I think that about says it.

Random Thoughts After Watching Borat

So finally I saw Borat. And it's really funny, I won't deny it. I laughed. A lot. And I was watching it alone—I don't laugh when I watch movies alone.

It's also quite clear that Sacha Baron Cohen is a genius. Borat is an very smartly-developed character portrayed with stunning consistency throughout the film. It's too bad for him that Oscars do not get given to comedy actors.

But Borat is a disturbing film in a few ways.

Firstly, it's a mockumentary. I have no problem with mockumentaries (three cheers for Christopher Guest), but the difference between this and many previous such films is that only (I believe) four of the characters were actors.

So?

So that means I just spent 84 minutes laughing at real people. That smarts a little. I don't really mind laughing at people when they really deserve it, but one couldn't help feeling that many of these people were unfairly represented. In the "Southern Manners" scene, for example, it seems pretty clear that the hostility comes after the deception is revealed, but that the reveal itself is edited out. This paints the real people involved in a very negative light.

Which brings me to my next point: editing.

This may be true worldwide; I don't know. But it is definitely true in America that people do not understand that it is possible to lie in a documentary. Fahrenheit 9/11 probably helped to dispel this misconception a little, but overall I think most people believe whatever TV-like footage you show them.

And that sits a little uncomfortably with me. I don't like the idea of playing on the audience's ignorance.

And overall, Borat seems designed to highlight the most outlandish, bigoted, intolerant and insane aspects of middle-class America. Apparently I live in a country populated mostly by racist, sexist, homophobic idiots.

But you know what I thought while watching many of these scenes? "Wow, Americans are really nice people."

It's true that some people in the movie have little excuse, however they were edited. That guy at the rodeo who says all gays should be hanged? It's hard to think of a context in which that could have been an okay statement. That's pretty damning footage.

But scene after scene depicts people who were manipulated into self-condemnation simply because they didn't want to be impolite. They wanted to be nice to this strange but friendly foreigner, and they tried to just nod along and ignore some of the crazy things he was saying. And then their responses were quite obviously edited and their intents twisted.

Now, to be clear, I have no sympathy with the people who are suing Fox and Baron Cohen. Suck it up, Cupcake: you signed the release. Next time read more closely.

But I found Borat to be intentionally misleading. I don't like that. And don't come telling me it's okay because it was just a comedy. If anything, that makes it worse.

Lie to someone with a straight face, and they might be able to see through it. But get them laughing, appeal to their sense of the ridiculous, and they're at your mercy. You can feed them all kinds of half-truths, and they may never notice.

So while I cracked up (and so will you, if you see it), I wasn't deceived. But that's only because I keep my brain on at all times.

I guess that's my moral, if this post has a moral. Keep your brain turned on. There's no such thing as "pure entertainment."

On to the Next!

So I went to London to see my girlfriend. Man, that girl is haahhhhht:



Anyway, I'm back and ready to go on to my next rewrite, which I call the Polygamy script. Note the new progress bar to the right.

This should kill some time while I wait for notes on the Rom-Com from Greg and Blair and David.

Other Eyes

All the cutting is done on my rom-com. I think. It's six pages longer than I wanted, but I think that might be okay.

While I was at it, I worked in some character development and dialogue adjustments. I could probably keep tweaking this thing indefinitely, but I really feel like it's very close to finished, so it's time to get some Other Eyes on it.

Other Eyes are good. They're fresh, and they can look at things with perspective, whereas I am mired in my own work and may be currently incapable of honest evaluation.

It's a great feeling.

I did the same thing when I was a graphic design student. In an early 2-D design class, I had to produce a work incorporating (I think) seven different tricks for creating the three-dimensional illusion.

I spent days just thinking about what I was going to do before I ever started drawing. I figured out how I was going to use each and every one of these tools, and also how in the process I was going to paint something totally kick-ass.

