"Allen Bridge" blog #04...

The writing continues apace with 4 'chunks' down, 15 to go, and a current page count of 29.

At the moment, Act I is running a bit long, so I'll have to cut it back a bit and possibly rearrange a couple of small things, but it's coming along and the writing flow continues to - gradually - open up with each new session.

Since I last blogged on the script, I've involved yet more characters and have been able to include a few longer exchanges between a handful of them - but with the very first draft, the main objective is to lay down the foundations and basic structure. It's only when you come to re-draft that you can see exactly what you're missing where, and what can be chopped out or moved elsewhere - and indeed, in your very first draft you often 'write long', so when it comes to re-drafting, you might not change big portions of a page in terms of information, but you might entirely re-write what's there in terms of how many words you use to get the point across ... if that makes sense.

My plan is to get to the end of Act I, which will probably be about 10 pages too long at this early point in the screenwriting game, and go back to page 1 and perform a 'Draft 1.2' (as I like to call it) tidy up of what's there so far. Then, by the time I'm ready to get cracking on the Draft 1.1 version of Act II, I'll have a clearer and more focused idea of what the script is going to be 'long hand' (when compared to my, extensive, notes) so-to-speak.

So it continues to come along nicely, although I still feel a bit 'clunky' with the process itself (it takes me a while to really settle back into the process and get my brain sufficiently into 'writing top gear') ... as for the script itself, like I've said, the very first draft of what any writer produces isn't up to their own personal target of quality, and this is no different ... but if I was a person capable of writing the perfect draft straight-off-the-bat I'd be the only one on the planet ... or a total lying bastard, ha!