The Three Month Recap

Three months sure goes by quickly.

The end of May officially marks the end of the first quarter of my journey. It's been an interesting ride so far, so I thought I would recap all that's happened.

• Wrote An Entourage Spec

The very first thing I thought I would do, was write a TV spec. They're short, but still allowed me to get the hang of the "craft." And that's exactly what it was - a great, short writing excercise. It was fun to do, and I'm pretty happy with the outcome.

I blew through it pretty quickly - it took me maybe two weeks to go through a couple drafts and settle on one that I was happy with. I'll probably go back to it eventually, but I had keep moving forward.

If you haven't had a chance to see it, you can find it here at Simply Scripts.

• Missed My First Deadline

That's right. If there was any doubt that I was destined to become a screenwriter - this second bullet point should squash that in its tracks. I missed my first deadline - The Nicholl Fellowship.

Through a combination of procrastination, learning curve, and failure - I managed to miss the biggest screenwriting competition of the year. Such is life.

At least I got the procrastinating down. I'm ready.

• Shelved My First Feature Screenplay

It wasn't making any real progress, and I hated every word of it. But that didn't bother me too much - I appreciated the fact that I could look at something I had written, and be objective enough to notice its weaknesses.

Still, it was disappointing to have to backburner my very first attempt. Especially since it was a story that was very near and dear to me.

• High Concept Inspiration

The day after I shelved my original feature spec, inspiration struck - in the form of a high concept gem. My second attempt would not follow in the footsteps of my first.

I was genuinely excited about this one.

• Found A Writing Partner

Just as I was starting to gain steam on my second feature, I found a potential writing partner. I've already talked at length about her on the blog, but I will say that we work well together.

She loved the high concept spec I was working on, and we got along famously. It didn't take much deliberation to see that we should write together.

Since then we've had our ups and downs, and have definitely wanted to kill one another - but at the end of the day, I think we write well together and our writing has benefited from the relationship.

• First Draft In Two Weeks

We knocked out a first draft of the feature spec in two weeks. No easy task, to be sure.

We really loved the idea, and were pretty happy with our first draft. We knew it was rough around the edges - but what first draft isn't. Did I mention we cranked it out in two weeks?

• First Round Of Feedback

We sent out the first draft to five trusted friends, and waited patiently for the feedback.

It was an excruciating few days. We couldn't wait to hear what people thought - good or bad.

Finally, word got back to us - and it was positive. We had some issues with tone and such, but overall, people liked what they saw. Especially considering this was my very first draft of my very first feature script, I was quite happy with the feedback. On to the rewrites.

• Writing Is Rewriting

I fucking hate cliches. Mostly because they're usually right.

The rewriting process was painful. Writing Partner and I almost came to blows a few times over differences of opinions on which way to go with the script - based on the feedback we'd gotten.

We both came out of it alive, though - and we'll have our second draft completed by tonight.

Go team.

• More Feedback

I don't think we'll have enough time to get a second round of feedback - unless a couple of you are kind enough to be willing to turn around some feedback for us in 24 hours?

We'll be sending this second draft to the Austin Film Festival. It'll be my first competition.

As always, I'll let you know how it goes.

We'll of course continue to get feedback and revise the script, but Austin will get the second draft.

• Looking Forward
  

That's where we're at - not as optimal a position as I had originally hoped to be in after three months, but definitely worthwhile progress in the journey. I'm not unhappy, for sure.

Next, along with the continued revisions to the first spec, we'll start working on a second feature. I also plan to start sending out query letters to agents and producers once we have a draft of the script we're both happy with.

We'll see how that goes.

• Special Thanks

Most of all - I wanted to thank all of you who have been nothing but great during this entire process. Whether through email or blog comments, I appreciate every single one of you - from my writing partner down to the Mr. Anonymous Commenter who insists on correcting my horrendous grammar.

You've all been awesome.

Thanks for sticking around and reading my boob stories.