I worked it hard, and felt pretty good about my watercolor masterpiece when it was done. The instructor critiqued everyone's project in class those days, and when he got to mine -

I got 3 out of the 7. Four, if he was being nice. And he probably wasn't.

If only I'd asked someone else whether they thought the piece was complete, instead of just making an assumption.

You know what happens when you make an assumption?

I'd rather not make an ass out of you and umption when it comes to sending out this script. So hopefully some cat like Greg will be able to help me decide if it's ready for the world or needs some more TLC.

It better be ready soon. I'm sick of writing comedy.

Cut, Cut, Cut

So when last heard from, I was trying to cut 148 pages down to 100ish pages. Special thanks to Emily Blake for the progress bar info, which adds some snazziness (oh yeah, it's a word).

I thought at first that I was going to have to cut huge chunks out of some of my favorite scenes, which kind of run a little long. However, I discovered that I can probably just go through and tighten them all up and still come out significantly shorter. The real cutting is in my connecting scenes between the set-pieces, which tend to be horribly extended by pleasant but irrelevant dialogue.

So I had all kinds of fun last night writing an eight-page replacement for a 20-page sequence. In the process I got to take it out of the realm of People Talking In Rooms and make it fun, with snappier dialogue and physical abuse. Great stuff.

So that's all. Nothing else too exciting, just working away. I hope to be done with all of this rewrite by February 28, when I go see this girl

Polishing the Jet Engine

At 5:08 a.m. EST, I finally finished this damn draft. Absolutely unbelievable, how much that thing grew in the writing. I already wrote it once! And it still wanted to get bigger when I wrote it the second time.

I sound bitter, but I'm not. I'm just not as excited as probably some people (including me) are when they finish a rough draft, because this rough draft is actually also a second draft. It should have been smoother and quicker and resulted in something much more finished-looking than this.

Now, there are good reasons why this is not the case. The first draft had kind of a pathetic plot, necessitating pretty much a page one rewrite. So as noted in my previous post, the is the jet engine to the first draft's steam engine.

But still. It took a long freakin' time. This is the kind of script that should be 100 pages. It's 148 pages. I have to cut a third of this thing. And most of it feels important.

I know, I know, everyone thinks all of his material is important. I get that. But unlike some other writers (the ones I call "bad"), I actually try to make all my scenes mean something, not just be fun or funny or exciting. Probably that's because without some sort of character development, I wouldn't be able to make most of it fun or funny or exciting.

So I now have to cut probably at least 30 pages of story that I think actually matters.

Plus, I kind of have the feeling that one reason it's so long is my paragraph structures. I break paragraphs often. My action is all diced up into little manageable chunks, often one sentence long.

This makes for some really long scenes, purely from a page-count standpoint.

I'm not sure what to do about that. I have a feeling if you actually shot this movie, it would come in closer to 120 minutes than 148 minutes.

But readers and managers and agents and producers like thin scripts. Thus, I must keep the pages down.

So my rewrite now commences. I need a progress bar like Emily, so I can show how I reach my goal of being done with major rewrites by February 22.

How do I find one of those? Anyone know?

Building the Jet Engine

I know my two faithful readers have been wondering what happened to me, and here's my explanation, but I warn you: you won't like it.

Here it comes ...

Ready?

You know you want it ...

Okay then, fine! The explanation is:

I've been working my ass off.

That's right, I've now become the thing that all blogging writers hate: someone who, when offered extra time to blog, chooses to actually write instead. You know it, baby.

I would love to follow up on The Explanation by saying that all that dedication has paid off with a finely-crafted and ready-for-querying script, but the fact is that it's only gotten me a very, very rough and not-even-quite-finished rough draft.

I did finish the ending to my own current satisfaction, but I went right back to work on the beginning I'd never quite gotten to work how I wanted, so it doesn't count.

But hopefully this week is the week. Or tonight the night, who knows?

