The Rough Draft

Sometimes this business comes at you so hard and fast it’s hard to focus on the task at hand. I won’t go into the gory details but right now I’m trying to juggle three seperate projects… Actually four, well five but the last one’s just a pitch I hope goes my way.

There lies the problem with agents. For the most part, they leave you alone to pound out your scripts or they badger you to finish your projects so they can head South with them. I hadn’t seen mine for about four months, we were both busy and seeing as I’ve been working on a raft of spec stuff I didn’t feel the need to bother him. Then there was some interest in an older project and talk of an option. This was quickly followed by interest in another uncompleted project, which I must admit is dear to my heart. There’s also another Director pursuing me to write a sci fi script for him and of course it all lands right in the middle of another project. The writer/ whore part of me wants to do it all. The pragmatist in me knows that some projects will not pan out and it’s a crap shoot as to which ones those will be.

Yeah, it really is feast or famine, though in this case, it’s mostly the smell of food. We’re not eating any steak yet but you can hear the sizzle. So right now, my agent and I are talking and it’s one of the few times I wish he wasn’t such a good poker player.

The real problem right now and the one that has kept me from writing this column much this month has been the script I’m currently engaged in writing. It’s supposed to be a slightly humorous, horror. But I’m struggling in the third act. The old addage goes, “If it’s not working in the third act, go back to your first.” Good advice because I’m looking to cut pages and focus on the central story more. Which means, I’ve also got to put the majority of the other stuff on hold until I can get through this script.

So the advice for this week is finish what you start. Even if it sucks, you can always go back and fix it in subsequent drafts. Getting through that first draft can be a real ball breaker. Ploughing through it will set you free. Actually that’s a lie but it will give you a starting point from where to take it to where you need it to go.

Good luck and good writing.

I’m not a big rodent fan. By that I mean I don’t like big rodents. I’ve had my run ins over the years with a variety of Barn rats, Prarie dogs and even a Marmot once (a tailless cousin of the Beaver) but the one I hate the most is the Groundhog. Mostly because I hate Winter. I like being warm, cold where you have to worry about bits of your body turning black and dropping off is not my idea of a good time. However because of circumstances beyond my control, I’m here in Toronto and waiting for it to snow yet again in March. Two years ago we went from Winter to Summer in what seemed to be four weeks. Nobody was more shocked than the plants.

One of the biggest problems writers face are the change of the seasons and how it effects our ability to write. Coming from BC, specifically Vancouver and the Central Fraser Valley where the rain and lack of sunlight in the Spring, Fall and Winter months can be a bit much (now you know one other reason for my move to Toronto). Grey days seem to bleed creativity right out of our brains. The time you spend staring at the screen becomes longer and longer. Add to this the holiday season and your writing schedule can be completely shot to hell. It’s no coincidence that a lot of writers take a few weeks or months off during the Winter.

Sunlight and full spectrum light helps. I’m not a big fan of tanning beds but they are a good way of getting a solid dose of the right kind of light, you only need fifteen minutes about three times a week to keep yourself on track. You can also get full spectrum bulbs for your desk light (if you have one) or for your overhead.

Light is just a small part of the puzzle. To be honest taking some time off during the Winter is not a bad idea. This is a stressful industry, with the writer constantly banging their head against the wall of trying to sell and/or get a film made, meetings towards that end and the constant is there a greenlight or is there not . Of course some people turn their time off into a more permenant way of life. If they’re happy, well that’s what it’s all really about then isn’t it.

A big thing is to get enough sleep. Sleep is the best tonic for everything. Sex is a close second but sleep is always around while the other usually takes one or more (if that’s your bag baby) willing partners.