Return to "Vengeance"...

The last time I worked on "A Sideline In Vengeance" (a conspiracy thriller screenplay) was over a year ago. Naturally, in that time I've been doing a lot of writing - what with For Want Of A Nail (currently in the editing stage - and I've seen the rough cut), as well as Murder at the Grindhouse (out of which I've also crafted a 'TV pilot' screenplay in the last few weeks).

When you come back to something you wrote a while back you invariably find new changes to make. When I last set eyes on the script I had no further ideas on how to work it - I'd gone as far as I could at that point in time. Now, though, it's a different story. I've got a list of tweaks I want to make - but first: the red pen comes out!

Where once was cleanly printed pages, now lies a wash of red ink (sometimes it's nice to be able to refer back to to editing process in this 'analogue' way, something which you lose when editing a document ... this way you get to see your mental process around your writing). I'm picking my way through the script line-by-line making initial changes and generally hacking out dialogue that I thought was necessary at the time, but now no longer need. It'll be interesting to see what happens to the page count when I apply all of these initial 'red pen on the paper' changes and cuts. More on this as-and-when...