Best. Vacation. Ever.

My vacation is hours from ending, but I have actually accomplished what I set out to do.

Firstly, I finished rewrites on the rom-com and sent it to an agent, as noted below.

Secondly, I banged out the last 86 pages of the book adaptation I started some time ago.

Finally, and most recently, I chopped a fairly ruthless 15 pages out of that script to get it under the 120-page marker.

Now it goes out to my trusted readers (and some new readers, hurray!). If they have major quarrels with it, there may be rewrites. Otherwise, or whenever the rewrites are done, I will have three quite solid feature scripts to toss at the semi-curious or, failing that, the merely unwary, once I move to LA.

Or whenever I might happen to meet them.

I can now focus my energies on getting my stupid house into shape to rent and trying to land a job in the movie business, however menial.

If only I had more vacation ....

... Even the Small Victories

I make my return with the preceding image. This is the copy of my rom-com that I just finished sending to a talent agency, one of three that requested it.

Celebrate even the small victories.

I took vacation this week to spend every day working on writerly things. Broadly, this means writing, although I did spend the last three hours proofreading, making copies, hole punching, and visiting the post office.

The rest of the week I'll be working on my book adaptation. This is a change of plans, as I had been planning on writing the script for a movie to be shot on a nonexistent budget here in my own town.

But (here follows the other Big News) the wife and I are moving to LA, so now the plan is to finish this adaptation quickly so I have three truly solid scripts to flog around town.

Wish me luck.

Ah, Truisms.

I'm really starting to realize the validity of the idea that you should only write what you're passionate about.

Plunk me down in the middle of a draft, two months into writing (since I have the discipline of a kitten), and I won't have the faintest idea what the career implications of this project are.

I won't remember why I started this stupid script. I won't be able to think straight about whether I could use it to whip up any interest from an agent. Or a producer. Or anyone who matters.

The only thing I'll be able to tell you is whether I'm enjoying what I'm doing. So it better be something I enjoy, or most of the motivation goes straight out the window.

There is the odd exception. Like that rom-com that I kept working on (and will continue to work on later) simply because it was such a beautiful, golden, commercial idea (with a correspondingly golden title) that I couldn't justify not finishing it. But ordinarily, I'm going to have to be really stoked about what I'm doing, or despair quickly sets it.

Which is why this book adaptation is so great. In addition to being easy to write, as I've mentioned over and over and over, it's just the kind of story I really like. It's a movie I would race to the theater to see: dark, compelling, and full of veiled metaphysical ponderings.

My only regret about writing it is that I won't be able to take any credit if it turns out to be great. All that credit will have to go straight to the author. *Sigh*

But if by some wild chance it got made, I would be so excited to see it. And that's the kind of thing to write.