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.

Outlining.

Today for some reason 'outlining' seems a better description than plotting.

To be honest I'm now planning to spend a week or so outlining this project (rather than the three days I was talking about). Still have momentum and it seems to be coming together fairly quickly. My rule is, if I feel I'm losing momentum or getting stalled, then it will be time to start the draft, even if all the pieces aren't in place.

Also, as you may have noticed, I'm no longer posting on the days I'm not writing. As I felt my working practise was getting better it's stopped feeling necessary. So for now on I'll only be posting on writing days (but if I'm going to be away from writing for more than a couple of days I'll post letting you know there'll be a gap). If my work ethic starts to slip though I'll go back to daily posting.

Plotting.

Well, went really well today. Charging ahead. I'm really enjoying this project. So nice to be liberated to work on something new! And nice to have another new project in the wings to switch to if I need to. No need to do so yet though.

Two ideas.

Okay, so I started on my horror movie outline, hit a bit of a wall and started working on my other idea, which is a thriller. Got excited about that. I'm thinking I'll actually work on progressing both these ideas more or less simultaneously - I really like the idea that when I'm stuck on one I can switch to the other.

Picked an idea.

Had another look at my three ideas. Kept coming up with story beats for one of them (and drew a bit of a blank for new ideas), so have decided to go ahead with that one. It's a horror movie.

So, as per plan, will be brainstorming for the outline for next three days.

So far, has been going well - have just been proceeding with logical progression from premise (as Paul Lucey suggests in his excellent screenwriting book).

Brainstorming.

Next few days will be brainstorming ideas for next script.

Came up with three today. Too early to say if I'll be running with any of them.

What I've learned.

What I learned writing the first draft of this script:

That momentum is everything. (At least for me.)

I got bogged down several times in the writing of this script through going back to fix/change things. That cost me momentum, enthusiam, and clarity.

Next time I plan to:
Spend no more than three days outlining once I've settled on a specific idea.

And then write the script in 4-6 weeks. This allows for 4 pages a day with days off. No going back to alter things. But I will be keeping notes as I go re new ideas for the next draft.

- Oh, what I also learned:

That keeping a blog is a really useful writing tool for me. It gives a nice little fillup to the end of a writing session to be able to go online and post about my session (whether it's enthusing about a good day or complaining about a bad one). And I feel I can't spend many days away from writing or my readers will give up and stop visiting. So, thank you, blog readers, for helping to keep me honest!