"Summer" script writing update 8/5/2010...

I had a good stint of writing every day up until (and including) May 1st. Then I got distracted by the cinema, painting & decorating, shovelling gravel, and the General Election ... as such I've ended up having a week away from Final Draft - but today I was back in the saddle.

I had to get myself all geared up again and remind myself of where I was and how some of the small side characters ticked, but I was able to get back into the groove and managed to get my average amount of pages done per writing session. As it stands I am now on page 40, and while I usually do an Act at a time, before re-drafting each respective completed Act and then moving onto the next new Act, so far this time I'm just going from start-to-finish. So it currently seems.

I'll see how it goes, but if I get into any re-writing at the moment it's to remind myself of where I was (such as today) and get some re-writing done whilst I'm there (and by "there" I mean a few pages back from my point in the script) ... or when I think back to something that I've written, and already have an idea on how to improve it, I strike while the iron's hot.

First drafts are always an awkward thing, you're laying new ground the entire way ... all the while a seed of doubt in the back of your head questions everything you write, but you must ignore this whisper of doubt and keep pushing forward. A first draft is always somewhat sloppy, and while my first drafts are always actually first-and-a-half drafts, that's just the way it is. When you come to re-write for a new draft you can trim and cut out all the naff stuff, and replace it (where necessary) with something leaner, meaner, cleaner and any other suitable word sounding like "eener" ... at which point everything starts to feel really good, and your confidence in the script is kicked up a notch (BAM! ... ... Futurama reference there...) and each bit of re-writing polishes it and brings forth the shine you saw in it all the way back when you were planning it out on scraps of paper.