with a few sets of quality notes from actual humans, AKA trusted colleagues, on that script and another one, has made me realize that both scripts are pretty good, but have a lot of potential to be much, much better.

A lot of my focus these days is regarding the new action-comedy spec (which has seen some good progress over this past week), but after much consideration, I’ve concluded that it would be in my best interest in 2026 to not only get that one into fighting shape, but to also do some major work on the other two.

These rewrites will be especially challenging because this is when “kill your darlings” and “embrace the change” will be at the forefront of this strategy. I’m going to get in the mindset of being totally willing to make whatever changes are needed – but nothing too drastic. I don’t want to lose what was appealing about them in the first place.

There are still some notes to come in, but come January 1st, each day will see some kind of work on one of those scripts. Until then, it’s all about the new spec with the hope that I have a semi-decent outline by the end of this year.

Another aspect of this undertaking is totally skipping contests. I’d already drastically cut back, so this isn’t too much of a change. Better to have some really solid scripts ready for the following year, or at least as better samples for my manager to put out there.

I was initially hesitant to give this a try, but a very talented writer I know gave this a try and had some pretty amazing results. Not that I expect the same, but there’s no reason this will not only help my scripts improve, but also my overall writing skills. And it’s significantly better than not doing anything.

Fingers, as always, will be firmly crossed.

Creativity activated

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Super-shorty post today.

Not happy with the development and what feels like a lack of progress on the new spec, so taking some time to see what I can do to rectify that. I’ve got ideas.

Wish me luck, and have a good weekend.

-quick contest update – my fantasy-comedy didn’t make Second Round for Austin. Was hoping it would, but that’s the way it goes. Back to the spec.

The only constant is change

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Even though a lot of the past week was family-oriented, thoughts about the current spec were omnipresent. There’s still a lot to figure out, but things are progressing, albeit slowly.

One positive result is that as these ideas develop, each causes a ripple effect in terms of how it impacts the rest of the story.

Just as an example, I needed to come up with a very important story detail, so started listing all the possible reasons how it could happen. I came up with one I felt worked best and started implementing it into the still-under-construction outline. That in turn triggered thoughts of “that could be because of ____” or “what if ____ is why?”.

A little more rejiggering of possibilities and how they’d fit into the story and voila! Some really helpful ideas and additional details that strengthen its designated storyline AND how it affects a few others.

When I started this project, I reminded myself that the end result would most likely be very different while the core story remained the same. Staying on top of all those little details is really keeping me on my toes, while also forcing me to constantly ramp up my creativity to make this script as original and entertaining as possible.

It’s a safe bet I’ll come up with more story-changing/impacting ideas over the next few weeks, but I welcome them and will deal with those as they happen.

The main focus remains just putting it all together.

Even just a few steps is still good

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It’s the onset of a holiday weekend here in the US, so file this post under “short, but relevant”.

The good news is I hit the midpoint for the outline of my current spec. The not-so-good news is that I’m still figuring out the rest of Act Two and most of Act Three. Plot points (such as they are) are in place, and the filling in between them continues.

Daunting as that may be, I’m just happy to have gotten this far. Current mindset is “just get it written and fine-tune it later.”

I know I’ll figure things out, but count on lots of ruminating in my near future.

Speaking of which…

As if by divine intervention by the writing gods, a friend posted online that the upcoming month is being labeled “Spectember” in that a writer could complete a spec script by month’s end. Pretty certain I couldn’t complete an actual spec, but the outline? That’s a definite possibility – or as mighty close as I can get.

Enjoyment levels and overall excitement for this project remain strong and steady, which always help.

One inch at a time

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A lot of my time lately has been jotting down ideas – and lots of ’em – about the new spec. Some random, some of a “this leads to that, which in turn results in this” nature.

As I recently said on social media, it’s a big beautiful jumbled mess, and I’m absolutely thrilled about it.

Just a few weeks ago I was stressed there wasn’t enough to the story, but then the gears started turning and the ideas started coming, and it was off to the races.

Since then, I must have filled in at least half a dozen pages in the notebook for this project with every single thing that popped into my head about it. Even more surprising is how much of it came from out of the blue – all kinds of stuff that never would have occurred to me before. Can’t really say that some kind of ‘on’ switch was tripped, but something was ignited somewhere.

Not only are ideas covering aspects of the story making themselves known, but so are ideas about the things you don’t see onscreen – emotional beats, character development, and so forth. It begs the question – what took it so long to show up?

There’s a lot to go through, and confidence levels are running high that there’s more on the way. There’ll be a lot to sift through to figure out what to keep and what to put aside for potential use at a later time (or another script).

This may be moving at a slow pace, but it’s definitely starting to take shape. What that shape is remains to be seen, but I like it.