Finished. (Page 100).

Phew. First draft finished.

It was getting pretty ropey towards the end but I pressed on. Will put it on ice for a while (maybe a week or two, not sure) before I reread it and tackle the next draft.

Will be starting something new in the meantime, in the next few days.

Page 97

Halfway through the climactic scene. Can't wait for it to be finished... right now am forcing myself to get on with it just so I can finish it and put it aside for a while. Keep thinking 'that'll have to change' about this and that of the script. Like I said, getting there though.

Page 93

Did a little bit, but was out and about a lot yesterday and am quite tired today and it's gone to my brain... so am stopping now. Will resume tomorrow.

Page 92

Have moved things forward quite a bit today. Rewrote the last scene I wrote yesterday, changed it completely, feels like it's going along the right track now. Decided how the climactic scene is going to play out (for now anyway). Looking forward to finishing this draft so I can look back over it and re-sort things.

Page 90

Have moved forward with my new philosophy of 'just get it down'. My final scene on page 90 was pretty bad though, it's the second turning point, and I haven't figured it out much at all. Don't know if a scene that bald is still really functional or not. I haven't figured out exactly what it is that triggers my protag's decision, and I suspect I do need to. Kind of hated writing bad scenes, but still, I did have some newish ideas and am moving forward. Was somewhat comforted by reading novelist Rachael King's blogpost about the difference between the perfect script/manuscript in your head and the ugly reality of the actual draft. But only somewhat comforted. When other writers write about their bad first ideas, I always tend to take it with a grain of salt... 'but yeah, your writing doesn't ultimately suck' is my thought... I don't tend to be quite as generous with myself. Need to work on that.

Still, page 90! Getting there.

Page 87

Have got through the rewritten pages and am breaking fresh ground. Operating on the 'just write bad scenes' principle. Not so happy though with how the story side of things is panning out. But I feel I just need to push on and get it done, no matter how badly...

Page 80

On page 80, back on doing pages. After beating myself up a bit for my scenes sucking, have decided it's okay if they suck. As right now am working out story. Plenty of time to sort out scenes once story is locked down. Hope I can keep to that.

Hard slog.

working out second half of second act (again). Think at this point I probably just need to accept it's going to be far from perfect and write it as is.

And the Fishie goes to...

On 29th October 2008, two Fishies were awarded... regular poster blofeld nabbed a Fishie for his completed first draft of a feature script.

Congratulations blofeld!

And regular poster Sean was awarded his second Fishie for his second draft of a feature script.

Congratulations Sean, two-time Fishie winner!

On September the 30th 2008, The Daily Screenwriter scored a Fishie (which I awarded to myself) for a completed first draft of a feature script.

On September 1st, 2008, the Daily Screenwriter's first Chocolate Fish Award was awarded to regular poster Sean for his first draft of a feature script. (Duly delivered, and presumably consumed.)

Congratulations Sean!

There are many more Fishies in the sea that I will happily send to anyone else who completes a feature draft while posting their scriptwriting progress here. (Doesn't have to be a first draft). No details necessary, just page count.

C'mon y'all, get Fishing!

Second half of second act

Today looked at the second half of the second act. I have had some feedback from a reader on my script so far, that was helpful as it made me realise my script was looking overlong because I was repeating some beats from the first half. So now second half is looking a lot leaner. I now have a general shape for the second half of the second act. Have decided the next stage is writing a scene list to get this part of the script a lot clearer. Suspect I will be reneging on the idea of doing a scene list for the whole of the rest of the script, because I'm realising that the subtleties of the scenes once written will have a major influence on how things play out in the third act.

Plotting.

Have perhaps too many ideas for the second half. Am thinking I should maybe just write an overlong second half and then cut back.

Last night's Dexter (on TV) was fantastic! A lot of 'showing not telling'. Makes me think I must do a pass on my script to make sure there's a decent amount of 'showing' going on.

I'm back.

It's been a bit longer than I expected as had a week off then came down with a mysterious bug. All the tiredness of being properly sick but without any flu symptoms. Odd.

Anyway... am back to plotting. Have decided that with this difficult second half what I am going to do at this point is plot out every scene (or at least beat) till the end of the script. Then I will write the damn thing. (Minor deviations from outline allowed - as long as they don't introduce new problems that will screw with writing momentum).

Giving myself 2 weeks max. to outline rest of script. Let's say till end of September. Should be done a lot sooner than that though, I'm hoping by Monday next week.

Time away from script.

Taking some time away from my script. Should be back in a week or so.

Preproduction meeting

Am taking a bit of time away from my script, so this morning had a preproduction meeting for documentary my producer and I have been talking about for a while. Now have our preproduction process in place. So this cloud has a silver lining, doco is now moving ahead.

I suck.

Yes, it's official. Brain on strike. Tried to find way forward with script. Tried list of beats for upcoming scenes. Nuttin'.

My plan was with this draft to push ahead no matter how much suckiness was on the page - just to get to the end.

But THIS level of suckiness? Unprecedented before in the history of the world? Somewhat demoralising.

Could have something to do with my migraine yesterday. I do find my brain is scrambled for the rest of the day when I've had a migraine. This could be a hangover from that. I hope. Or I could just suck.

Self pity rules!