Anyway, there's this Alex Epstein quote that I'm too lazy to look up, but I can remember it enough to make the point. It goes: "You don't want to be left polishing an old steam engine when you could have a brand new, dirty, smelly jet engine instead."

And that's how I feel right now. I'm almost done building my jet engine. Sending it to the detailing crew for cleanup and paint is a mere anticlimax away.

So stretch ye the metaphors as you will—I'm going to be over here, working away.

He postures and poses, he listens to Keane/He rants and he raves like a man in a dream

Remember when I wrote some time back about how I love rewrites and think they're the greatest time in the worldest?

I take it back.

Since then I've written a great grand seven pages. That's right. Seven. In two weeks.

Now, as usual, I'm going to go ahead and blame work conditions. I also have a new excuse for your enjoyment: Winter.

That's right, as an unforeseen byproduct of the third shift schedule, the longer times of darkness (not to be confused with Dark Times) are causing my body to send me sleep signals at an alarming rate, even when I've already had plenty of sleep.

But even with these excuses, seven pages in 14 days is pretty lame. I'm disappointed in me.

Despite Emily's exhortation to go ahead and write standing on my head, smoking a cigar if that's how I really crank it up, I've had some trouble making dents in the almost-page-one rewrite of my neo-screwball comedy.

And now The Fear is back in the form of Greg, freshly home from China. Jerk wants to meet again, so I better come up with something to validate my own existence.

Fortunately, I have at least produced a reasonable one-fifth-of-the-movie long sequence, and tonight I may well do even more. If I can kick-start my imagination hard enough to cough and sputter it's steam-powered way along the story development superhighway like the Model-A clunker that it is.

I keep looking forward to the time when writing this comedy will be over and I can go back to drama, but damned if I didn't just have another great idea for a comedy that will now nag at me with the persistence of a four-years-engaged woman tired of her fiancé's feet-dragging and his over-used hyphenation.

Maybe I'll just keep it back for a rainy-day pitch. Because we all know I meet with producers next to nonstop.

I'll see you cats in another two weeks.

Unpaid Me Will Rock Your Overpaid Development World

I like knowing Greg, because he's hooked up to the world of film, and sometimes he gives me unproduced scripts to read. I read two of them this week, and I realized something:

I'm a better writer than most people.

I know you're all surprised to hear that a screenwriter thinks himself better at the craft than other people who are actually making money (screenwriters are usually such humble people), but it's true, I tell you. Every single one of these scripts has had quite obvious flaws to which I am pretty sure I have simple solutions.

Of course, no producers are paying me to develop these ideas, so this helps me not at all, in a practical sense.

But for encouragement, there's nothing like it.

I managed an hour-and-a-half-ish of writing tonight before exhaustion overcame me, and I brought the page count up to 20 on the rewrite. More importantly, I summitted a minor story hill I'd been climbing all week, leaving the path open for some solid progress next time I write.

And what's even better, most of it is feeling at least mildly funny, and much of it very funny. This may not sound like a big deal to all you other comedic geniuses, but for me it's bloody amazing.

From now on, only dramas. Comedy is stressful.

Glorious Rewrite

Rewrite time is a fun time. I forgot how much fun it is.

Draft time is a fun time. In fact, it's probably the most fun time. But it comes with all these pressures. Namely, the pressure to create something new, and the pressure to create at lightning-quick speed.

I subscribe (at least up until recently) to the idea that a first draft should be pounded out as quickly as possible, with as little thinking as posssible.

Outline, outline, outline. Then first draft. Fast first draft. No tweaking, no going back, no second guessing.

This means that I can knock out a draft in a couple weeks or less, to the envy of all my other writer friend(s). But it also means that sometimes those drafts are less than I hoped. I suppose this to be a fairly common problem among screenwriters, but I wish to eradicate it.

When I was in elementary school, junior high, senior high and college, I wrote things at a nice, deliberate pace. My first drafts were like third drafts. It was wonderful.

