Mark's Blog

This past week has been pretty tough for me. I have succumbed to writers block. Yes I hate to say it but I have. But needless to say, just the other day I finally made a small break through with the story. I am about seventy-five percent done with finishing the script. I also sent the script to a couple of close friends. Unfortunately some of them are still stuck with the story from the short film. I don’t blame them. I would to if I was involved with a project over the span of a year in and half. Unlike the short, this film examines more of the ex-childhood actor’s death row story instead of the main characters unfortunate past. As a potential to market the script, I thought that ex-childhood actor on death row was a better story to tell. I’m hoping I can have this script officially finished at the end of the month and start sending it out to more legitimate places to get read. We’ll just have to wait and see. I continue to work hard on the script and can’t wait to finally have it finished.

One month into the rewrite and I am getting closer and closer to finally finishing this script. So far I am at 117 script pages. I am almost at the point where I can start tightening up each scene. The story so far has a good rhythm and flow. My next immediate step is to start improving the scenes involving the main character, tighten up some dialogue and work on some scenes showcasing his character flaws. Within the next week or two I hope to have a draft ready to show to some close friends and get some feedback from the script. From there I will take into consideration any notes I may get. And then I plan to send it to one of those professional companies that reads scripts and give notes to get some more additional feedback.

Goals for the next month:

1. Finish a good enough draft to send to close friends for feedback.
2. Send screenplay to script reading company to get additional feedback.
3. Based on notes work on another draft of the script.

So I decided to change my writing frequency on my blog  for this project. Instead of writing everyday, I’ll just share a weekly update of my status. This week went really well. I have finally gotten into a really good writing routine where I feel very productive every time I sit down to write. My routine consist of going to the library at 12pm and writing for a good solid three hours. I have also eliminated my bad habit of using the internet during my writing sessions. As soon as I get to the library I go straight to work. I wrote about fourteen pages this week. I just have to write a few more scenes to finish my third draft. Overall, I’m feeling pretty good. I am more than half-way with finishing An American Journalist.

I decided to take the weekend off from writing.

Day 14:

Today I decided to head over to Star Bucks close to my house to write. I was very productive today even though I only wrote for about an hour. I finished writing out the new scenes for sequence nine. Two more days and I’ll have another completed draft under my belt. Once that’s done, then I’ll go through the script again for another round and focus on another particular area of the story. So far I’ve been using the Writers Boot Camp Method. I have a lot of positive things to say about the method. Instead of just focusing entirely on theory, this method has a more hands on approach. For anyone who is very systematic and likes to be organized they will surely like this method. With that said, tomorrow I’ll stick to my original plan and finish with sequences nine and ten.

Day 15:

I had another decent day. Instead of writing for three hours, I cut it short to two hours since I finished writing out all my scenes for sequences nine and ten. For some reason I’ve noticed this resistance to continue ahead of my schedule. If I wanted to I could have finished my second draft today but instead I opted to stick to schedule and finish out tomorrow. As far as the draft goes, so far my weakest sequences take place in the second half of the script. Sequences seven and ten are not that strong right now. I’ll have to take another pass at it during the next phase of the rewrite. Ever since I started my little project, one week without the internet, I’ve noticed a stronger focus in my writing. I guess without the distraction of the internet the only thing to concentrate is on the script itself. Tomorrow I will finish up sequences eleven and twelve to complete my second draft.

Day 16:

My 2^nd draft is now completed. I feel a sense of accomplishment seeing that I’ve been putting off rewriting my script for the longest time. I am slowly starting to see the opening of the tunnel on the other side. It’s still quite off in the distance but nonetheless starting to come closer. Tomorrow I will assess what my new game plan will be. My 2^nd draft is still a little rough but it’s starting to come together.

Day 17:

I started off the day doing a complete read through of the script. So far I’m pretty happy with the first half of the story. It flows well. The second half though needs some work. After that I did a brainstorming session and jotted down some things I liked and didn’t like and also things I wanted to add and delete from the script. Tomorrow I plan to narrow down a certain area of the script I want to focus on for the third draft and then take it from there. I also talked to one of my actor buddies and he might be on board as far as helping me out with the script.

Day 18:

I did some more development work and focused on my game plan for the next draft. For the next week I decided to focus on the scenes surrounding the main character and the love interest of the story. I also went through the script again and ended up deleting a total of seventeen pages. Tomorrow I plan to write out some more new scenes plus continue with some more scenes revisions.

Day 19:

I didn’t get much writing done today. When I went to the library I forgot my power cord so I was only able to write for about an hour before my computer died. I told myself that I would go back home and get the power cord then come back, but I never did. I tried writing at home, but I couldn’t do it. Good news, I am still on schedule.

Weekends prove to be a challenge for me to write. With the library closed, there isn’t a place I yet feel comfortable to write. Today I wrote for about an hour before I lost motivation. I finished writing a few scenes for sequence seven. The second half of my script is already giving me a challenge. After I finish my second draft, I know I will have to make a few changes in the middle of the script. Right now there’s not much going on story wise. It feels pretty stagnant. I think tomorrow I’ll finish up with sequence eight and call it a day.  If things go according to plan I should be finished with the second draft by this Tuesday.

So today I actually woke up before 9am and started writing around 11am which had been my original plan since the very beginning. I’m making really good progress right now. As always, I was distracted a few times by the internet but nonetheless I finished everything I needed to do. At the end of the day, I did an overall page count of how many script pages that I’ve written since I started the rewrite and it came to a total of about eighteen pages in the last three days. That comes to an average of six pages a day. These next three days is going to be quite a challenge. From the very beginning the 1st half of my script was well organized and decently written. However, with the 2nd half I was kind of all over the place with the story. With that said, my plan for tomorrow is to continue where I left off and finish writing the new scenes for sequences seven and eight.

I had a pretty productive day again. My resistance level is slowly becoming smaller. However I still have bouts of resistance as I have to surf the internet every once in a while. It’s almost like an itch I have to scratch. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve become addicted to the internet. Anyways, I finished writing my scenes for sequence three and four. As of right now I am still on schedule. Tomorrow I’ll write out my new scenes for sequences five and six.  I’m slowly starting to make some progress people. I can feel it. Just a few more laps and I’m done.

Another late start today. I had to take care of some errands this morning. But nonetheless I accomplished what I set out which was to write in the new scenes for sequences one and two. I’ve noticed that the writing is starting to get easier. This whole routine thing is actual working for me. Tomorrow I’ll continue where I left of yesterday and write in the new scenes for sequences three and four. Hopefully I’ll have a another completed draft one week from now.

I’m not really doing to well with sticking to an exact routine. This morning I got up to a late start. Instead of starting at 11am I ended waiting till 130pm. Good news, I did get three hours of writing done. After deleting quite a few scenes, my total page count when down to eighty pages from the ninety-five pages I originally had in my last draft. I also started to write in some of the new scenes. Tomorrow I aim to finish writing up the new scenes for sequences one and two. I also plan to finish writing in all the new scenes for the entire script one week from now.  As you can tell I am a very systematic person. So we’ll see how the rest of the week goes.