Phew.

I have a lot more decisions to make than I thought before I'm ready to start a draft. I'm working on a rough beat sheet. Am slightly concerned about maybe my momentum slowing at this point, but I'm also aware that I need to make concrete decisions about what happens in my third act to avoid hitting the wall the way I did with the last first draft.

Also I'm starting to realise that the third act only LOOKS like the logical culmination of what came before - in actual fact it requires just as much thought and structuring and invention as the earlier events. Looks embarrassingly obvious when I write it in black and white!

Back on it.

Looking over my work today am impressed with how much I came up with in a few days (even if it was a while ago now...)- this fastforward brainstorming seems to work.

The plot is solidish till the midpoint but pretty sketchy from then with no third act at all yet. With the last script, I made the mistake of starting a draft without concrete ideas for the second half which then plodded into a brick wall as I fought through the third act.

Am working on learning from my mistakes... so tomorrow's task is to beat out the rest of the plot till the end.

My plan is to spend tomorrow on that and then to start writing the draft. (Deep breath.)

It's been a bit annoying having to put this script on hold, what with flu/travel and a few other things. Hope I can pick up where I left on and keep the momentum charging on.

Am a bit nervous about starting the draft, actually, but at least it'll be fresh and not overcooked like some of my other projects have been by the time I sat down to write them.

Flu (and travel)

Still got the flu. Away for a week from Monday (hopefully without the flu, by then). So I'm declaring a hiatus till I get back. I will be back here writing again from the 28th.

Yeah. More flu.

And so on.

Flu.

So having the day off.

Flu.

Did some work today but finished early again as flu is setting in (gently but definitely). I'm not sure how much I should push on despite flu (as I'm not sick-sick but still definitely not on form). Don't want to screw up something that's been going really well up till now. What do other people do? Do you find you can press on even when sick? Or do you find it's best to bail until you're better?

Plotting and mind map.

Some more plotting today. Feel like I'm coming down with some kind of flu-y bug so had a slightly short session. Still moved things ahead though, and still enjoying it.

Have been reading about mind maps recently, so decided to have a go drawing one up for my project. It was fun, even though it kind of felt a bit like a kiddie thing to do. I'm going to try drawing one up properly over the next few days. Seems to be quite a good way to get an overview of my non-linear state of play projectwise.