When I became a screenwriter everyone said that I should write first drafts like first drafts. And certainly this helps them to come out fast.

But while draft time is definitely better than the maddening limbo of outline time, rewrite time is probably my favorite time. Granted, this is only my second time there, but the last time (almost a year ago) was all kinds of fun, and so far this time is too.

Rewrite gives you that chance to really make the script the way you wanted it to be. I can obsess and finesse and tweak and adjust and do over to my perfectionistic heart's content.

In the current case, the rewrite really is almost a complete rewrite, so it has all that magical aura of a first draft with the freedom and reward of a rewrite. It's beautiful.

I have 17 pages of rewrite so far. Because I can, I will probably remove a couple of those pages, but even so, I'm pretty proud.

I'd be making a lot more progress, but things have been absolutely insane at work, with violence, non-compliance and anger on every side. I'm not even exaggerating.

So my actual "work" work takes me much longer every night, decreasing the writing time available. And my days tend to last longer, which means I get less sleep and then can't stay awake enough to produce anything good.

I'm not really into the "suffering writer" thing. It doesn't really help my creativity as much as you'd think. So let's hope this is over soon.

In only slightly related news, I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's tonight while doing paperwork. I'm trying to dredge my memory to a certain extent, but I think this may be the original "falls in love with his best friend" movie. Anyone?

Making a Plot to Slay the Agents

I'm not a plot guy.

Some people can take an idea and go nuts with it. Tell them something you came up with, and they'll tell you ten other things that could go along with it and are probably better ideas anyway.

Greg is one of these people. I hate that jerk.

My friend Shawn is even more one of those people. Of course, I hate him less because he's not a writer, and therefore does not make me feel quite as bad about myself.

I am not one of those people. Show me an idea, and I'll say to you, "That's an idea, right there."

I mean, I'd dress it up more and so forth, but at the time, I'll have nothing to add.

I will then spend six weeks thinking about it, and if I'm lucky, I'll have a storyline for you to tear apart and tell me to rethink.

But it's a hella-long process, making a plot.

Now, fortunately for me, there are other things about writing that I am good at. This tends to redeem me in my own eyes.

But plot is hard.

And that is why I was overjoyed today when both Greg and myself deemed my current storyline good enough to at least start rewriting.

Because, while I get a kick out of making progress on a plot, and I do get that giddy writer feeling, too often the outlining process is full of very frustrating roadblocks.

Whereas draft time goes by so fast. It's the most fun, and I fly pretty well at it. It makes me happy.

This is only the second time I've tried to rewrite a script. So I'm looking forward to seeing how it comes out when I rewrite a concept that actually has high saleability.

If I'm lucky and work hard, I hope to have a ready-to-pitch script in a couple months' time.

And that's a very frightening idea, indeed.

If Only I Practiced

My girlfriend is going to be a fashion designer.

Hold on … I said that wrong. Do over.

My girlfriend is a fashion designer.

How do I know she is a fashion designer? Well gee, apart from the fact that she talks about fashion all the time, sighs every time we pass a shop with a badly-laid-out window, checks out scads of books on fashion from the library, comments on the clothes first with regard to everything she sees on TV, and—hell— the fact that she told me she was a fashion designer, the main reason I know it is that that's what she actually does.

She shames me, really. Last night I asked her why she stayed up until two instead of going to sleep, and she admitted, in a surprisingly shamefaced manner, that she had been drawing.

So instead of sleeping or catching up on all the coursework she has been procrastinating on for her entire semester, she just couldn't resist practicing her craft.

Isn't that sick?

It was sad for me to have to admit to her that I will do almost anything but write. And I love writing. It makes me giddy, at least when it's going well. When it's going badly, I tear my hair out.

But I don't seize every spare moment, and then some extra moments to do it.

I clean my house.

I pay bills.

I look up things on wikipedia.

