12-06-98Yes, the baby is born. I completed the first draft on Thursday and printed it out on Friday. I was actually quite pleased.
While the draft is extremely RUFF, the scenes seemed to have a definite flow to them. There was without a doubt, some events that were not in sync and my feeling was leaning towards the pessimist before I had read it completely through.
Remember now, #1 rule for me is "never go back." Just keep writing, no re-writes, no reading, just shoot straight through to the end--keep that flow going. Guess it worked because the first draft looked pretty good. After reading it again today, the first thing I did was to check the time length of the script. (There's a proper term for that which I learned in film school but, at one in the morning, it alludes me.) Anyway, start to finish, the story runs 15 days. I had to fix a few "days" to "nights" and vice-versa but it was fairly smooth.
Now that the script is an actual "script" and no longer a bunch of cards on the wall, it feels much more alive to me; hence the baby comment in the first paragraph. Whenever I finish the first draft of a script, print it out, and hold it (not just see it on screen) it is a very gratifying experience. It's a good feeling to create something out of nothing.
Okay, second draft will begin this week. I'll look over the draft again tomorrow and see if anything still sticks. I did notice one major faux-pas. I'm writing this script with a lot of knowledge of DD's character, forgetting that many who read this will need a little more background info on who he is, how his other senses are heightened, etc. Something I will have to work on in the subsequent drafts.
Talk soon--