January Resolutions: Cross one off the list!

                                   

January is in full swing and there a BIG item on my list of resolutions that I can cross off.  That's right - on Sunday, I finished my very FIRST script.  Granted, it's only the first draft and my red pen and I went to town on it last night with tons of revisions and formatting notes but still - I fucking finished it.

Why is this such a huge deal?  Because, like I've said before, I have NEVER finished a story...EVER.  It's too final!  It's too absolute!  One thing that plowed me forward on this was a great roundtable discussion my writing mentor sent me.  It's an hour long and I'm only able to get through the first 15 minutes before I get interrupted but those first 15 minutes are intense and so full of knowledge!  And remnants of this article from Hello Wordsmith kept moving me forward, too.  I can tell when I read that because my attitude changes mid-script.  It doesn't take away from the story or anything but you can feel the determination in my writing, that's for sure!

There are a lot of cosmetic things I need to do with it before I can start pitching it - like formatting, adding scene headings where they need to go, some name changes, and adding a few extra scenes so that it flows a little better but I'm determined to get it to a good place by the end of the month.

As I read through it last night, I was really proud of myself for actually finishing it.  And I think it's a good story.  One of the things I took away from the roundtable video (all 15 minutes of it) was that every writer / artist thinks their story / art is great (so true) but not everyone is going to like it (also true) but you just have to believe in yourself and write / make what's true to you.  That is my one biggest takeaway.  My mentor said it and I've heard it time and time again for ANY creative project.  This story is very important to me (so much so that I had a bit of a breakdown when I finished it) and I want to make sure I get it done the right way - which my mentor and I have to talk about.  We talked about it briefly before but now that the first draft is done and I have recruited my bestest best friend to help me edit (because he's a far more excellent writer than I am), I need to talk about how we're going to get this damn thing MADE.  In my Master List journal AND my Unraveling 2014 Workbook, I put in there that I would like to start pre-production for this film in Novemeber 2014 at the LATEST.  Lofty, yes, but I really want to get this done...like, NOW!