The romcom is skidding towards something like completion. The first draft (NOT "the vomit draft," as I hate that term) was pretty good, but with a glaring structural issue that needed attention (thanks to Julie O for helping-- she'll moan and wail if she doesn't get credit for The Big Salad). Raid turnaround to v2 then improved a bit and revealed a really really dumb gaffe in the third act structure. The new v3 is leaner (now down to 112 pages from the initial 119), has the major structural booboos addressed,a nd is in the process of a pair of quick and hostile passes 9one for dialog, one for action) and then one more pass to kill as many more widows and orphans as I can, and then off to a few friends for a quick peek, and then... off to producers.
"Yikes."
LILYA meanwhile seems to be turning into a writing sample more than anything else. Folks who read it seem unified in their opinion: "Great, but expensive. What else ya got?"
Lack of vision, says I.
Two or three other ideas are starting to make noise in the corral, like they badly want attention and are about to start kicking fenceboards loose unless they get some.
As for the rest of teh Austin blogs... "patience, children. Patience."
IRL stuff, football winds down this week, Cub Scouts are back to just a normal level of insanity, Boy Scouts seem to be calming a bit, fall Little League season is in the books meaning there are a few weeks of down time before we start prepping and planning seriously for Spring '07... yikes.
Stay tuned-- November might be a wild ride before it's all said and done.
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4 comments:
Sweet action.
That is all.
I'd leave a pithy comment but I have none. Keep plugging away.
Me, I like the term "Draft Zero" for that first, just-get-the-damn-thing-out-of-your-head draft.
If only because it reminds me of King Ghidorah. "Draft Zero is approaching. Draft Zero is approaching."
First Draft is something I'm happy to show to someone else. Draft Zero, not so much.
Draft Zero has three heads, spits lightning, and destroys Tokyo on a semi-regular basis. I already know that's a bad thing. Don't need anyone else to tell me that.
That's the thing-- whether you call it "vomit draft" or "draft zero" or "first draft" or whatever, why not just develop your process to the point that you never actually waste the time and trees and sanity spitting forth a draft that you know full well is not putting you close enough for a tap-in, best case scenario?
After nearly 30 years of writing I like to think that I have at least enough control of my writing to do a semi-decent job on the first actual written draft of any project. No, it's not perfect, but it's closer to perfect than it is to vomit, I hope!
Or maybe that's the arrogance and Mexican cough syrup talking...
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