Now, in some mitigation, this may be partly because I have a job that allows me to write at work, and I try to do most of my writing there.

But still.

On a brighter note, I did in fact work on my script last night, and I'm two scenes away from a whole plot. Maybe tonight I'll finish, and then next week I can start the rewrite.

So my girl isn't showing me up.

Thoughts You Shouldn't Think

I caught myself doing something alarming today.

See, I'm working on this comedy. I drafted it once. Now I'm rewriting it.

It's kind of biting me on the ass at the moment. In a slow, deliberate, cud-chewing sort of way.

I don't generally think of myself as a very funny person. Some people laugh at me. That may not always be by my choice. But often it is. Still, if anything, I'm more of a one-liner type of guy. Exploiting a situation to its limit isn't really my bag, baby.

Of course, when writing a comedy, that is exactly what one is called upon to do.

To me, comedy is made up a two elements. I may have said this before. What you do is you get 1) some great quirky and outlandish characters, and then you think of 2) some crazy situations to happen to them. You throw 1 and 2 together, and that's how you create comedy.

I think that comedy is so much harder than drama, which is why I'm always angry when the Oscars are over.

Anyway, I was thinking about how unlikely it is that I'll be writing the next 40-Year-Old Virgin (which I think is the most recent truly original comedy). And even the odds of writing another movie like Wedding Crashers, which I didn't think was very original but was definitely hilarious, are pretty low for me.

Then this sentence formed itself if my head:

"I really just need to write something that's funny enough to get sold, and lots of extremely not-funny comedies are made every year, so selling one shouldn't be that hard."

Do you see the trap in that? The seductive but fatal lure? No?

It's the Siren call of mediocrity, my friends. The belief attempting to take over in my mind that all I need to do is just be a tiny bit better than all the other trash out there.

Now, even if this was technically true (which is debatable), this is not at all the kind of artistic philosophy with which I am anything close to on board. This is anathema.

So even though I'm not very strong in the world of comedy, this script is going to have to be worked on and worked on and worked on and worked on until either I can't possibly make it any funnier, or it really has reached the heights of excellence at which one wishes to aim.

But if someone offered to buy it from me tomorrow for a reasonable price, I wouldn't say no.

Now that's some good philosophy.

What are the Odds?

So one of the projects I was going to do next was a book adaptation. I figured this would be fun to do, since I'm supposed to be all good at anaylsis and stuff.

The novel in question is The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton, a personal favorite of mine.

I started reading it last night and got about halfway through, reinforcing my belief that it would be super-easy to adapt to the screen.

This morning, I thought that since I hadn't yet checked on copyright status, I might as well crack open the first couple pages of the book and take a gander.

"Take a gander." What a great phrase.

Anyway, opened up to the copyright page, and ... nada.

This was encouraging.

The next step was some googling. And Lo, if I did not immediately discover that the book, first printed in 1908, is in fact in the public domain.

And there was much rejoicing.

Then I thought I would just throw "movie" onto the end of my google search, to check whether (unlikely as it might have seemed), anyone else had already had my bright idea.

And damned if right there, some bastards hadn't had my idea just a couple months ago. Forensic Films, who were behind Idlewild (which I haven't seen), have actually commissioned some jerk named George Smith to do the adaptation.

So now my job is clearly to plot how I can pre-empt them in some way, or failing that, steal Mr. Smith's job (unlikely, since he is quite naturally connected to the producers, as I am not).

Barring that, I'm really just crossing fingers that Forensic doesn't actually end up making the film. I'd really rather not see it come out all low-budget and stuff.

Unfortunately, Forensic seems to have a history of actually producing movies. Those jerks. So I'm probably out of luck.

I was really looking forward to doing that adaptation. Dammit.

A Plot to Take Over the World

Man, I suck at this.

But not as much as Blair, who hasn't posted in I don't know how long.

We love you, Blair.

Here is how bad I am at blogging: I posted an entry when I was at 110 pages on the most recent script, but I failed miserably to say anything at all when I finished the damn thing a few days later.

At 147 pages, it was a notable achievement, but did I get out the blogging tools and carve my triumph in netstone?

Nope. But I did give it to my mom to read. Take that, Other, More Consistent Bloggers!

So it's been a couple weeks (and more) since that time, and I have a choice in front of me.

I could start work on draft 2 of The Other Woman (as it is currently labeled). Or I could continue fixing the plot of How to Date Your Cousin, on which I have been spending much thought.

I had some talk with Greg on the subject of said plot, and I feel as though I fixed a fundamental character issue that sparks further possibility for the script.

Here is the problem with this, however. While some people can spit out plot points and setpieces as if chewing raw story tobacco, I am not some people.

I have problems with plot.

I especially have problems with funny plot. Stupid romantic comedy.

You would think that with some great character types and a really quality situational premise, it would be easy to come up with some hella-funny scenes, but this is actually quite difficult for me.

So I could spend all my time thinking about this desperately ailing plot,

OR

I could bump it back into the subconscious to work on the thing for which I actually have ideas.

What to do, what to do.

I'm Back, Baby!

Over a month since I last posted. Eek.

I have excuses. I do. Travel. Hectic work schedule. Girlfriend. Sleep deprivation.

But I won't use them. Because the truth is: I just haven't felt like blogging.

This happens to me every few months. And you shouldn't feel slighted, Blogger. My other blog hasn't seen an update in an equally long time.

But things are calming, and I'm working on scripts again, and so I feel better about myself in general, which brings a return of the blogging urge.

Have continued work on The Other Woman, which has now reached 110. I'm still disappointed that this draft did not progress as quickly as the last six-day miracle. But I have an excuse that helps me sleep at night (not that I need the help).

You see, this script is all about conversations. Sure, there's action. And plot. Things happen, macro and micro. But the story is about characters processing together an event common to all.

And I didn't plan this processing. I planned the outcome of the processing. But the actual words that would be said … I left them to be determined in the moment. I put my effort into creating the characters that would say the words.

And I'm finding that, sometimes, those words come slowly. Of course, being sleep deprived contributes to that.

But now I am at 110 pages, and most of the long, difficult conversations are behind me. It's a teensy bit more downhill from here. Still, I expect this script will go long, so I probably still have 30-45 more pages in front of me. Several nights work at least.

After that, it will be rewrite time for How to Date Your Cousin. I'm very excited about that, because I think the rewrites will go just as quickly as the draft. Since I'm an optimist, I hope to reach shipping date on that script by the end of the year. That'd be a great way to end 2006, yes?

Again, I love my job.

Quantity is Job 1

I did no writing tonight. Wednesday night is when I have the most paperwork and other crap to deal with at work, so I busied myself with that and then gave myself the last two hours to blog instead.

However, after another 4ish hours last night, I have 50 pages on the script (now tentatively titled The Other Woman), averaging close to 5 per hour. It would be more, but I stuck myself in a bit of a plot rut last night and took about an hour to decide what I was going to do.

But I got back on the horse, and the thing is progressing nicely.

I'm already starting to get ideas about the rewrite for it. Like, I'm pretty sure that the main character hasn't been set up helpless enough. Too late now, but it'll have to be done at some point.

I've also been trying to come up with ideas for the next project. And today I realized, I have a great idea that I've been ignoring for a while.

And that is mostly because I already wrote it once.

That's right my friends, the first script I ever wrote still languishes in rough draft form on a lonely hard drive. I didn't rewrite it because I was much dumber back then and couldn't think how to go about it.

But the premise was great. I still remember that premise, and it was pretty suave (I think). And now I feel I've grown enough as a writer that I could start to do it justice.

So I'm going to read it tonight and try to get a feel for what needs to be done. It may actually turn out to be a page one. But that's okay.

I also have another idea that I started to write before I had the good sense to realize I didn't have a strong enough plot. I'm not sure the hook for that one was good enough, but we'll see when I re-read that one.

Anyway, should be fun figuring out where to go next. Makes me excited, like the little girl that I am inside.

I'm All Talk

Some writers are all talk. They say they're writers. They say they're working on something. But when it comes right down to it, you start to notice after a while that they haven't actually produced any work in quite some time.

There are times when I'm one of these writers. But now is not one of those times.

Right now is draft time, baby!

Ah, draft time. Truly 'tis a wonderful season in the writer's life, when the desert of planning and research and note-taking is finally crossed and the thirsty writer arrives at the oasis of putting pen to paper, or as times have it, fingers to keyboard.

But, to get back to what I was saying, the way in which I am "all talk" is not the way I have just described.

No, what I'm referring to is the nature of my current writing.

I felt pretty proud of myself this time around because I spent many hours planning and doing character development, so that by the time I actually got to the plot, I felt pretty grounded in my characters.

So when I did my outline, I put in several scenes in which I knew that the characters would talk at length to each other. I even knew (sometimes) how their conversations would end. But I didn't plan the actual content of those conversations.

Robert Rodriguez once asked Quentin Tarantino how he got such good dialogue, and Quentin said, "I just start two characters talking, and even I'm surprised by what they say."

This is the method I am attempting for the current project.

I just finished writing the conversation right before the break into act two, and it was pretty fun. There will be many more like it, where I just sit some characters down and see what comes out of their mouths.

Then I'll read it later and find out that all the dialogue needs to be rewritten.

Well, we'll see.

As a final, semi-related note, I've been working on this script for 6.5 hours.

And I have 27 pages. What is that? A little over four pages an hour, average. Not too great, but not too shabby.

Draft Time, Baby!

So after not a few weeks of sitting around and thinking (see previous post), I finally thought I had a plot for the "Polygamy" script. I proudly packed my little notecards together and went off to a meeting with Greg, ready to pitch the hell out of the thing.

I pitched. For twenty-five long minutes I pitched.

Greg interjected. He made suggestions. He had thoughts.

I got to the end. He didn't like it. I didn't like it.

I saw it coming. I really did. I knew when I wrote the beat card for the climax that it just didn't feel climactic.

Greg and I both blanked on how to deal with it. One meeting and a whole weekend later, neither of us had any solutions.

Then, early Wednesday morning, I'm at work. More sitting and thinking. And it hits me.

I solved it. I called Greg, mere hours before he was to fly out to LA (this is how I steal time from people). He agreed. The ending works.

And how did I solve it?

The main characters of the story meet two people at the third act break. First a wife, then her husband.

I switched the order. They meet the husband, then the wife.

And now it works.

Stories are weird.

Anyway, it's draft time now, and this is where the crazy third-shift job really works for me. Wednesday night isn't the best. There's lots of work to do around the house. But I still managed to squeeze in two hours of productivity, and I got eight pages out of that. Tomorrow, should get at least six hours of writing, and we'll see where that takes me.

I'm back, baby!

Slacking

You think that I'm a huge blog-slacker, but I tell you that what I really am is just a plain old slacker. I haven't blogged because I haven't done anything.

I've sat around and thought.

I've made a couple notes.

I talked to Greg over the phone.

But that's it.

Got some notes from Blair about the draft I finished two months ago. If I can get some notes out of Greg about it, maybe I'll go back to that.

I finished my preliminary character development for what I'm calling the "Polygamy" script (see above sitting around and thinking). I'm just starting to plot it out. I might have been further along, but it's been an absolutely insane week at work. Don't get me started.

Tomorrow, meeting with Greg again, now that he's dragged himself back into town. Maybe something productive will come of that.

And I'll get something done. Or pretend to get something done. If so, I'll post more.

But don't get your hopes up too high.